Dirk Berg-Schlosser - Bertrand Badie - France Leonardo Morlino - The SAGE Handbook of Political Science (2020, SAGE Publications LTD) PDF

The SAGE Handbook of Political Science
Introduction
Contributors: Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Leonardo Morlino & Bertrand Badie

Edited by: Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Bertrand Badie & Leonardo Morlino
Book Title: The SAGE Handbook of Political Science
Chapter Title: "Introduction"
Pub. Date: 2020
Access Date: April 3, 2020
Publishing Company: SAGE Publications Ltd
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n3
Print pages: 1-10
© 2020 SAGE Publications Ltd All Rights Reserved.
This PDF has been generated from SAGE Knowledge. Please note that the pagination of the online
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© Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Bertrand Badie, & Leonardo Morlino, 2020
Introduction
Dirk Berg-Schlosser Leonardo Morlino Bertrand Badie
Political Science from a Global Perspective

The concept of politics is an old one, which is present in all cultures, but for a long time it was not subject
to systematic scientific inquiry. Instead, for some it designated an art (scholars ‘studying politics', in imperial
China as well as in Europe), for others an activity (people ‘playing politics’ at all levels of social life) or a pro-
fession and function (as ‘politicians'). Political science progressively emerged from this plurality of meanings
and was, in the beginning, discussed mainly in philosophy and the history of political thought. Even though
it is misleading to think of a unique essence of politics, the discussion has been structured around a prevail-
ing question: how can different people, numerous families and individuals, coexist in the same community?
Following this question, we understand that politics can be understood as both polity and policy. The first
refers to an organisation (a state, a regime, a system and its constitution), the second to a series of decisions
concerning different sub-fields (the economy, health, education, relationships with other states, etc.). In this
sense, politics must be considered as a function as well as an action. Some scholars postulated that these
did not exist in early societies, which ignored politics, where order and coexistence were maintained by mere
social control (Clastres, 1978).
We follow here the majority of anthropologists, who consider politics as a universal function, which can be
found in all histories – that is to say, in all sequences of the human adventure and in all cultures, opening the
way to a broad comparative approach. Politics attained the status of a scientific discipline in the 20th century,
due to the progress and the transformation of law studies and the growing influence of behaviourism in the
social sciences. The latter promoted a functional definition of politics, whereas the former led to an instru-
mental one. The functional definition conceives politics as aiming to organise and to assert the coexistence
of individuals in the same community. Many philosophers had previously located politics in this art of coex-
istence. This point was made by Plato, for example, who considered politics as the art of preserving social
harmony. But the same approach can be found in many other cultures. Islam was conceived in this way by
Prophet Muhammad as preserving unity (tawhid) in a context of high tribal fragmentation. As such, tawhid
would be achieved through the absolute unity of God and the indivisible nature of the Umma, the community
of believers. In Confucian culture, social harmony and permanent order are considered the ultimate goals of
political action. In Hinduism, politics is presented, especially in the Mahabarata (first millennium BC), as an
absolute requisite for keeping peace and order. Such a functional vision is also at the basis of Western polit-
ical modernity through the invention of the key concept of social contract, which organises the will of people
to live in the same community (nation) with common political institutions.
In a normative way, some philosophers strive to go further, demanding that politics also refers to welfare and
virtue – that is to say, to achieve a good community, which would operate according to the law of nature, of
reason, the divine law or, in a simpler way, by meeting basic human needs and social expectations. If politics
is only the science of the polity, it is first of all a behaviouralist science, as is the case in the major part of
contemporary political science. If it becomes the science of constructing the Supreme Good, it moves to the
status of a normative science. In order to overcome this dilemma, some social scientists have alternatively
promoted an instrumentalist approach, which considers that the distinctive nature of politics has to be found
not in the aims but in the instruments used for running the polity.
At the core of this instrumentalist vision of politics, power plays the key role. In Max Weber's conceptuali-
sation, it is defined as the ability to achieve your aims even against someone else's will. Political scientists
consider that the polity cannot exist without power, no matter how it is structured, and there is a long tradi-
tion of connecting power and politics, in which political science studies how power is formed, organised and
shared (Lasswell and Kaplan, 1950). This broad concept opened the way to ‘huge comparisons’ (Tilly, 1984)
and typologies dealing with the different structures of power. Here, a distinction must be made between some
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authors who think that any use of power implies politics – politics could then be played in a club, a family or
a company – and a larger number who consider that politics is limited to a particular use of power. In fact, if
we broadly define power, the very nature of politics becomes blurred. This is why Max Weber claims that a
community has a political quality only if its rules are maintained in a given territory. Then, politics does not
refer to power as such but only to a kind of power. But even this option can be risky: the addition of this ter-
ritorial criterion is questionable, as it hardly fits nomadic societies or traditional ones that did not accept the
territory (i.e. a strictly delimited space with assertive borderlines) as a universal concept. This debate shows
that politics is an evolutionary but also a cultural and historical concept, which is always endangered by the
ethnocentric temptation to consider it through one's own system of meanings.
Because political science as an academic discipline was established relatively late, it has also been consid-
ered as a crossroads, related to philosophy, law, history, sociology and even anthropology and economics.
For this reason, its relationship with the other social sciences is neither clear nor simple. In many European
countries, especially in France and Germany, political science was generated by law studies, inside the fac-
ulties that were devoted to them. That is why the first generation of political science in these countries was
strongly influenced by an institutional view of politics. Other scholars took a sociological approach, which was
strong enough to free itself from this trend. By contrast, the behaviourist and positivist origins of American po-
litical science isolated it from the other social sciences, containing the assaults of a ‘political sociology’ which
loses a part of its meaning in the American universities, where political science and sociology are clearly sep-
arated. The positivist and quantitativist inclinations of this dominant political science encouraged many schol-
ars to borrow their methods and paradigms from economics, opening the way to the rational-choice school
and putting a strong emphasis on political economy and international political economy (IPE).
More recently, an anti-positivist reaction encouraged many scholars around the world to go back to history
and anthropology to revisit and reduce the ethnocentric orientations of a political science that was mainly, and
often exclusively, inspired by the Western model of political development. States, political regimes, revolu-
tions and political mobilisations were now reconsidered in their own historical context (Skocpol, 1984), while
political science moved consequently to an ‘historical sociology of politics'. Anthropology helped, on its side,
to reintroduce different cultures, which participate in shaping politics in the various world regions (Geertz,
1973). The main epistemological issue now at stake is to find a just balance between an absorption by these
older sciences, which would transform political science into a part of sociology, law or history, and a fierce
independence ignoring the neighbouring sciences and how they can enrich the study of politics. Clearly, it is
impossible, as this Handbook suggests, to study politics without taking into account economic parameters,
demographic changes, social transformations or institutional set-ups.
Basically, political science has to be considered as a social science, as a political fact is a social fact, accord-
ing to the definition given by Durkheim: ‘A social fact is any way of acting, whether fixed or not, capable of
exerting over the individual an external constraint’ (Durkheim, 1982: 59). But it differs from sociology, as po-
litical scientists generally consider that both the functions and the instruments of politics are distinct enough
to imply specific theories, paradigms and methods, as we present them in the first and second parts of this
Handbook. We also emphasise that many of these theories and methods contain concepts and orientations
that are, for this reason, shared with neighbouring disciplines.
The Global Organisation of Political Science

As mentioned above, political science, paradoxically, is a very old discipline, going back at least to the Greek
classics, but it was only relatively recently established as a separate academic field. The first university chair
that resembled those of today's political science, at least in name, was created at the University of Uppsala in
Sweden in 1622 by a generous donation of the then chancellor of the university and a tutor of King Gustav II
Adolf, Johan Skytte. It was dedicated to a professorship in ‘eloquence and politics'. The political sciences in
Europe – and the plural form of the term is still used quite frequently, as in Sciences Po – have been shaped
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by a great variety of traditions. They have roots in political philosophy, public and international law, history,
economics, etc. Indeed, the first academic institutionalisations of the discipline at the Ecole Libre des Sci-
ences Politiques in 1871 in Paris, the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1885 and the
Hochschule für Politik in Berlin in 1919 were largely conglomerates of these various disciplines, and they re-
main so, to a certain extent, today.
The first and still the biggest political science association is the American Political Science Association (AP-
SA), founded in 1903, with currently about 12,000 members from more than 80 countries (www.apsanet.org/).
It is subdivided into 49 organised sections with regular activities of their own covering a wide range of topics.
The annual meetings and other events, together with the leading journals (American Political Science Review,
Perspectives on Politics and PS), have set international standards in many ways. Some activities extend to
other parts of the world, like workshops and thematic summer schools in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
This is also expressed in APSA's recent slogan ‘Networking a World of Scholars'.
Nevertheless, it is estimated that about 75–80% of American political scientists still specialise in domestic af-
fairs or US foreign policy, and for a long time a researcher specializing on a single foreign state counted as
a ‘comparativist', making, at best, some implicit comparisons with the home country. This dominant concern
with the American political system also led to a certain myopic bias that some concepts and theories were
thought to be applicable in other parts of the world, such as the concept of party identification or the theory of
collective action, for example. This was in spite of the fact that the United State's social composition, institu-
tional set-up, role in world politics and many other aspects are unique and cannot be generalised so easily.
Other associations were created in Canada (1913), Finland (1935), India (1938), China (1932) and Japan
(1948). However, ‘communication between them was virtually nonexistent … the very definition of ‘political
science’ was uncertain and the relevance of any distinction between philosophy, the social sciences, and the
humanities was the subject of debate’ (Boncourt, 2009).
The first international organisation was the International Political Science Association (IPSA), founded in 1949
at a conference in Paris under the auspices of UNESCO, including such well-known scholars as Raymond
Aron and Maurice Duverger. Quincy Wright from the University of Chicago was elected as its first president. In
the beginning, it was a relatively loose federation of the (few) national associations, representatives of which
came together in the executive committee and during triennial (biennial since 2012) world congresses, the
first of which was held in Zurich in 1950.
In the course of time, the organisation became stronger and financially independent of UNESCO. The flagship
journals Political Science Abstracts and International Political Science Review and the growing collective (na-
tional associations), institutional (political science departments and research institutions) and individual mem-
bership contributed to this success. Currently, there are about 50 collective, some 60 institutional and roughly
2,000 individual members (www.ipsa.org). Since 1970, many specialised research committees (correspond-
ing to the APSA sections) have come into being with regular worldwide activities. Today, these number about
50. A permanent secretariat with a growing staff has been established at Montreal since 2000. An IPSA portal
covering some 300 websites were created at the University of Naples in the late 1990s, and IPSA massive
open online courses (MOOCs) are now available at the same institution. Beginning in 2010, regular annual
IPSA summer schools on concepts, methods and techniques in political science at Sao Paulo, Stellenbosch/
South Arica, Singapore, Ankara, Mexico City and St. Petersburg, emulating earlier ones at the universities
of Ann Arbor and Syracuse in the United States and the University of Essex in the UK, have contributed to
create advanced training facilities in areas where these were lacking before.
In Europe, the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) was founded in 1970 with Stein Rokkan
as first chair and Jean Blondel as executive director of the permanent secretariat at the University of Essex
(https://ecpr.eu/). It was originally modelled on the Inter-University Consortium for Political Research (ICPR)
at the University of Michigan, which basically was, and still is, a data-collecting and training institution for

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quantitative methods in the social sciences. Having institutional membership only, it was based on the simple
but, as it turned out, very productive idea to let institutions pay and individuals benefit. A major innovation was
then brought about in 1973 by Rudolf Wildenmann: the first Joint Sessions of Workshops. These provided
a new and, still today, a successful format for bringing together senior and junior scholars in relatively small
groups where everyone is obliged to present a paper on ongoing research with sufficient time to discuss it in
much greater detail than can be provided at the big national or international conferences (Fondation Nationale
des Sciences Politiques, 1996).
ECPR has now grown to become the second-largest political science association worldwide. It has about 350
institutional members (still no individual membership) in some 50 countries. In addition to the very success-
ful Joint Sessions of Workshops, biennial and now annual general conferences have been held since 2001,
occasionally outside Europe. Since 2005, biennial graduate conferences have also taken place. About 50
standing groups (comparable to the APSA sections and IPSA research committees) are now active. There
are three flagship journals (European Journal for Political Research, European Political Science and Euro-
pean Political Science Review) and, most recently, an open access journal (Political Research Exchange). In
2005, ECPR also became a publisher, as ECPR Press, launching several book series and now working in
partnership with Rowman & Littlefield. From the beginning, a methods summer school was held annually at
Essex, following the example of the Inter-University Consortium of Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at
the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Since 2005, additional methods summer schools (and now also win-
ter schools) have been held at Ljubljana, Budapest, Vienna and Bamberg, offering a wide range of qualitative
and quantitative courses.
In addition, in 2010, the European Political Science Association (EPSA) was founded, based on individual
membership. It holds annual conferences and publishes the journal Political Science Research and Methods.
There also are some smaller regional organisations, like the Nordic Political Science Association (NOPSA),
representing the Scandinavian countries, and the Central European Political Science Association (CEPSA).
With regard to other world regions, political science is often represented within broader social science associ-
ations, like the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) and the African Studies Association (ASA), which
had their origin in North America but now have considerable regional membership as well. In 1973 a separate
African Association of Political Science (AAPS) was founded. Since 2002, a specific Latin American political
science association (ALACIP, Associação Latinoamericana de Ciencia Política) was created which holds reg-
ular regional conferences.
More generally speaking, political science, more than any other discipline, requires a certain ‘breathing space’
of a minimum of academic freedom, freedom of information, etc. and a favourable political environment in
order to prosper. For this reason, its development has been closely related to broader processes of democ-
ratisation in many parts of the world (Easton et al., 1991). Only after the latest ‘wave’ in the 1980s and 1990s
could an independent, empirically oriented and internationally linked political science emerge, but its exis-
tence is threatened again by renewed authoritarian tendencies, as in Turkey or Russia.
Taken altogether, this is certainly a success story. There are now professional political scientists in all major
regions and most countries. They have similar training, knowledge and skills. They can see eye to eye and
cooperate on a par with their international colleagues. The days of ‘safari research’ and mere ‘airport com-
paratists’ are clearly over. In a globalised world, these developments have been greatly enhanced by new
electronic means of communication and cheaper international travel. Nevertheless, the worldwide distribution
of the discipline remains uneven (Stein and Trent, 2012).
In this way, political science has not only grown as a discipline and achieved high international standards, but
it has also widened its perspectives and today looks at our current domestic and international political prob-
lems from a variety of epistemological and methodological angles, benefiting from the diversity of rich cultural
backgrounds in all parts of the world. This is also evident in the contributions to this Handbook.

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Challenges and Innovations in the 21st Century

Although the actual influence of political science scholars on political decisions by incumbent authorities and,
more generally, on politics is often non-existent, usually uncertain and rarely evident, research on the ma-
jor challenges of politics with possible political innovations is at the core of our work. The last section of this
Handbook presents the analyses of some scholars on the most important contemporary challenges, which
may or may not be followed by institutional changes. Here, we propose some considerations that can help to
frame these phenomena.
To begin with, the challenges affecting our lives can come from global phenomena that national governments
cannot control. Climate change is out of reach of any government, and only agreements that encompass the
whole world may be able to cope with it. Similarly, the changes of international power relations (Badie, Chap-
ter 84, this Handbook) are beyond the control of a specific government, as are immigration, emigration and
international terrorism. These are, however, mostly regional phenomena and can be addressed by a group
of countries belonging to a specific area, such as the Mediterranean or Sub-Saharan Africa. There are oth-
er widespread phenomena but which specific governments or societies can try to deal with – for example,
the diffusion of neo-populism (Kriesi, Chapter 90, this Handbook), the position of minorities (Amir-Moazemi,
Chapter 89, this Handbook) and major human rights issues (Regilme, Chapter 86, this Handbook). Briefly,
there are several challenges at different levels that have to be coped with and analysed in different ways.
Among the different topics that can be addressed, we refer here to a few selected issues. These are inter-
national power relations, changes in representative democracies, innovations in authoritarian regimes and
the problem of social inequalities. As for the first topic, the chapter by Badie clarifies that power ‘has deeply
changed in International Relations, but more in its efficiency and its functions than in its nature and its appear-
ance'. This is to emphasise that the contemporary world is characterised by new conflicts and new uncertain-
ties, where mutual weakness, rather than powerfulness, is the key aspect to look at, with its consequent chal-
lenge for the traditional powers. Within this context, Badie recalls the contemporary salience of inter-societal
relationships rather than the classic inter-state relationships, the stronger presence of non-state actors in the
international arena and the multiplying communications and related information that overcome and reshape
borders and sovereignties. In the context of globalisation, this includes the new role of huge supranational
companies, such as Microsoft, Apple and a few others, which have become more politically relevant than
most of the 195 officially recognised independent states. These and other aspects have also brought about
state governments’ reaffirmation of their autonomous powers with regard to domestic issues and related in-
terests. In turn, such reactions undermine the trend of strengthening integration in the different world regions.
This concerns, for example, the weakening of the integration process in the EU and other world regions, such
as the Cono Sur in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia.
In recent years and very likely in years to come, changes in contemporary representative democracies are
and will be the centre of attention in politics and political science. These are analysed in several chapters of
this Handbook. Here, we only emphasise the most evident ones. First, we consider the changes in the three
main actors of representation – that is, in the parties and party systems, in political movements and in interest
groups. All over the world at the end of the 20th century and in the first decades of the 21st, these actors’
organisations and activities have been deeply affected by social changes, new forms of industrial organisa-
tions and technologies and the digital revolution. Thus, the fading of traditional organisational structures, the
newly dominant role of elected politicians, the personalisation of political competition, the reshaping of rele-
vant political cleavages (including the left–right dimension) and new tools influencing the formation of public
opinion have all deeply transformed political parties. They ironically disappeared as they traditionally existed,
especially in the Western democracies, but reappear like the famous phoenix from the ashes to reclaim cen-
tre stage with new leaders, many of them with neo-populist features (Kriesi, Chapter 90, this Handbook).
The impact of the information transformation is especially evident in the new social movements (della Porta,
Chapter 39, this Handbook). This was the case whether they failed – for example, in the case of the so called
Orange Revolution in Ukraine or, more profoundly, in Egypt, with the subsequent restoration of a tough mil-
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itary regime – or when, at least organisationally, they were successfully institutionalised into new parties, as
happened to the social movements in Spain and Greece with the thrust of the economic crisis. This is also
the case when they become worldwide actors through popular mobilisation and demonstrations in favour of
salient and internationally relevant issues, such as the movement concerning climate change.
Interest groups are apparently much less at the centre of popular attention, and there are reasons for this
(Mattina, Chapter 32, this Handbook). The weakening of unions and employers’ associations in influencing
key economic decisions is the result of globalisation, which in Europe was compounded by the role achieved
by the EU in this arena. But, as is well known, very rarely in politics what appears to happen actually mirrors
the reality. In fact, the apparent weakening of these organisations is complemented by the actual develop-
ment of lobbying activities, who have become the only ‘actors in town’ with the fading away of the traditional
programmatic parties – that is, of alternative actors who propose contrasting policies.
The transformation of representative actors is compounded by popular dissatisfaction with them, and the digi-
tal revolution refuelled the criticisms of representative democracy and triggered a new debate to promote and
implement direct forms of democracy. This also happened in political philosophy, especially with the debate
and publications on deliberative democracy. In political science, the debate was focused on the opportunities
provided by the digital revolution to potentially reach each citizen directly and to give her/him the possibility
of expressing opinions or casting a vote on any proposal or decision to be made. The actual implementation
of experiments in direct democracy, especially carried out by party leaders, show little citizen participation
and create new possibilities for manipulation. This notwithstanding, the criticisms of representative actors and
mechanisms and the hopes for a future implementation of direct forms of democracy are resilient and contin-
ue to be a part of the political debate.
Technological developments also concern the electoral process in representative democracies and experi-
ments in electronic voting. The only country that has practised national online voting has been Estonia, where
the percentage of internet voters increased from 3.4% (2007 general election) to 43.8% (2019 general elec-
tion). At the local level, experiments in electronic voting have been carried out in a large number of coun-
tries. So far, however, given the high level of competition and recurrent mutual distrust among political parties,
compounded by citizens’ distrust, online voting, other than in Estonia, has not gone beyond the experimental
stage.
In the first two decades of this century, there also have been profound innovations in authoritarian regimes. In
addition to the spreading of so-called hybrid regimes (Gagné and Mahé, Chapter 47, this Handbook), these
basic changes were labelled electoral authoritarianism (Schedler, 2016). Such a non-democratic regime pre-
sents all the formal rules and institutions of a democracy, from the constitutional charter to the electoral sys-
tem, from the parliament to the supreme court and elected local governments. Civic associations, interest
groups and private media are allowed but regulated. The participation of more than one party in elections is
permitted, to give the appearance of a democratic regime and to have the opposition parties indirectly legit-
imise the regime, parties that are often rewarded by the authoritarian ruler. At the same time, elections are
systematically manipulated in different ways, such as the alteration of lists, the purchase of votes and the
falsification of ballots so that they are neither free and fair nor competitive, but only regular (Schlumberger,
Chapter 42, this Handbook). In a nutshell, consistent with a widespread legitimation of democracy, authori-
tarian leaders are able to maintain their authoritarian rule by keeping up democratic appearances. Again, the
discrepancy between these regimes and the reality is evident. In some cases, this can destabilise the regime
and open the path towards a hybrid system, but through informal tools of control and suppression rulers can
counteract such tendencies.
A final challenge to mention in this Introduction concerns the issue of inequalities. At the end of the last cen-
tury and the beginning of the new one, a multidisciplinary debate has focused not only on socio-economic
inequality but also on justice in political philosophy, on poverty in economics, on fairness in cognitive psychol-
ogy and on solidarity at the level of international or supranational organisations, such as the EU. In political

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science, perhaps under the influence of the last book by Robert A. Dahl (2006, especially chapter 2), the pre-
vailing attention has been on political equality, which is a complex notion that refers to effective participation,
equality in voting, final control of the agenda, inclusion and fundamental citizen rights. In other words, Dahl
includes in that notion the key elements of an ideal democracy. After Nobel Prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz's
(2012) work on the negative effects of inequality, that of Thomas Piketty (2013) on the bases of inequality,
and of Branko Milanovich (2016) on the international dimension of inequality, all of which have clarified the
economic mechanism at work, how precisely this impacts on democracy is a key research question that still
deserves to be explored in detail in political science.
Beyond the challenge to research, on this theme there is an ongoing phenomenon in politics that has been
unfolding in contemporary democracies. Although from a mainstream normative perspective, freedom and
equality are still considered the two key values of a good democracy, empirical research on the latter is point-
ing to different developments. First, the attention of governments and governmental majorities is more and
more focused on supporting provisions that deal with poverty and avoid its extreme cases rather than looking
for redistributive egalitarian policies, which are more and more difficult to carry out with low or no economic
growth. Second, as already shown by Kriesi et al. (2016), the profiles of contemporary democracies in terms
of the quest for social justice and equality vis-à-vis freedom are very much differentiated. Whereas the citi-
zens of northern European countries, the UK included, are mainly looking for civil rights, those of southern
and eastern European countries are looking for greater equality and social justice. The explanation is not
difficult to find. The first group is more egalitarian overall and enjoys stronger social rights than the second
group. Consequently, northern European citizens take egalitarianism and social rights for granted and de-
mand greater freedoms, while the citizens of southern and eastern Europe demand the former.
There is a third aspect to mention, which Rosanvallon (2011) described when he singled out three factors that
are gradually disappearing and that previously created the conditions for redistributive egalitarian policies: the
belief in the necessity of democratic reform to avoid social and political turmoil, the practical impact of the two
world wars and a decline in the belief of individual responsibility for one's destiny. On the whole, the third fac-
tor deeply affects cultural attitudes and contributes to the undermining and transformation of pursuing equality
as a key goal of a democracy.
Of course, future political developments will present other challenges for both politics and political research
– or even perhaps a return to phenomena previously dealt with, like the revival of the analysis of democratic
crises, which reminds us of debates and research from the 1970s.
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Clastres, Pierre (1978) [1st pub. 1974], Society against the State, London: Blackwell.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n3

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Comparative Political Theory
Contributors: Siddharth Mallavarapu

Chapter Title: "Comparative Political Theory"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
Print pages: 13-29
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Comparative Political Theory

Siddharth Mallavarapu
Introduction
Let me begin with two stories. My hope is that they serve as an invitation to start thinking about the place,
dilemmas and value of comparative political theory (CPT) as a distinct scholarly enterprise (see Cerutti, Chap-
ter 9, this Handbook). I briefly recount these stories here merely with the intent of gesturing to concerns that
are germane to CPT. These stories tell us much if we are willing to listen. They hold a mirror to encounters
with texts, ideas and authors from other parts of the world. They hint at how these encounters touch us in
more ways than we can imagine. They goad us to step out of familiarity and stumble, initially clumsily, in un-
charted territories of mind and place. They compel us to discern ideas which may have been encountered in
the past but now have a different face, name and affect as they surface from another milieu. Ultimately, these
stories make us reflect on an inevitable metamorphosis as we ponder our own complex relationship with old-
and new-world imaginaries over the duration of a lifetime.
The first deals with Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish writer who, in his Nobel lecture titled ‘My Father's Suitcase',
talks about several intellectual debts he notches up prior to arriving at Stockholm to be feted as a Nobel laure-
ate in literature. The lecture is a tribute principally to his father who had initially introduced him to the republic
of letters and left him with an insatiable appetite for more. There are many remarkable moments in this story.
The early introduction to ‘world writers', the significance of dreaming, the acknowledgment of other worlds, a
latent ambivalence towards the ‘West’ and the process of centring, de-centring and re-centring are all inte-
gral to the narrative. The young Pamuk is curious about the world outside and is perplexed by its richness
and diversity. Such wonder co-exists with more than a hint of melancholia. Pamuk set out believing that the
scene of action in world literature was several removes away from Istanbul where he was growing up. What
is intriguing about the journey is not this lament, but a complete reversal in the manner in which the world is
approached by the end of the rendition. Pamuk observes that
[w]hat I feel now is the opposite of what I felt as a child and a young man: For me the center of
the world is Istanbul. This is not just because I have lived there all my life, but because for the last
thirty-three years I have been narrating its streets, its bridges, its people, its dogs, its houses, its
mosques, its fountains, its strange heroes, its shops, its famous characters, its dark spots, its days,
and its nights, making them part of me, embracing them all (Pamuk, 2006).
A parallel story is the account of an anthropologist turned novelist, Amitav Ghosh, who tells the story of his
intellectual inheritances in another intervention titled ‘The Testimony of my Grandfather's Bookcase'. Grow-
ing up in Calcutta, Ghosh recounts the curious life of a bookcase which has assumed the status of a sacred
family heirloom. What Ghosh attempts to do in the piece is to tease out a particular ‘vision of literature’ that
emerged from an eclectic choice of ‘books from a wide array of countries'. The bookcase has a haunting pres-
ence in Ghosh's intellectual make-up. Every other experience, including overseas study in England, pales in
comparison to the warmth and affection with which Ghosh recalls the original bookcase, which was a forma-
tive influence on him.
Ghosh, like Pamuk growing up, partakes of world literature from a different corner of the world and acknowl-
edges elements which travel from his immediate cultural ecology to become part of a global inheritance. He
follows with particular interest for instance, the trajectory of stories that went popularly by the name of Pan-
chatantra. Ghosh argues that
the Panchatantra is reckoned by some to be second only to the Bible in the extent of global diffusion.
Compiled in India early in the first millennium, it passed into Arabic through a sixth century Persian
translation, engendering some of the best known of middle eastern fables, including parts of The

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Thousand and One Nights. The stories were handed on to the Slavic languages through Greek,
then from Hebrew to Latin, a version in the latter appearing in 1270. Through Latin they passed into
German and Italian. From the Italian version came the famous Elizabethan rendition of Sir Henry
North, The Moral Philosophy of Doni (1570). These stories left their mark on collections as different
as those of La Fontaine and the Grimm brothers, and today they are inseparably part of a global
heritage (Ghosh, 1998).
What I intend doing in the course of this chapter is to consciously reside in these spaces to excavate the
lineages, tensions and possibilities surrounding the intellectual project that goes by the nomenclature of CPT
today. In terms of a roadmap, I begin by mapping competing intellectual rationales, claims and counter-claims
for pursuing CPT. Subsequently, I examine threadbare two facets that lie at heart of these tensions – the na-
ture of the ‘canon’ and ‘otherness'. Without conceding defeat to these genuine concerns, I go on to probe
alternative perspectives from within the global south when it comes to constructively engaging these dimen-
sions. Finally, the chapter concludes by engaging normative commitments and curiosities that might be worth
taking on board for a new generation of fine minds that are intellectually invested in enriching CPT.
Contextualizing CPT: Competing Rationales

For anyone located in the global south, an inevitable question which is likely to emerge while thinking about an
intellectual project like CPT would be to speculate about its relationship with decolonization. Decolonization
and CPT at one plane appear to be natural allies. If you are persuaded that the colonizer fashioned specific
ontologies and epistemologies that rendered the colonized inconsequential, an immediate question follows.
What does epistemic decolonization entail when it comes to the study of political theory? While CPT may be
a more recent intellectual endeavour, postcolonial political theory has been around for some time, mounting
a set of responses to the challenge of decolonizing knowledge systems.
There are some figures who are particularly critical to this intellectual history. Frantz Omar Fanon (1925–61)
has a special place here. Fanon is best known for his classic interventions. These include Black Skin, White
Masks which was published in 1952 and The Wretched of the Earth, published close to a decade later in
1961. While working as a psychiatrist at Bilda-Joinville Hospital in Algeria in 1953, Fanon acquired a close
view of the pathologies of colonialism reflected in the mental illnesses of his patients (Drabinski, 2019). Colo-
nialism impacted both sides, the colonizer and the colonized, as Ashis Nandy demonstrates with great finesse
in his classic, The Intimate Enemy (2009, 2nd edition). Fanon drew on an eclectic set of methods (phenome-
nology, existentialism, poetry, psychology and political theory) which were then harnessed with great erudition
to plumb the depths of both black and white consciousness under conditions of colonialism (Drabinski, 2019).
The question of ‘racial embodiment’ was central to Fanon's quest to understand the deeper impact of colo-
nialism at so many levels of our being, most significantly the body and the psyche (Drabinski, 2019).
The more controversial part of Fanon's legacy deals with his position on violence. Achille Mbembe in his con-
versation with David Theo Goldberg argues that Fanon worked with two notions of violence. The first was ‘a
kind of violence that precedes the awakening of the subaltern to consciousness’ and the second was violence
intended ‘to disrupt and eventually to interrupt the colonial order of things'. While Fanon rejected the ‘liberato-
ry potential’ of the first kind of violence described here, he was intrigued by the promise ‘to make it possible to
reinvent the human’ in its second incarnation. Mbembe clarifies that Fanon was aware of the excesses of vio-
lence and to him it was ‘both a weapon and a medicine'. In 2015 another set of unpublished writings of Fanon
were made available and scholars are poring over these writings for a more complete picture of a remarkable
mind (Mbembe and Goldberg, 2018). John Drabinski, in his 2019 Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy entry
on Fanon, confirms why Fanon may be such a good candidate for CPT scholars. His legacy points to ‘the
fecundity of Fanon's ideas, their elasticity and capacity for extending across historically and culturally diverse
geographies’ (Drabinski, 2019).

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Another scholar of particular note is Edward Wadie Said (1935–2003) who is best known for his classic work
on Orientalism (1978). His other well-known books include, The Question of Palestine (1979), Covering Islam
(1981), The World, the Text, and the Critic (1983) and Culture and Imperialism (1993). Said was a great ex-
ponent of the Palestinian cause and was particularly critical of the Oriental lens through which the West often
constructed the East. His work served as most instructive when it came to thinking about ‘anti-imperialism',
and here, akin to Fanon, the question of ‘revolutionary struggle’ was integral to Said's set of intellectual and
deeply political concerns. Both Said and Fanon were not without their critics but it would be hard to deny the
enormous influence they have both had in shaping generations of postcolonial scholarship.
Coming back to postcolonialism and its critics, two recent books merit special mention here. Vivek Chibber's
Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital (2013:291) set the cat among the pigeons considering his
claim that postcolonial exceptionalism was a chimera, and there is no reason to deny ‘that there is a univer-
sal history, in which East and West are both full-time participants’ and ‘the reality of capital's universalization
is perfectly consistent with an appreciation of the persistence of difference'. Rosie Warren brought a set of
responses to Chibber's critique of postcolonial theory in her edited book titled The Debate on Postcolonial
Theory and the Specter of Capital (2017) with contributions from well-known postcolonial theorists like Partha
Chatterjee, George Steinmetz and Gayatri Spivak among a galaxy of many notable others. While I shall not
delve into the details of these responses here, students of CPT will stand to gain from partaking of these an-
imated debates, which shall provide useful insights into thinking, especially about the tensions of universal
versus exceptionalist claims when it comes to theorizing the world(s) we inhabit.
There are many reasons why CPT might be worth pursuing. But, first a word about its genesis. Does CPT
have anything to do with the end of the Cold War? Diego von Vocano, in an engaging overview of this terrain,
suggests that the growing discontent with Orientalism, staid comparative politics accounts and most critically,
the suspect claims of Francis Fukuyama about the ‘end of history’ and Samuel Huntington's ‘clash of civiliza-
tions’ provided the goad for a much more rigorous engagement with a nascent field of study, CPT. Thus for
Vacano, ‘CPT's emergence is marked by the ashes of the Cold War’ (2015: 468). He is not alone in tracing
the genesis of CPT to this period of time. Sara R. Jordan and Cary J. Nederman also argue that the 1990s
were formative for CPT and suggest that it is still only in its ‘adolescent’ form (2012: 627).
Now, let us consider arguments about why CPT might be a worthwhile endeavour. There are at least six
claims I distil here from the burgeoning literature on CPT.
Argument 1: ‘Genuine Universalism'

The first argument relates to a case for ‘genuine universalism’ and is associated with Fred Dallmayr, one of
the pioneers of CPT as an independent field of inquiry. In 1997, Dallmayr's contribution to The Review of Poli-
tics journal advanced a case for CPT. He focused particularly on the many weaknesses of comparative politics
(see Part IV, this Handbook) and exhorted his colleagues to recognize that ‘the Western practitioner of politi-
cal theory/philosophy must relinquish the role of universal teacher (buttressed by Western hegemony) and be
content with that of fellow student in a cross-cultural learning experience’ (Dallmayr, 1997: 422). He further
made an emphatic plea for ‘comparative political theorizing [that] would be genuinely global in character, by
ranging from Europe and the Americas to Africa, Asia and Australasia’ (1997: 422). Dallmayr also claimed
that ‘the ideology of sameness flies in the face of diverse historico-cultural trajectories and also of profound
asymmetries in the distribution of global wealth and power’ (1997: 423). In 2004, he renewed his commitment
to CPT arguing that ‘we surely need to take others and their aspirations seriously, which requires dialogue
and empathetic awareness’ (Dallmayr, 2004: 253). None of these claims appear unreasonable. Coming to
terms with Western hegemony, greater inclusivity while thinking about global political theory, demythologizing
the flatness of the world and calling for more honest conversations among unequals are all par for the course
in a quest for ‘genuine universalism’ which is the signature motif of Dallmayr's approach (2004: 253).

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Argument 2: ‘Principled Value-Conflicts'

A detailed programme for CPT was fleshed out by Andrew March in 2009. March began by endorsing the
notion that ‘comparative work is not a zoological cataloguing of diversity’ and must instead focus on ‘a specif-
ic problem or question that is illuminated through multiple examples’ (2009: 537). There are several vantage
points from which the case for CPT has been advanced. March suggests that there have been ‘epistemic,
global democratic, critical-transformative, explanatory-interpretive and the rehabilitative’ claims surrounding
CPT (2009: 538). However, March is sceptical of CPT being merely an apologia for non-western political the-
ory. He is of the view that there must be room in CPT ‘for political theorists to critique and even reject some of
the non-Western views and theories that we are trying to bring in without fear of necessarily reinforcing hege-
mony’ (March, 2009: 563). The animating spirit of CPT, as far as March is concerned, relates to its ability to
delve into ‘principled value-conflicts’ in the light of a specific ‘moral tradition’ (2009: 560). Critical of intellectual
projects aimed at dislodging a canon through processes of ‘expansion’ and ‘de-centring', March suggests that
the motivations here are far from ‘comparative’ and therefore should not then be accorded the status of CPT.
Ultimately, the real test for CPT scholars is to be able to see how they can ‘reconcile’ traditions of engage-
ment surrounding some common questions that animate political theory (2009: 531–65).
Argument 3: Embracing ‘Cosmopolitan Political Thought'

Farah Godrej finds March's criteria too puritanical for an evolving CPT. She suggests that one of the unintend-
ed consequences of March's claims about CPT is that it might end up reproducing a familiar ‘Eurocentrism’
(Godrej 2009a: 567–582; Ilieva, 2019). She finds particularly troublesome March's stance ‘that Gandhi can
simply be studied and taught alongside Plato and Machiavelli without any rethinking of the very categories of
inquiry that structure our treatment of these texts’ (Godrej, 2009a: 575).
On a more positive note, Godrej suggests that ‘[t]he comparative political theorist needs to take seriously the
other of a text as well as of the tradition in which it is embedded’ (2009b: 142). To illustrate her stance, she
points out for instance, that reading dharma through the lens “...of Acquinas’ natural law” would result in dis-
tortions while seeking to understand the concept (Godrej, 2009b:143; quoted in Ilieva, 2019). Godrej seeks to
de-naturalize an innocent reading of political theory. She is keen to emphasize that ‘[e]xistential engagement
alone cannot complete the task of a comparative political theorist: it must be followed by the project to disturb,
provoke, and dislocate familiar modes of knowledge through speech and discourse’ (Godrej 2009b:159; Ilieva
2019). The fundamental point that Godrej seeks to drive home is that there is scope for mutual learning in
CPT. It is time that we recognized that the cultural and intellectual traffic is not one way, but must draw on a
much more multi-plural and genuinely cosmopolitan engagement. The non-west becomes a crucial interlocu-
tor in this conversation considering that it has hitherto played a somewhat insignificant role in this conversa-
tion.
Argument 4: The Democratic Impulse in CPT

Contesting the Western ethnocentrism that characterizes political theory as a field, Melissa S. Williams and
Mark E. Warren welcome a ‘much deeper engagement with non-Western ideas about politics’ (2014: 27).
Williams and Warren gesture to a whole range of methodological possibilities which could potentially democ-
ratize CPT knowledge. They observe in this connection that
we should conceive of comparative political theory as engaging a wide range of ideational resources;
formal scholarly work by non-Western scholars writing or academic audiences in their own language,
political ideas of public intellectuals, principles of law and formal institutional structures, normalized
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practices and rituals of politics, the ideas of leading political actors and opposition figures, and every-
day languages and practices of politics (Williams and Warren, 2014: 37).
This is a tall wish-list but it is useful to give a flavour of the many genres of CPT scholarship that are possible.
Advancing a plea to uncover ‘political imaginaries’ from diverse settings, Williams and Warren note that the
real challenge is ‘to render them intelligible to others’ (2014: 37). Two other skill sets might be invaluable to
the comparative political theorist. First, translation and second, the ability to enter into a productive ‘dialogue’
with eclectic audiences. The task of probing ‘political imaginaries’ also calls for both ‘linguistic’ and ‘empirical’
investments. The ultimate value of the democratic quest in CPT is to consider ‘often forgotten resources and
influences that make us who we are and what we might become’ (2014: 48).
Argument 5: Evolving a Shared CPT Grammar

Another point of entry to think of CPT is to ask what the term ‘comparative’ means in this context. Jordan and
Nederman argue that it is important to think about ‘the constraints and procedures endemic to the cross-cul-
tural comparison of political ideas and languages’ (2012: 640–1). They go on to argue that an interest in an
individual thinker or text from outside the Western canon does not intrinsically qualify as CPT. What is perhaps
more significant is ‘to offer a defensible comparison of meanings or individual viewpoints on topics related to
understanding politics theoretically’ (Jordan and Nederman, 2012: 630–1). CPT at its best must engage the
global. Jordan and Nederman also point out that ‘[t]o understand politics theoretically in a comparative way
means that we examine the beliefs expressed by authors of two or more writings of culturally disparate origin,
with the intent of making generalizations about the similarities and differences that says something about the
task of global political theorizing’ (2012: 631). All of this opens up exciting intellectual possibilities in the field
of CPT. The inclusion of perspectives from outside the mainstream is not merely an issue of introducing nov-
elty but also raising fresh and original questions from a different cultural vantage point.
Argument 6: Reconfiguring Political Theory

Erecting a distinction between two modes of approaching CPT, the ‘normative’ and the ‘interpretive', Diego
von Vacano argues that ‘[n]ormative accounts aim to achieve some moral end, although the specific content of
that aim varies widely’ (2015: 468). This is in some contrast to ‘[i]nterpretive research [which] intends primar-
ily to broaden knowledge of political questions or issues, without an underlying prescriptive objective’ (2015:
468). Making the case for CPT, Vacano makes a plea for ‘expanding the archive of political theory in ways that
permit comparative readings’ (2015: 470). A cautionary note here is worth reiterating. The suspicion of the
Western canon, Vacano suggests, must not result in the baby being thrown out with the bathwater. What this
translates into is the view that ‘when some insights or Western thinkers do provide indispensable resources
for specific theoretical problems, we ought to retain their centrality in the context’ (2015: 471). Further, Va-
cano also endorses a view of ‘cultural fluidity’ as opposed to a view of monolithic ‘cultural blocs’ with some
essentialist traits. He also makes two further claims on CPT. The first is that there is considerable diversity in
terms of methodological stance when one does CPT. Both in terms of the ‘normative’ as well as the ‘interpre-
tive’ modes of inquiry, Vacano recognizes ‘the scholarly, the phenomenological, the immanent-reconstructive,
and the conceptual-metanarratives’ (2015: 471). Second, he insists that political theory must not operate in
a vacuum. It must engage the real world and ‘as politics change, political theory must adapt to new global
circumstances’ (2015: 478). This appears to be a reasonable demand and CPT, in his assessment, must step
up to the plate in this regard.

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Contending with a Canon

How has political theory conventionally understood shaped what we treat as knowledge in this domain?
Whom and what does it include and exclude? Do some voices count for more and some for less? How are
these decisions made and who arbitrates these claims? With these questions in the arsenal it is imperative
for any student of CPT to re-visit the ‘canon’ of political theory as well. The Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o
raises a relevant question about ‘the organization of literary space and its impact on the politics of knowing’
(2012: 7). It is worthwhile asking the same question in the context of political theory.
A constant lament about much of the political theory that preceded CPT is that it was not sufficiently ‘com-
parative'. Reading through six broadly representative arguments I sampled earlier that mapped an intellectual
agenda for CPT, it is not hard to identify some core anxieties relating to the canon in political theory. Very
often, what passes as political theory is Western political theory. Most courses on political theory tend to in-
troduce students to an array of thinkers drawn largely, if not solely, from the Western pantheon and treat them
as sacrosanct. While there is much that is rich and worth engaging in Western political theory, there is quite
evidently sophisticated political thinking in other parts of the world as well. If one were to choose the civiliza-
tional tack, you could add a whole range of potential candidates – Sinic, Indic, Ottoman, Egyptian and Aztec,
among others. Surely questions like the nature of political rule, the means of securing political order, the quest
for legitimacy, and notions of what counts as just, war and peace were germane to all these political entities.
The concern here is ‘what we can do to de-parochialize political theory – that is, to shift the field in the direc-
tion of much deeper engagement with non-Western ideas about politics’ (Williams and Warren 2014: 27).
There are many possible illustrations of efforts in this direction. Suren Pillay, in his 2018 piece ‘Thinking the
State from Africa: Political Theory, Eurocentrism and Concrete Politics', seeks to re-think the category of the
state from an African standpoint. He engages the still pertinent question of what decolonization of political
theory might mean to a scholar from Africa today. This also ties up well with an earlier emphasis about CPT
engaging the real world. Pillay believes ‘that thinking the state from a geo-political location like Africa requires
a more sceptical view of political theory as an activity for normative theorisation of abstract values’ (2018:
32). The converse that he argues is true. It is worthwhile ‘to think of political theory as embedded in concrete
politics and political actions’ (2018: 32). What Pillay views as essential is
to enter into a larger debate on political theory by thinking with the grain of a political theory of re-
alism. It is encouraging reflections on the relationship between normative abstractions of thought
offered by thinkers to uplift, civilise, make modern, give rights to, and make citizens on the one
hand, and the concrete political world that shapes what becomes of these abstractions and how they
emerge in daily life (Pillay, 2018: 43).
Diego von Vacano similarly excavates Latin American political thought (2014). These examples can be mul-
tiplied. Many of these arguments are comparative to the extent that they participate in a global conversation
around political theory. Sungmoon Kim critically engages the claims of Fred Dallmayr on Confucianism. He
concludes by suggesting that ‘Dallmayr applies the generic concept of democracy, rooted in Western expe-
riences, directly to East Asia where democracy is either non-existent, or relatively new’ (Kim, 2018: 46). Kim
argues that
we can anticipate ethical Confucian democracy only after the introduction and further entrenchment
of institutional democracy, which is justified on moderately consequentialist grounds and thus inde-
pendent of Confucian virtue ethics, although I admit the Confucian virtue ethics can help integrate
democracy's institutional and instrumental value into the end of equal citizenship in which democra-
cy's intrinsic value lies (Kim, 2018: 50–1).
In a somewhat different vein, Yan Xuetong speculates about how traditional Confucian values might be syn-
thesized with some liberal values to shape the world order of the 21st century. While clearly recognizing the
decline of liberalism both in the West and outside (though for different reasons), Xuetong examines three
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claimants to a special status within the Chinese value system (2018: 1–22). The first relates to official ‘Marx-
ism', the second to a philosophy of ‘economic pragmatism’ and the third most influential set of values relate
to Chinese ‘traditionalism’ which includes Confucianism in conjunction with other elements. It is the latter el-
ement which should particularly pique the interest of comparative politically theorists. Xuetong notes in this
regard that
[d]espite their differences, each of these schools emphasises the significance of political leadership,
as well as the role of strategic capability, in constituting a base for the solidarity and durability of that
leadership. In this regard, they argue that a superpower's foreign policies should prioritise strategic
reputation. To achieve this end, the ancient idea of ‘humane authority’ (wang) promotes the value of
benevolence (ren) and justice (yi) in guiding decision-making (2018: 8).
Further, what makes attention to these values important is the fact that they appear to receive the endorse-
ment of the Chinese state as its footprint grows in the world. It was ‘at the Conference on Diplomatic Work
towards Surrounding Countries, explanations of new foreign policies included terminology applicable to Chi-
nese traditional values such as qin (closeness), cheng (credibility), hui (beneficence), and rong (inclusive-
ness). These four Chinese characters also appeared in the foreign policy section of the 19th Party Congress
report’ (Xuetong, 2018: 9). A core Confucian value emphasized in this discourse is ‘benevolence'. Xuetong
also alerts us to other traditional conceptions like ‘badao’ (hegemony) which has a completely different play if
it serves as the guiding ethical compass for Chinese foreign policy. He reassures us that it is rather low in the
pecking order of values when it comes to statesmanship in China (2018: 1–22).
Another continent of knowledge that needs to be explored more thoroughly through the lens of a more in-
clusive CPT is the many worlds of Islamic thought. Exploring the troubled relationship often posited between
liberalism and Islam, Mustapha Kamal Pasha for instance, suggests that
[m]isrecognition of ‘political’ Islam as an atavistic throwback or as a reactive social phenomenon

merely recycles orientalism or strengthens the liberal conceit of expansiveness and mutual toler-
ance. The dual uses of Islam, as negation and as tolerance, represents all that liberalism ostensi-
bly negates, Islam's assumed closure, irrationality, belligerence, and bigotry. In the second instance,
liberalism opens its doors to difference, tolerating the otherness of Islam, extending reason to the
cultural worlds of Islam (Pasha, 2006: 70).
Pasha is particularly critical of International Relations (IR) as a discipline for its inability to study Islamic
thought with an open mind. He argues here that
[t]he resistance of Western IR to alternative forms of knowledge is not a question of malice, con-
spiracy, or ignorance or a sudden reaction to unprecedented events. Rather, the current response to
recent developments exposes the limits of the canon drawn principally from durable cultural imagi-
naries and patterns. The dependence of IR on these imaginaries and patterns directs inquiry away
from presentism or primitive functionalism to an appreciation of historical and ideological strands. In
the first instance, Western IR congeals to the burden of historical encounters with others. Despite
appeals to universalism, the hegemonic proclivity to deny alternatives legitimacy and a simultaneous
quest to either annihilate opposition or to assimilate other conditions the historical past of the disci-
pline (Pasha, 2006: 66).
There is a special role that CPT can play here especially when it comes to avoiding some of these prejudices
in terms of how it approaches Islamic political thinking.
Similarly, Roxanne Euben engages Sayyid Qutb ‘to recognize an important non-Western perspective on the
experience of modernity; to see that the rationalist foundations of modern political and moral life may have
failed to sustain us in some crucial ways; and by extension, to gain insight into the contemporary challenges to

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liberalism, democracy, and rationalism’ (1997: 53). Carlo Bonura adds a cautionary note in this regard when
she notes that ‘discussions on the compatibility of Islam and liberalism are never about an essential compat-
ibility. Rather, the discussion always focuses on some configuration, some comparative relation, that affirms
the global primacy of liberal ideas as well as the ontological assumptions of liberal politics’ (2013: 45). This
must be avoided if CPT is to enrich our understanding of milieus that mainstream scholars are especially less
familiar with.
A good illustration of bringing a thinker from the non-west in to conversation with global currents surrounding
conceptions of world order is evident in a piece titled ‘Retrieving “Other” Visions of the Future: Sri Aurobindo
and the Ideal of Human Unity’ by international legal scholar, B. S. Chimni. While there are a number of claims
advanced here that are worth pondering over for comparative political theorists, the opening salvo in the piece
situates Aurobindo within a larger pantheon of global political thought. Chimni asserts
[t]he visions of the future of world order that find a place in contemporary writings and scholarship are es-
sentially those advanced by Western thinkers (from Kant to Held). The work of non-Western thinkers and
visionaries hardly find a mention in them. The writings of Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) are a good example of
an integral vision of the future of global society that has received little attention. Based on a coherent, albeit
contestable, theory of the evolution of human society, Sri Aurobindo argues that the ideal of human unity will
inevitably be realized. But if human unity is to contribute to individual and collective growth of nations and
peoples, it must have spiritualism at its foundations (Chimni, 2006: 197).
However, Chimni throws an important caveat here when he claims
I wish to clarify that my thesis is not about any marriage of materialism with religion but about tran-
scending these binary opposites. The concept of spiritualism as deployed by Sri Aurobindo helps us
to do so, as it is rooted in philosophical reflections about the essential unity of all phenomena, both
material and spiritual (Chimni, 2006: 199, emphasis in original).
Kanti Bajpai and I have embarked on a project to constructively address the neglect in the IR of non-western
political thought. Given our acquaintance with elements of Indian political thinking, we are in the process of
bringing together a multi-volume series that introduces a wide gamut of thinkers and practitioners who speak
directly to the subject of India's international and strategic thought. Our intent is to participate in a much wider
global conversation around international and strategic thought. The first of our volumes, titled, India, the West,
and International Order is an effort to really bring to light how different streams (sometimes antagonistic) of
Indian political thought, across the continuum, reflected on fundamental questions relating to both internation-
al and strategic thought; dating from the 19th century to more recent times (Bajpai and Mallavarapu, 2019).
It would not be surprising to see more of such endeavours from within the global south in the years to come.
Serious students of CPT must partake of these efforts to widen the repertoire of what they treat as part of
their intellectual palate.
Returning to the question of the ‘canon', it is not hard to see that concerns relating to the canon are not spe-
cific only to political theory. Scanning the missing African–American presence in the American literary canon,
Toni Morrison argues that
[c]anon building is empire building. Canon defense is national defense. Canon debate, whether the
terrain, nature, and range (of criticism, of history, of the history of knowledge, of the definition of lan-
guage, the universality of aesthetic principles, the sociology of art, the humanistic imagination), is
the clash of cultures. And all of the interests are vested (Morrison, 1988, emphasis in the original).
Morrison ends up reading the American literary canon differently when she looks ‘for the ways in which the
presence of Afro-Americans has shaped the choices, the language, the structure – the meaning of so much
American literature. A search, in other words, for the ghost in the machine’ (1988).

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The ‘ghost in the machine’ of political theory leads us to another reason to think about why CPT acquires a
certain urgency at this historical moment. This has to do with ‘other’ and how most of our disciplines including
political theory often struggle contending with difference. While ‘we generally ought to provincialize the West-
ern canon’ we must also find a language to deal with ‘other’ (Vacano, 2015: 471). The larger point here which
must be highlighted is that, as Farah Godrej persuasively observes
civilizational representation and transcultural resonance are hardly mutually exclusive. The chal-
lenge, then, is to strike a delicate balance between seeking to subsume all other by explaining it
in terms of the familiar, suggesting, therefore, that a familiar or transcultural message is implicitly
contained within the words of a given thinker, or insisting that other is recognizable only to those
embedded in its context and that transcultural knowledge, is, therefore, impossible (Godrej, 2009a:
579–80).
More scathing is her indictment that ‘the problem is that the existing canons, methods, and practices of inquiry
within political theory are not structured in any way that makes such a recognition central’ (Godrej, 2009a:
580). Armed with this knowledge, it might be worthwhile thinking about the ways in which we address the
dimension of other which appears, on the face of it, inescapable in our engagement with the world. I take
recourse to reflections by the philosopher Bimal Krishna Matilal, followed subsequently with an account of
Gayatri Spivak's reading of Mahasweta Devi, a leading tribal activist in India, as part of an effort to seriously
grapple with the dimension of ‘other'. I conclude with some cautionary notes on the dangers of an uncritical
CPT succumbing to the temptations of ‘Orientalism’ and how best to steer away from it.
Coming to Terms with Otherness

Let us think about the phenomenon of other through a compelling illustration. Pamuk notes ‘[w]hen Proust
writes about love, he is seen as someone talking about universal love. Especially at the beginning, when I
wrote about love, people would say that I was writing about Turkish love’ (2007: 378). It is fair to ask in what
fashion do the politics of appropriation or misappropriation transpires here. Why does one formulation of love
qualify as a generic human condition while the ‘other’ formulation remains tethered to a very specific local
accent of time and place. Does it have to do merely with spatial location? Or does it have to do with pow-
er? Simply put, why does one manifestation of love go uncontested as universal while the other in the same
breath is rendered provincial. These questions should bother all comparative political theorists who value di-
versity and intend drawing in a variety of influences in a CPT conversation.
There are several tacks any of us could adopt to address the question. It is closely linked to the thorny ques-
tion of relativism. An approach which might be worth adopting here is to examine similar debates in the sphere
of comparative ethics. I take recourse here to the work of Indian philosopher Bimal Krishna Matilal who au-
thored two seminal pieces on the question of ethical relativism and pluralism in the context of cultures. How-
ever, before proceeding to some key claims relating to relativism it might be worthwhile examining how Matilal
evaluated the concept of ‘others'. In a piece titled, ‘The East, the Other', Matilal observes unequivocally that
there is a persistent image of the East in the Western mind – the East that is exotic, mysterious and
mischievous. It is the mystique of the East. To raise the above question is not to endorse this idea
of the East. For the East can hardly be a mystery to an Easterner, not at least in the same way as
it appears to the Westerner. The mystique of the East is essentially a Western construction (Matilal,
2015a: 265).
Critical of unproblematized notions of cultural exclusivity, Matilal suggests that a dialogue with ‘the other’ is
indispensable. He asks
how can one understand or become self-consciously aware of one's own uniqueness without under-
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standing the Other? Uniqueness is, of course, there, but in the context of a living culture interacting
with others, no uniqueness is static or immutable. The old uniqueness vanishes to make room for
new uniqueness, being enriched by adoption and absorption. (Matilal, 2015a: 271)
An interesting related claim is that ‘[t]he Western thought-world has plundered other cultures and enriched it-
self with the booty although the booty has been transformed beyond recognition and assimilated totally’ (Mati-
lal, 2015a: 271). However, Matilal conveys a stance which displays no special anxiety about others. By con-
ceding its wide role in the social, the ethical and the political universe, Matilal is asking us to come to terms
with it. These views also percolate to his conception of relativism.
Matilal's survey of positions in the field of ethical relativism presents us with five distinct positions. These are
worth recounting because they also hold a mirror to scholars of CPT. To ensure that positions are not misrep-
resented in any sense, I shall let Matilal speak. He writes
There are various strands in the texture of our controversy over moral relativism. I isolate the follow-
ing positions:
1. Ethical standards found in different cultures are only in apparent conflict with
each other. This plurality exists only at the surface. At some deeper level there
is only one set of moral standards to which everybody should conform, and it is
possible to discover this singular standard of universal morality through rational
means. I shall call it moral monism or singularism.
2. Intercultural plurality of moral standards is reflected also in the intracultural plu-
rality of norms (which is witnessed by the pervasive presence of moral conflicts
in persons).
3. Genuine plurality exists, and some are more right than others, but there is no
way to decide or know which ones are better or worse than others. Despite the
air of Orwellian cliché, this can be seriously held position. I shall call it agnosti-
cism. Moral conflicts on this view would be ineliminable.
4. Among the many moral norms available across cultures it is impossible to judge
objectively some as better or worse than others, for although they may be mutu-
ally comprehensible, there is no transcultural standard of evaluation. Culture-
bound norms are neither good nor bad. This is what I shall call soft relativism.
5. Culture-bound norms are both incommensurable and mutually incomprehensi-
ble, and hence one may say that one norm is just as good or as bad as the oth-
er. This I shall call hard relativism. (Matilal, 2015b: 218–9)
Comparative political theorists are also compelled to engage these positions in the light of their own work. It
might be worthwhile to come clean on which of these models they find more plausible and why in the field
of CPT. They are CPT monists, who are convinced that the questions of political theory are universal, and
wherever you find yourself it would be inevitable to contend with a set of core facets relating to conceptions
of the good life, notions of political order and legitimacy, or even notions of justice. The inter- and intra-cul-
tural pluralists are not so sure the monists are right. They probe differing conceptions and think of political
traditions as more complex human endeavours. The agnosts are willing to claim one set of political standards
as superior to another but are still are unable to arbitrate claims of one against the other. Agnosts generate
indifference at best and nihilism at their worst when it comes to arbitrating conflicting claims about the most
desirable way to proceed. The soft relativists sit on the fence and are unable to judge a political framework as
superior and another as inferior in any simple terms. They would suggest that there are no widely shared cri-
teria by which one set of ethical standards or in the case of CPT, political precepts, are inherently superior or
inferior to another set of similar precepts. Thus, their basic claim is the impossibility of evolving a ‘transcultur-
al standard of evaluation’ (Matilal, 2015b: 219). Hard relativists fully endorse the incommensurability position
and leave us with again no choice in arbitrating one claim against the other. Such a position does not augur

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well for those looking for clear-cut directions in terms of choosing between competing ethical/political models
or standards in this regard.
In the light of the preceding discussion, where does Matilal himself stand in relation to these positions and
does it appear as a reasonable stance to adopt? Matilal introduces the idea of a ‘minimal moral standard’ or
alternatively the idea of ‘the basic fabric of the human world’ which are his lodestars when it comes to choos-
ing between competing ethical standards (2015c: 252, 255, 261). He disavows a nihilist position and is willing
to argue that some core universal basic is well worth arguing over. He distinguishes this from any simple no-
tion of universalism or any simple form of cultural essentialism. His argument is straightforward and clear as
reflected below
I submit the following thoughts for consideration: the supposition of context-neutral rules assumes
that there is a basic moral fabric in all societies, all communities and cultures, which holds their
members, human beings together. This should not be conflated with the old Universalism, nor with
some boring commonalities of the species, nor with any objectionable form of essentialism (viz., all
humans have the same essence). Since we talk about minimal agreements in norms, this view con-
cedes relativism up to a limit but rejects it when it militates against the basic fabric of the human
world (Matilal, 2015c: 255).
The real issue for Matilal is how to salvage this ‘basic universal moral fabric’ when it is juxtaposed against the
backdrop of a ‘mad world of war, bigotry, fundamentalism and power-brokerage’ (2015c: 261).
Returning to more fundamental asymmetries of representation and others, Walter Mignolo echoes Pamuk
when he observes that, much like Turkish love
once upon a time scholars assumed that if you ‘come’ from Latin America you have to ‘talk about’
Latin America; that in such a case you have to be a token of your culture. Such expectation will not
arise if the author ‘comes’ from Germany, France, England or the US. In such cases it is assumed
that you have to be talking about your culture but can function as a theoretically minded person. As
we know: the first world has knowledge; the third world has culture, Native Americans have wisdom,
Anglo Americans have science (Mignolo, 2009: 2).
Contesting such a pecking order, Mignolo argues that ‘[g]eo-politics of knowledge goes hand in hand with
geo-politics of knowing. Who and when, why and where is knowledge generated … Asking these questions
means to shift the attention from the enunciated to the enunciation’ (2009: 2). To decolonize knowledge en-
tails ‘the unveiling of epistemic silences of Western epistemology and affirming the epistemic rights of the
racially devalued’ (2009: 4).
Closely aligned to this intellectual project of recovery, Gayatri Spivak follows the work of Mahasweta Devi, a
leading tribal activist in India, to raise larger questions relating to theory, knowledge formation and the inclu-
sion of indigenous peoples in any such project. The reason why I insert this sensibility here is because CPT in
the years ahead will have to increasingly take on board these unrepresented voices, and not merely chronicle
their experiences, but build theory on the solid edifice of the lived lives of people from different corners of the
globe.
Referring to these maps as ‘imaginary maps', Spivak argues that
[o]ne of the not inconsiderate elements in the drawing of these maps is the appropriation of the
Fourth World's ecology. Here a kinship can be felt through the land-grabbing and deforestation prac-
ticed against the First Nations of the Americas, the destruction of reindeer forests of the Suomis of
Scandinavia and Russia, and the tree-felling and eucalyptus plantations of the original nations, in-
deed of all early civilizations that have been pushed back and away to make way for what we call
the geographic lineaments of the map of the world today (Spivak, 2015b: 200–1).
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In an interview with Spivak, Mahasweta Devi draws attention to one of her stories Pterodactyl. Devi claims
that
Pterodactyl is an abstract of my entire tribal experience. Through this Nagesia experience I have
explained other tribal experiences as well. I have not kept to the customs of one tribe alone. In the
matter of the respect for the dead, for example, I have mixed together the habits of many tribes. If
read carefully, Pterodactyl will communicate the agony of the tribals, of marginalized people all over
the world (Devi, 2015: xiv).
Spivak concludes that ‘Mahasweta's fiction resonates with the possibility of constructing a new type of re-
sponsibility for the cultural worker in a world that is already under way’ (2015a: xx–xxi).
When we think of ‘others’ there is room to enormously challenge our normative assumptions and think of
ways of bringing the excluded back into our conversation about theory and different worlds. To the author of
‘My Father's Suitcase'
to be a writer is to acknowledge the secret wounds that we carry inside us, the wounds so secret that
we ourselves are barely aware of them, and to patiently explore them, know them, illuminate them,
to own these pains and wounds, and to make them a conscious part of our spirit and our writing
(Pamuk, 2006).
This sensibility might be worth taking on board for comparative political theorists of the 21st century. It brings
us back to the idea of ‘empathetic awareness’ which Dallmayr gestured to in 2004 while fleshing out an intel-
lectual agenda for CPT.
Perhaps it is also worth pausing briefly here to reflect on the dangers of Orientalism in CPT scholarship. The
work of Megan Thomas seeks to alert us to the ‘family resemblances’ in some variants of CPT with Oriental-
ism. She argues that ‘[c]omparative political theory needs to place less of a premium on distinct “others,” on
“civilization” as marking boundaries, and on (textual) “tradition” as marking contexts, if it is to avoid repeat-
ing the emphases and exclusions of earlier Orientalism’ (Thomas, 2010: 655). It must eschew exoticization
of the non-west; it must engage broader theoretical questions that are of interest to political theorists across
the board, and avoid naïve textual exegesis that merely reproduces classical Oriental modes of viewing these
sources. It must be also willing to ask original questions, be willing to renounce received wisdom where war-
ranted from a privileged Western lens and challenge itself intellectually to evaluate a wide range of sources
with criteria that factor context more critically. Ultimately, Thomas suggests that
Orientalism often conceived of itself as bridging the world of contemporary (European) scholarship,
on the one hand, and what it saw as unduly marginalized texts, thinkers, traditions, on the other.
Comparative political theory need not claim a patrimony in Orientalism, but it might more specifically
delineate what distinguishes it from earlier calls to broaden Europe's narrow and self-centered at-
tention. By more carefully distinguishing itself from earlier Orientalism, comparative political theory
might avoid repeating Orientalism's quiet failure (Thomas, 2010: 677).
This is an intellectual project that if persuasively accomplished is worth its weight in gold.
In Lieu of a Conclusion: Contending with the ‘Ghost in the Machine'

I began this intervention by framing my interest in CPT in the crevices of the autobiographical memories of
two accomplished storytellers – Pamuk and Ghosh. The negotiations of the corpus of ideas from the world
outside and from what we regard as ‘home’ are layered and indeed complex. Novelists are particularly well
placed to tap into these dilemmas given their ability to straddle many worlds. Honest accounts speak to mo-

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ments of self-doubt and the delicate task of contending with the competing realities engulfing both the imme-
diate universe and the external worlds, which are at times, some removes from this immediacy. I believe that
CPT scholars have their own share of parallel predicaments, thrown as they are in the maelstrom of the glob-
al, having to contend with ideas and practices emanating from diverse political milieus. They are expected to
disaggregate their eclectic contexts, comprehend specific inflections and oftentimes complex motivations that
underpin political praxis. What I have sought to do in the course of this chapter is to encapsulate the state of
play of CPT in terms of its multi-faceted intellectual quest. Like any other field of study, this is a story about it
origins, animating debates, the shifting sands of these agreements and disagreements, protagonists and their
detractors, trajectories taken and eschewed and its current moment of reckoning.
I shall not desist here from flagging two questions and in the course of answering these briefly reiterate some
fundamental claims that our journey has revealed. The first question is rather basic. What is the essential
nature of the beast that interests us here (namely, CPT) and second, where should it be headed?
Let me begin by addressing the first question. CPT to my mind is a vital intellectual project in the world we
inhabit. It is not a coincidence that the genesis of the field coincided with the end of the Cold War. There has
been for some time now a growing unease with the existing frameworks, making it imperative that we find a
new language to pose questions more squarely, and to then go on to address them with a newfound sense
of purpose. There are several reasons why CPT has come to be viewed intellectually as worthwhile pursuing.
In the course of the chapter, I identified six arguments supporting CPT. These include a quest for ‘genuine
universalism', navigating a world of ‘principled value-conflicts', inserting a ‘cosmopolitan’ sensibility, strength-
ening a democratic impulse when it come to the broader sociology and politics of knowledge, evolving shared
standards of political judgment, and contributing to reconfiguring old-style political theory with a deliberate
comparative inflection and a global set of preoccupations.
When one locks horns with this beast there are two inevitable dimensions that surface. I dealt with these at
some length in this chapter because I believe that they are critical for any robust version of CPT. The first of
these is the ‘canon’ and the second deals with another human reflex, i.e. relentless ‘others'. On both these
questions, I want to come clean on where I stand in relation to them.
With regard to the canon, I endorse the view that it needs to be critically approached and examined thread-
bare in terms of its aetiology, capacity to fundamentally illuminate aspects of our social and political existence
and reveal newer sides when read in diverse contexts. Canons must be evaluated in conjunction with an open
acknowledgment of their imbrication with power, the social and cultural capital which lend it a special status
and the accompanying epistemic violence that was inflicted when it edged out competitors in the process of
foisting itself as the common-sense or representative approach to our chosen domain of study. I would like
to reiterate here, that while Western political theory has tended to dominate, and at times eviscerate, other
forms of political theorizing, there still remains a kernel of political thought from this tradition that is worth pre-
serving and engaging for the questions they continue to pose if not always for the provisional answers they
provide to these questions. Blandly stated, we must not disengage but more critically engage with this body
of literature. We must also guard against the dangers of any form of nativism or unintended ethnocentrism
wherever it emerges from. There are also the usual traps to avoid such as any manifestation of Orientalism
in CPT scholarship.
On the question of others, I find Matilal's project to salvage a global standard for evaluating the relativist
bases of comparative ethics an audacious endeavour. If we are to avoid being nihilistic about relativism, we
will have to find a way of arbitrating our collective claims to what might count as a valid comparative political
theory set of criteria by which a community of scholars can acknowledge a genuine contribution and reject a
spurious one. We must guard against the usual follies involved in such judgments. In other words, we must
avoid non-inclusive and partisan judgments, and eliminate the imposition of standards merely by sleight of
hand premised on the camouflage of power. The real challenge is how to keep the Nietzschean ‘will to power’
momentarily at bay or quarantined if at all possible (Nietzsche 1978: 215–231).

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I would like to close by reiterating that CPT is poised at an exciting global conjuncture. There is more than a
degree of political urgency to develop a more refined understanding of the many worlds we inhabit. There is
a need to widen our palate of ideas, our appreciation of eclectic political traditions and practices and a mech-
anism by which we can generate a global conversation around themes that animate scholars in this field of
scholarship. Political theorists in the 21st century are asking what a political theory of the future might look
like. There are several concerns here – decoding empire and imperialism in the 21st century, asking how po-
litical theory can contribute to deciphering the Anthropocene, what analytical moves might help us get a han-
dle on political populism, confronting newer scientific and technological advancements and ways in which we
re-negotiate the legacies of the classics in a fast-changing world. CPT has a role here too. By insisting on a
comparative frame and by asking probing questions with regard to all these dimensions and many more (too
long to list here), it is perhaps best placed to speculate on plausible future utopias to embrace and dystopias
to reject. The hope is that CPT might find a new language and sensibility to contend with the ‘ghosts in the
machine', whether these relate to the historical ‘canon’ or ‘others’ and pave the way for a richer and more
robust democratic epistemic culture, marking a clear departure from the explicit and implicit silences of the
past.
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to express his gratitude to Kanti Bajpai, Rustom Bharucha, B.S.Chimni, Peter Katzenstein,
Srikanth Mallavarapu, Medha and co-editors of this Handbook for their insightful comments on this chapter.
The usual disclaimer applies.
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• comparative political theory

• political theory
• postcolonial theory
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n4

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Constructivism
Contributors: Jun Ayukawa

Chapter Title: "Constructivism"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
Print pages: 30-47
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Constructivism
Jun Ayukawa
Introduction: What is Constructivism?

Constructivism is based on the idea that social phenomena are constructed through human interaction. Usu-
ally, people take these social phenomena for granted and regard them as objective facts or occurrences.
Constructivism, on the other hand, scrutinizes what people believe to be truths or objective phenomena; it
considers accepted facts to be constructed interpretations brought about through human interaction. Because
construction is accomplished through interactions, this perspective is called social constructivism. Although
constructivism's roots are in sociology, it has been adopted by political scientists as an approach that exam-
ines how political issues and policies are shaped.
Social constructivism proposes that humans use language to define situations and then act according to those
definitions. It attempts to examine narratives and discourse in order to comprehend the meanings, interpreta-
tions and definitions of political conditions and social circumstances.
Social Constructivism: The Birth of Constructivism and Its Development

Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann's The Social Construction of Reality (1966) led to the emergence of
modern social constructivism. This book coined another term – constructionism. European scholars and
scholars interested in science and technology tend to use the term constructivism, while American scholars
and scholars in social sciences tend to prefer the word constructionism. However, the terms can be used in-
terchangeably (Holstein and Gubrium, 2008).
Berger and Luckmann's book has become a sociological classic. It offers a synthesis of the works of such
leading sociological figures as Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, George Herbert Mead, Karl Marx and Berger and
Luckmann's mentor, Alfred Schutz.
Alfred Schutz was social phenomenologist and sociologist. He moved from Austria to America in 1939, where
he worked as a banker and taught at the New School of Social Research. He introduced phenomenological
ideas into Weberian action theory, and he proposed the concept of multiple realities, refuting traditional think-
ing that there exists only one reality.
Berger and Luckmann also drew upon works by earlier sociological theorists. Mead's interest in how the self
is constructed through human interaction led him to understand that other new meanings, new definitions of
situations and new values emerged through interaction (Mead, 1934).
The early writings of Karl Marx note that when an individual joins an organized group and is given status, the
role of the individual becomes fixed within the relationships of the group and meaningful action is changed
into the routine work of the organization, and this is the process by which individual desires are reified into
organizational functions.
For modern scholars, the ideas of social constructivism seem unexceptional. However, Berger and Luck-
mann's book was welcomed as a counter to the dominant theory of structural functionalism, which evaluated
a person from the limited perspective of being simply a function within an organization. The phenomenological
and symbolic interactionist points of view were new and a declaration of human creativity. As social construc-
tivism became more popular, its claims became more diversified and radicalized. Over time, it began to em-
phasize language, discourse, narrative and story. Although placing value on language might seem extreme, it
is reasonable from the viewpoint of the theory of emancipation. For a person whose consciousness has been
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conditioned within a limiting physical environment, there is only one way to trigger the sense of emancipation
– through language and narrative – which is able to cause a change from an sich sein (in itself) to für sich
sein (for itself). Words can cause a revolutionary subjectivity and consciousness.
Berger and Luckmann also introduced the Marxist concepts of Entfremdung (alienation) and Verdinglichung
(reification) into their book (Marx, 1844; Marx and Engels, 1845–1846). The prime difference between Ent-
fremdung and Verdinglichung is that alienation presupposes some essential character of human being, but
reification thinks of the human being as an ensemble of social relationships. The concept of reification offers
escape from postulating the essence of human being, that is, escape from essentialism. Young sociologists
and social scientists who are oriented to emancipation seek to get rid of ‘false consciousness'. From this
critical perspective, one theorist who was ignored in The Social Construction of Reality was Antonio Gram-
sci, but a scholar who had the similar orientation toward the emancipation by breaking through constrained
consciousness is George Lukacs, who is referred to in Berger and Luckmann's book. There is critical con-
structivism in the study of social problems. This approach proposes to integrate symbolic interactionism and
critical theory of those such as Marx and Gramsci (Heiner, 2002).
This is just a brief summary of the classic theory of the origin of constructivism, now I would like to consider
the developments of constructivism by examining a few themes and topics which are mainly relevant to social
problems, politics (including international relations (IR)) and public policy.
Constructivism in the Study of Social Problems

The two social science fields which have produced the most important social constructivist work are sociology
and political science (Edelman, 1988). In particular, the constructivist study of social problems has flourished,
and there are calls to extend this work, which would further strengthen the constructivist perspective (Best
and Loseke, 2018).
The constructivist study of social problems emerged by combining the original constructivist sociology of
knowledge and the sociology of deviance. It owes heavily to the ideas about the labeling perspective in the
study of deviance, which describes how the labels ‘deviant', ‘criminal’ or ‘delinquent’ are given to someone
whose behavior is recognized as offensive to the established order. Thus, deviance is socially constructed
and controlled by laws that are established and enforced by social control agencies.
One of the founders of the labeling perspective, Howard S. Becker, wrote about the creation of the marijuana
tax law (Becker, 1963). His paper showed that the construction of laws could be applied not only to political
science but also to social problems. His labeling perspective could be relevant not only to deviant behavior
but to wider social problems. John I. Kitsuse, an influential labeling theorist, played a key role in applying the
labeling perspective to social issues by examining the process of claims-making by which phenomena are
constructed as social problems (Spector and Kitsuse, 1977). Claims-making is ‘the process of making claims,
of bringing a troubling condition to the attention of others’ (Best, 2017: 342). When claims demand that some-
thing should be done about a phenomenon which has been constructed as a social problem, it requires some
public policy or social policy. In this sense, the study of social problems becomes relevant to political science.
Social constructivism does not approach problems in society in the same way as the traditional studies of
social problems, which assume that objective conditions caused the issues. Social constructivism examines
problems not as a condition but as a continuum of human activities, which include claims-making, media
coverage, public perceptions, public persuasion and local government influence, as well as social problems
workers who are responsible for managing the people involved in the social issue through activities and de-
vising policy outcomes.1
The social constructivist studies these activities, especially focusing on the rhetoric used by the participants.
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The use of large numbers to influence society of the seriousness of the problem is one common feature. One
example of the usage of large numbers to influence society was the case of missing children in the United
States. The idea that strangers abduct children is common, including the notion that a child might have been
sacrificed by a cult in a secret ceremony. This idea is propagated by the mass media when it postulates that
a stranger has abducted a child. In fact, in many cases it was a parent or relative who took the child. Other
children ran away and were either found soon after they were declared missing or discovered living with one
parent who had been refused custody. Although actual cases of missing children taken by strangers are rare,
claims-makers often estimate that the total is vastly higher (Best, 1990). Joel Best proposed a theoretical
model of natural history of social problems in which there are several sequential stages, from claims-making
to media coverage, public reaction, policy making, social problem work and policy outcome (Best, 2017). Best
suggests that in some cases it is in the interest of people and the mass media to use large numbers in de-
scribing a problem to underline its seriousness. Even when it is found out that the large number was incorrect,
the smaller number is not always announced in the media.
Failure to construct a social problem can be a challenge for people who may not enjoy resources that allow
them to get attention from people in general. On the other hand, construction of one problem may make peo-
ple blind to other, more serious problems. For example, in order to conceal the failure of the president/prime
minister in office, and thereby distract people's attention from the big political problems, the powerful may try
to focus on some minor problem or on their own achievements in order to disperse people's attention. In this
sense, the concept of ‘agenda setting’ proposed by mass media research is relevant to constructivist study of
social problems.
Diversities in Constructivism
Social constructivism claims that it lets the people who make claims define social problems and avoids pre-
supposing the existence of objective conditions. But, in practice constructivists often find themselves con-
trasting what they treat as objective conditions and the subjective conditions depicted by claims-makers. This
kind of selective relativism is termed ‘ontological gerrymandering'. Gerrymandering is an American political
idiom that refers to drawing boundaries of electoral districts so as to make some outcomes more likely. Onto-
logical gerrymandering, then, argues that some analysts selectively applied theoretical assumptions so as to
advance their arguments.
A dispute over ontological gerrymandering in the middle of 1980 led to the division of the social constructivism
of social problems into two schools. One is strict constructionism,2 which was represented by John I. Kitsuse,
and the other is contextual constructionism, led by Joel Best. Strict constructivists accept the criticism of on-
tological gerrymandering and try to avoid referring to social conditions.
The position that claims that we cannot but presuppose something is called contextual constructivism. Con-
textual constructivism posits that it is possible to assess claims about a condition by analyzing the process by
which the condition is claimed to be a social problem. It is very clear that both strict and contextual construc-
tivist studies mainly analyze the process by which some condition is claimed to be a social problem and the
process by which that definition is successfully recognized, shared and authorized. Neither focuses on the
conditions being defined as social problems. Strict constructivism tries to maintain theoretical purity by not
mentioning those conditions, by being detached to the material world and staying focused on discourse and
narratives. But in practice their empirical research cannot obey these principles, unless they limit themselves
to theory and forego producing empirical studies (Best, 1993; Holstein and Miller, 1993).
One term used by the contextual constructivists is ‘domain expansion’ (Best, 1990, 2017). This refers to the
way the definition of a social problem can evolve over time. For example, the problem of domestic violence
at one time referred to physical violence; the victim of domestic violence was the wife of a domineering hus-
band who controlled the family's life. However, claims-makers came to argue that the definition of domestic
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violence ought to be expanded to include, not only physical violence, but also economic control and verbal or
psychological cruelty. Domain expansion is this process of expanding definitions. In fact, domestic violence
as a social problem is no longer limited to husband and wife, but can include unmarried partners and elders.
A similar example of domain expansion can be seen in the term ‘child abuse'. At one time, physical abuse
was considered child abuse, but that problem now includes psychological abuse as well as neglect and sex-
ual abuse.
In the realm of political science and political sociology, one of the insightful concepts developed is ‘target pop-
ulation’ in the study of public policies, social policies and social problems. Schneider and Ingram proposed
this concept of target population, which refers to the people who are targeted to receive benefits and help
from public policy (Schneider and Ingram, 2008). Their theory examines how particular people are chosen to
be targeted for help and how the help is constructed, including how to solve the problem or situation. They
offer a typology of four types of target populations: ‘Advantaged', ‘Contenders', ‘Dependent’ and ‘Deviant'. For
example, ‘the advantaged groups have excessive resources for the influence of policy such as size, wealth,
mobilization potential, and positions of authority, but they also carry very positive social constructions as being
deserving of the special benefits received from policy’ (Schneider and Ingram, 2008: 193). On the other hand,
in social problems such as drug use, how the drug problem and drug user are constructed is a crucial matter,
and policies differ depending on how the target population is constructed. The dependence on drugs of an
addict or a patient under medical supervision are constructed differently, the addict, as a ‘Deviant', who should
be punished; the patient, as a ‘Dependent', who should be treated. Or when juveniles commit crimes, it is not
just the nature of the crime that is at issue, but there is a wider examination of other factors, such as family
history, intellectual ability and present living conditions, so that youths may be constructed as belonging to
the category of ‘Dependent’ children and juvenile, rather than being constructed as belonging to the category
of ‘Deviant'. Different assessments will lead to different public policies being chosen and executed. ‘Empirical
research has confirmed the importance of social constructions of target populations and has shown how con-
structions are used, manipulated, reproduced, and changed in the policymaking process’ (ibid., p. 189). And,
it has developed into the way that ‘[i]t brought the importance of social construction into the understanding of
how power operates in policymaking; it brought the design and content, not just the process, of public policy
into the discussion of symbols and values; and it connected policy design elements to messages that affect
citizenship and participation’ (ibid., p. 191, emphasis in original).
Crime Problems
Many social constructivist analysts studying social problems focus on the construction of crime problems. The
number of prisoners in the United States was relatively stable up until about 1980, but it has since increased.
From 1980 to 2000, the number of prisoners (including inmates in prisons and jails) increased roughly fourfold
– from approximately 500,000 to more than two million. After 2000, the rate of increase slowed but the num-
ber of prisoners continued to increase until 2008 when it peaked at 2,310,300. It has since declined, but at a
slower rate than the previous increases. In 2016, the number incarcerated was 2,162,400.
Federal, state and local governments decide criminal policy. They are influenced by public opinion. When
people listen to or watch crime news, people are liable to believe that crimes happen randomly and they
are afraid of being victimized (Best, 1999). ‘Just deserts', ‘zero tolerance', ‘broken windows', ‘war on drugs',
‘mandatory minimum sentence’ and ‘three strikes and you are out’ were promoted as criminal justice policies.
Lots of criminologists have warned about the bad effects of incarcerating large numbers of people, but in vain.
Criminologists argued that as well as the huge cost of running prisons, the social effects on the prisoners
could be serious; for example, families would lose income, families would be broken, prisons would be over-
crowded which could lead to fighting, injuries, accidents and problems with prison guards. In the privately run
prisons, many prison guards are paid low wages and are not properly trained, leading to the mistreatment of
prisoners and riots.
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Political scientists also pointed out that incarcerating large numbers of people may damage one of the fun-
damentals of democracy – the election process. Comparing the rate among general population, minorities,
especially black males, are excessively imprisoned. Most prisoners – and often former felons – are deprived
of the opportunity to vote, and this may have big influences on the result of elections in constituencies.3
It wasn't professionals’ cautions or public opinion that stopped the increase of inmates, but the economic
crisis and budget problems caused by the Great Recession beginning in 2008. The term ‘mass incarceration’
only became common after 2008 (Roeder, 2015).
In Japan, the government revised the juvenile law in 2004. This was the result of a brutal crime widely pub-
licized by the media, which created a public sensation. Although the number of murder cases committed by
juveniles was at the lowest since World War II, the gruesome reportage alarmed the public and gave the im-
pression that such crimes had increased. Politicians responded to the outcry in order to keep their popularity
and demanded that the government revise the juvenile law. It was also in the individual interests of govern-
mental agencies and departments, such as the National Police Agency and Ministry of Justice, to promote
the revision (Ayukawa, 1995).
Smoking Problems
In the last 50 years, one of the most drastic changes in society has been the social definition of smoking.
Once considered commonplace and even elegant, smoking is now judged offensive and social policies have
been instigated to regulate or suppress it. It is interesting to examine how smoking problems have been con-
structed in Japan, and how they are relevant to IR.
The initial lawsuit against the national railway of Japan to ban smoking in the coaches of the Super Rapid Ex-
press in 1979, was the first noticeable event in the history of smoking problems in Japan. Although the lawsuit
was rejected, the result was that the majority of coaches were changed into non-smoking. This lawsuit gained
the attention of the media with the use of the Japanese term ‘ken en ken’ (‘the rights to dislike smoking'). As
the two words ‘ken’ (‘dislike’ and ‘rights') have strong meanings in the Japanese language, the term had a
strong impact.
The progression of the anti-smoking movement was difficult and fraught with problems. In Japan there is no
system of class action; lawyers are volunteers and do not gain any rewards for winning a lawsuit. (We can
say that these lawyers are pure Good Samaritans.) The other problem facing the non-smoking claims was
that the Ministry of Finance had an effective monopoly on tobacco. Although the company was privatized
and became Japan Tobacco, a number of bureaucrats formerly of the Ministry of Finance continued to be its
CEOs. There was also a law that promoted the development of the tobacco business. Thus, any movement
to control smoking or tobacco consumption was made more difficult by the representatives at the National
Diet, who wanted to continue a good relationship with the Ministry of Finance, in order to get their own bud-
gets approved. The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare and various claims-making groups tried to regulate
smoking and promote non-smoking. However, the opposition was difficult. In the end, their tactic was to raise
the price of cigarettes and tobacco products and secure the maximum income from tax for the Ministry of Fi-
nance (Ayukawa, 2001).
There was certain pressure from outside Japan from international organizations, which considered smoking
dangerous for health. The World Health Organization (WHO) urged Japanese cooperation and, in 2003, the
Japanese government signed the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. It was passed in the Na-
tional Diet in 2004 and became effective in 2005. The international treaty, which is considered above ordinary
law in Japan, was a boon to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare and the non-smoking claims-makers.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, as well as claims-makers for non-smoking, gained a stronger posi-
tion with arguments about the risks of passive smoking. Victims, including children, are vulnerable when they
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are forced to be in a smoke-filled environment as they risk cancer and other illness (Ayukawa, 2015).
Although the medical profession has established an academic society to research the effects of smoking,
many of them receive funds from pharmaceutical companies, and doctors are paid to treat cancer patients,
so their findings may be influenced by financial gain. In 2018, the National Diet approved the first nationwide
legislation, which bans the use of certain types of tobacco at schools, hospitals and government offices. Also,
restaurants of a certain size must have a separate well-ventilated smoking area apart from the eating and
drinking areas. This amendment revised the Health Promotion Law but it falls short of the original plan offered
by the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Labor. In anticipation of the Olympics in 2020, the Tokyo metropolitan
municipal council separately passed an ordinance banning smoking in eateries with employees unless the
employees are family members. In that municipal ordinance there is another article, which bans smoking in
any private living space where a child might be living.4
E-cigarettes are sold in Japan and now about 10% of smokers use this form of smoking. Claims-making
groups and some medical doctors are against e-cigarettes, which they claim damage health in the same way
as traditional cigarette smoking.
Four points can be learned from the problem of smoking in Japan. The first is that rhetoric can be an important
factor in changing or influencing both public opinion and governmental policy. Second, certain domestic is-
sues can sometimes be linked to global problems and global pressure can alter a domestic situation. In terms
of smoking, there has been a worldwide concern with the problem of cancer caused by tobacco and this has
some impact on the process of claims-making and policy execution within the domestic sphere. Third, social
structure can prevent or hinder changes demanded by claims-makers, especially if it is not in their interest,
as is the case with the Ministry of Finance and tobacco. Finally, certain new situations that can be called an
‘emergency’ or ‘contingency', like the Tokyo Olympics, can affect policy and change social attitudes.
Constructivism in IR
When the US Senate was discussing invading Iraq in response to the aggression against Kuwait, a story was
made public which influenced their decision. A young girl said she had witnessed Iraqi soldiers cruelly killing
a baby. Her tears and emotional story moved the senators and public against Iraq and the United States’
involvement in the war was approved. However, months later it was revealed that the young girl who had
related the story of the baby's murder was in fact the daughter of the ambassador of Kuwait to the United
States, and that she had not been in Kuwait when the Iraqi troops invaded.
Another story was about how the Iraqi soldiers had destroyed an oil plant, causing damage and pollution,
and photos of oil-covered birds were shown. This story also justified the decision to attack Iraq. Later, it was
revealed that American troops had destroyed the oil plant and caused the pollution. These two cases demon-
strate how powerful the media and government can be in persuading people to believe in something. This
concern is one of the reasons why social constructivism researches the subjective world of people and the
subjective definition of situations, and shows how influential the subjective definitions that constructivists ex-
amine and analyze can be in IR.
Alexander Wendt has identified three models of culture of anarchy in IR. One of these is Hobbesian, which the
realist diplomats and realist scholars of IR believe in; this type presupposes that everyone is fighting against
everyone else.5 If all nations define that the Hobbesian situation is a common, universal fact or objective law,
and all nations behave believing in it, then this law or belief becomes the reality as the result of a ‘self-fulfilling
prophecy’ (Wendt, 1999: 263, 309). Wendt points out that it is important to interpret what people believe as
objective, universal law and see that it is constructed through interactions between people who have similar
subjective beliefs.

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Social constructivism maintains that the main idea in IR is human agency, which is able to interpret, define
and explore a situation. To analyze IR as nations pursuing their own interests egotistically from the viewpoint
of material forces is realism, which leads us to view human beings as if they don't have a will, and behave
automatically. However, in social constructivism human agency is a crucial concept.
When a social scientist emphasizes the concept of norm, it is usually viewed as a structure which controls
individuals’ behavior from outside. This resembles structural functionalism which views structural pressures
as forcing members or people to obey the established norm or rule. Indeed, one of the prominent construc-
tivists in the study of IR, Wendt, recognizes that constructivism originated in both symbolic interactionism and
the structuration theory of Anthony Giddens in sociology. Giddens’ theory of structuration is different from
traditional structural functionalism, in that both individuals and structure are adapting each other. Also, the
situation of IR is totally different from the single domestic society; it is far more fluid and unsettled than a do-
mestic society. Norms or rules in IR are ones to be created through interaction, negotiation and bargaining.
Also, rules work as protection against the large, powerful nations’ abuse of power to dominate small, power-
less nations or organizations in IR. International society consists of a large number of international institutions
which were established by treaties and rules which nations ratified or agreed upon. These treaties and rules
were the result of a great many narratives, rhetoric and discourse. As pointed out above, these rules regulate
the behavior of nations, therefore international agencies need to appreciate the rules as well as consider the
material power of a nation. In this sense the constructivist study of rules concerning IR is fundamentally im-
portant (Onuf, 1997, 1998).
Liberalism in IR views nations as interdependent and recognizes the role of authorized international organi-
zations to regulate nations. But, with the advancement of globalization, it is not only nations and international
organizations such as the United Nations that play important roles, but also many different kinds of non-gov-
ernmental organizations (NGOs) and non-profit organizations (NPOs) are important agents and agencies in
the world. Among the authorized international organizations, there are the United Nations, and its commis-
sions, councils and divisions such as the Human Rights Council, Human Rights Committee, Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, as well as the
European Union, Council of Europe, the European Commission of Human Rights and the International Crim-
inal Court (ICC), which were established by international conventions or treaties among nations, and so on.
The emergence of rules is necessary to establish these new organizations. For example, to establish the ICC,
the Rome Statute needed to come into effect.
Even under the umbrella of the United Nations, these organizations have accumulated vested interests and
developed conflicts of interest. This has resulted in requests for new interpretations of rules as well as a cru-
cial need to formulate new rules and carry them out with enforcement by international organizations. For ex-
ample, this problem became evident with the question of protection of refugees during internal wars in African
countries. The definition of refugees was revised and expanded to include not only refugees who fled across
a border but also inland domestic refugees. This process of ‘domain expansion’ (Best, 2017) can be analyzed
satisfactorily by constructivism. The ICC prosecuted not only war criminals who invaded other countries and
committed genocide, but also a president who suppressed people inside of his own country. The ICC even
successfully prosecuted those guilty of damaging important historical cultural properties. Constructivism con-
tributes to these kinds of studies on the emergence and formation of rules, interpretations of rules, the life
cycle, life course and life history of rules.
In the age of globalization, there are many NGOs and NPOs, who play an important and influential role in the
world. These groups are respected and their claims are often made public. Claims made by Amnesty Inter-
national, Human Rights Watch and others, are recognized and reported by the mass media. Major television
networks and prestigious newspapers communicate their claims which can influence members of the United
Nations and other authorized international organizations.
For example, one important Japanese group that is internationally active and makes claims that the govern-

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ment cannot ignore is the Japan Federation of Bar Associations. This organization represents lawyers all over
Japan. When the Japanese government submitted the reports on ‘Conventions on the Rights of the Child',
‘International Convention against Torture’ and ‘International Convention on Civil and Political Rights’ to the
United Nations, the Japan Federation of Bar Associations and some NGOs and NPOs submitted counter-re-
ports. They not only sent reports but also invited members of the Human Rights Committee to see the relevant
institutions such as prisons and detention centers. The activities of these organizations are important as they
point out problems and offer criticism and recommendations that do not necessarily follow the government's
position.
Constructivist research contributes pertinent studies on the dynamics of international organizations. Since
these are influential agents in the present situations of IR, it is important to know about their interaction and
negotiations.
Constructivism in Europe with a Focus on Scandinavian Countries

Constructivist ideas have influenced Scandinavian research on a variety of topics such as crime statistics,
violence at work, drug policy and ethnic identity, examples of which are given in what follows.
Construction of Crime Statistics

Hanns von Hofer, a professor in the Department of Criminology at the University of Stockholm examined and
analyzed how statistics were constructed, especially those dealing with crime, in order to interpret them more
carefully (von Hofer, 2000).
A case in point is the crime of rape. In Sweden, the number of reported rapes is exceedingly high. This is
because the definition of rape is broader and more comprehensive than in other countries. Feminism and
female rights are strong there, and half the representatives in parliament as well as half the ministers in the
cabinet are women. Sweden was the first country to punish the customer who procured a prostitute. In this
society, women are treated as equals, and they do not feel inferior to men. They understand their rights and
are able to report a rape without fear.
The high rape rate might not indicate that Sweden is any more dangerous than other places for women, but
that they feel they have the right to report the crime. In some patriarchal societies, women may not report
a rape because the police may lack sympathy or the general public may stigmatize the victim. Therefore, in
those countries, the statistics for rape might be quite low. Although the statistics might indicate that there were
more rape victims in Sweden than in another country, it could be that the rapes there were not reported and
did not become a statistic. Thus, a high statistic for sex crimes may not reflect the reality of a country's sit-
uation. It is difficult to make a comparison between two countries based on statistics, because each country
might have different attitudes and beliefs as well as different systems and procedures of criminal justice. We
can see that when examining or comparing two or more countries, it is problematic when looking at official
statistics that show the increase or decrease of a crime.
It is also important to use care when tracking crime statistics across time. Apparent increases or decreases
may not reflect a change in criminal behavior, so much as a revision of the law or changes in the definitions
of a crime or in the methods of compiling successive statistics. The numbers may also be influenced by the
shifting attitudes of police and prosecutors, or by changing court procedures. Cultural changes such as victim
recognition and the impact of feminist thought on women can also affect statistics.
Another factor to consider when examining statistics based on self-report surveys is the way the data are col-
lected. At one time, research staff or hired personnel spoke to individuals or left the questionnaire at house-
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holds to be sent in or later picked up. Recently, most surveys are done through the internet and computers
analyze the data collected. Data collected through the internet tend to over-represent some segments of the
population that are good at handling smartphones or computers. This can be problematic, as is the reliability
of answers to questionnaires (Best, 2012).
Violence at Work
One of the classics of constructivism on statistics is ‘A Note on the Use of Official Statistics’ by Kitsuse and
Cicourel (1963). Getting insight from this paper, four Swedish criminologists examined the statistics on vio-
lence at workplaces and concluded that four main factors contributed to the increase in the number of cases
of violence at work (Estrada et al., 2010): changes in the expanded definition of the crime, the media reports,
social intolerance toward violence and the working conditions.
Another research article is entitled ‘Violence at Work in Finland’ (Heiskanen, 2007). It points out that the num-
ber of women working in health care, social work and education has increased which means they are work-
ing in direct contact with students, clients and patients. There has been a problem between the supply and
demand for services, which has caused people to complain and act aggressively toward these women. In-
creasingly, workers will no longer accept violent behavior and are willing to report incidents. This increases
the statistics of violence in the workplace in Finland.
Research carried out in Denmark focused on violence in four workplace situations: psychiatry, eldercare,
prison and probation services and special schools. The workers with the highest level of vulnerability were
those working at special schools (Rasmussen et al., 2013).
In Norway, research was carried out in all the medical treatment areas. The report pointed out that from 1993
to 2014 the number of female doctors increased, but that there was no increase in violence (Johansen et al.,
2017).
These statistics and researches show how the constructivist viewpoint can be useful.
Drug Policy
How drugs are perceived is an interesting theme from the perspective of constructivism. Among Scandinavian
countries, Denmark has a lenient attitude toward marijuana, similar to that of the Netherlands. Other Scandi-
navian countries, such as Sweden, have a stricter attitude toward all drugs and traditionally have had a zero-
tolerance policy. Even alcoholic beverages that contain more than 5% alcohol are sold at designated shops,
which are closed on weekends. This is because it is very cold in winter and the government hopes to prevent
the prevalence of alcoholism.
Reporting on drugs in mainstream newspapers in Sweden appears to be changing. It has been noted that the
drug policy in Sweden may depend on international policies so that if policies internationally are changing,
then Swedish policy might follow this trend (Månsson, 2016). For example, medical use of marijuana in some
states in the United States has been legalized and recreational use of marijuana has been legalized in Cana-
da.
Ethnic Identity
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During the 2015 refugee crisis in Europe, Sweden accepted the second largest number of refugees, but be-
cause of its modest size, Sweden had the highest rate of refugees per head of population. A lot of immigrants
live in Sweden. Researchers have studied the constructions of life plans by girls who come from African coun-
tries, including their identities and expectations of themselves when they are adults (Mohme, 2014). Swe-
den not only has immigrants from Eastern Europe, the Middle East or Africa, but also there are minorities in
Sweden such as the Sami in northern regions who are recognized as a minority by the United Nations. The
Swedish government must guarantee and assure the opportunities of language, culture transmission through
generations and self-decision making on politics. And, recently, it is not easy to find persons with such lan-
guage abilities. Among some tribes of Sami, the number and the rate of persons who speak their traditional
language is estimated to be less than 100 and less than 10%. There is a report that some young Sami girls
prefer to express themselves in English rather than either their native language or Swedish (Lindgren et al.,
2017). Looking at these researches that are relevant to constructivism, there will be expected some devel-
opment of varieties of constructions of identities, including a change of the notions of national identity and
ethnicity in Sweden.
Further Comments
Bo Stråth wrote in his ‘Constructionist Themes in the Historiography of the Nation', ‘the concepts of culture,
collective memory and myth are central to historical constructionist approaches’ (2008: 627) and culture is
‘a process of symbolic work that frames interpretation and community. It is emergent and not pregiven in its
expressions. Culture is a matter of communication and negotiation’ (Stråth, 2008: 628).
As shown above, in Scandinavian countries, there have been insightful studies based on the constructivist
perspective, from the articulation on statistics to experimental researches.
Constructivism in Asia
Japan
Constructivist studies have become popular throughout Asia with the majority of papers written by Japanese.
Japanese customs and institutions are different from those in Western countries, but Japan is one of the
most democratic countries in Asia. Models or programs of constructivism, which were developed in the Unit-
ed States or in Europe, are easily applied to Japan. One of the pioneers of constructivist studies was John
I. Kitsuse, a second-generation Japanese living in America. His connection with Japan made him influential
in Japanese sociology. Kitsuse's approach was based on strict constructionism, which analyzes language in
relation to a social phenomenon and does not consider, either, the objective conditions of the problem. Re-
cently, contextual constructivism has become a popular approach.
Some popular themes written by Japanese constructivists concern youth problems. For example, social prob-
lems concerning young girls’ sexual behavior (Yamamoto, 2001), youths’ exposure to pornocomics (Suzuki,
2001; Akagawa, 2015) and juveniles’ deviant behavior (Yamazaki, 1994; Ayukawa, 1995). Recently, there
have been social constructivist studies regarding human rights policies (Ayukawa, 2015, 2019). There have
also been papers written by non-Japanese constructivists about Japan (Nichols, 1995).6

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The Interest in Constructivism in China

Motorcycles were the symbol of development, modernization and prosperity in the 1990s. This image
changed after a newspaper in Guangzhou complained about motorcycle noise, pollution and problems. After
this campaign, motorcycles were banned. The constructionist paper by Jianhua Xu (2015) examines how the
motorcycle became a target of criticism.
Another political issue that became the study of social constructivism was the Hong Kong government's at-
tempt to standardize the curriculum of primary and secondary education with that of the mainland. Michael
Adorjan and Ho Lun Yau wrote ‘Resinicization and Digital Citizenship in Hong Kong Youth: Youth, Cyber-
space, and Claims-making’ (2015). The writers look at the claims-making group made up of mainly young
people born in the 1990s who opposed this move. The young people claimed that the move would deprive
them of basic human rights, including the freedom of expression. They used Facebook and cell phones to
protest, and organized mass demonstrations. Reading their explanations, we can estimate that there might
be some similarities and common points between constructivism and the resource mobilization theory of so-
cial movements (McCarthy and Zald, 1977; Best, 2017).
China consists of multiple ethnicities. Among them, according to an interesting paper, Muslim Uighurs endure
marginalization and experience trauma and anger, and these in turn are major factors in violence and terror-
ist behavior (Li and Niemann, 2016). Han people have immigrated into Xinyang in order to integrate Muslim
people into Chinese culture. The Chinese government tries to develop Xingjian economically, and promotes
campaigns to condemn violence and prevent rioting or terrorism. But, there have been incidents in Beijing in
2013 and at the railway station in Kunming city. At the end of their paper, Li and Niemann note that Uighur-lan-
guage education has been marginalized, and wonder what will happen with the Chinese government's very
large-scale project for the Silk Road Economic Belt when the railroad of super rapid trains bound for Euro-
pean and Arabic countries will be constructed through Xinyang, which might bring big changes in Xinyang
and the Uighur community.
There is an interesting aspect to consider when constructivist papers are written by Chinese scholars. The
people in power can look at these papers and learn, from the constructivist discourse, how to manipulate peo-
ple. This would be a reflexive use of constructivism, as governing bodies learn from the conclusions reached
about the process of the claims-making and apply this knowledge to their planning, administration and ac-
tivities. In the paper ‘China and the Remolding of International Human Rights Norms’ by Yuan et al. (2017),
the authors refer to constructivist viewpoints and maintain that the Chinese cooperate with the Human Rights
Council of the United Nations. China insists that ‘human rights are essential matters within the domestic juris-
diction of a country. Respect for each country's sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs are univer-
sally recognized principles of international law; they are applicable to all fields of international relations and
naturally apply to the field of human rights as well’ (Yuan et al., 2017: 38) The authors of this paper refer to
constructivism and discuss the life cycle of international norms, and propose, instead of the process of emer-
gence, diffusion and internationalization, another process of origination, diffusion and remolding. They claim
that through dialogue on norms, discourse critique, self-remolding and other means, China has enriched the
practice of remolding international human rights norms with a human rights theory centered on the right to ser-
vice and develop, thereby providing a new approach and new angle of vision that allows non-Western coun-
tries to break away from the monist approach of norm development (25). The paper also describes ‘following
the Constructivist turn in international relations theory, international norms entered the mainstream of interna-
tional relations research and rapidly become a hot topic’ (ibid., p. 26). They criticize ‘Western bias’ or ‘Euro
centrism’ of the uni-directional expansion model, and propose ‘the remolding of norms occurring through the
meeting or clashing of norms in a process of growth–diffusion–remolding’ (ibid., p. 28). This paper shows how
it is possible to analyze claims and narratives from a constructivist perspective and how that analysis can
show the characteristics of reflexivity in constructivism. It is interesting to see how the Chinese government
tries to revise and remodel the definition of human rights. It would also be interesting to note how scholars
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cooperate with the Chinese government and how NGOs and NPOs react, interact and negotiate with China's
remolding activities.
Ethnicity, Gender and Identity

Most Asian nations consist of multiple races and ethnicities, and have numerous languages. There are only a
few nations that believe that the country constitutes only one race of people. South Korea is one such nation,
with only 2.25% of the population in 2011 being foreign. For two decades there has been a debate about ac-
cepting immigrants but recently newspapers have changed the term, ‘foreigners’ to ‘residents', ‘immigrants’
and ‘multicultural citizens'. Constructivist studies look at how the changing of terms or narratives in the media
can influence people's attitudes (Park, 2014).
In most Asian countries, the relationship between race and ethnicity is complex and multilayered. For exam-
ple, although the majority of Indonesians are Muslim, the Balinese are mostly Hindu; however, in the search
for their ethnicity, the majority of Balinese chose to adhere to a minority monotheistic form of Hinduism and
not to majority Indian Hinduism (Johnsen, 2007).
People may try to construct their identity by looking for their ancestors’ ethnicity, but in the society that is de-
veloping rapidly in the age of IT, people may construct their identity not depending on race or ethnicity but
by searching for social status in the world of rapidly expanding economics (Ellis et al., 2012). This might be
especially the case for women who pursue their careers in the expanding business world, breaking through
patriarchal tradition (Fernando and Cohen, 2011).
Gender is socially constructed and is acknowledged as one of the central traits of identity. In Malaysia, a pre-
dominately Muslim country, homosexuality is forbidden. The number of Malaysian respondents of a survey of
gay people is very low because, according to Mark Stephan Felix (2016), the people involved were careful
about to whom, where and when they disclosed their sexual identity. This was in order ‘to minimize instances
where they would have to compromise either their faith or their identities’ (ibid., p. 115) and ‘to make the best
of the duality of their situation to love their lives and to construct an identity that is comfortable and acceptable
to themselves’ (ibid., p. 117). In India, the law to ban homosexuality was nullified in 2018.
Tsunami
The term ‘tsunami’ originated in Japan. Tsunamis as well as typhoons and earthquakes are natural disasters
that often hit many other Asian countries. When an earthquake occurs in the sea, especially at the bottom of
narrow gulfs, a tsunami can develop. When the tsunami hit Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Thailand in
2004, hundreds of thousands of people were killed. It was not only the local populations that were affected by
the tsunami, many tourists from America and Europe lost their lives. Swedish foreign travelers had the largest
number of deaths, and the second largest were German tourists. The 2004 tsunami was so powerful that it
reached the shores of Africa and an estimated 300 people in Somalia were killed.
The mass media reportage on the tsunami in Sweden was different from that in other countries. The names
of the victims were never broadcast nor published in order to protect privacy. It caused great concern for the
relatives and friends of those Swedish travelers in Asia (Kivikura and Nord, 2016).
A constructivist study researched the newspapers in three countries, India, Indonesia and Thailand, in order
to look at the claims-making in the three countries. It studied their reports of damages and claims-making for
support and looked at the results (Letukas, 2013). The study noted that Indonesia complained that they had
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not been provided with long-term recovery plans, while India was not satisfied with the culturally inappropriate
donations. The Thai newspapers reported that the help for the fishing business was satisfactory but that the
aid they needed to support the tourists was not enough. Letukas concluded that Indonesia didn't complain
enough while India's complaints were excessive. The author of the article is American and consequently her
main interest is the relationship between the United States and these three countries. She noted that ‘[m]edia
in the United States argued that the new Marshall Plan policy was favorable in south Asia, resulting in the
construction of an effective policy outcome. In contrast, Western relief was constructed as excessive in In-
dia, because massive amounts of unusable aid hindered, rather than helped, the recovery process’ (Letukas,
2013: 280).
It could be argued that the damage in Indonesia was so severe that it had to depend on help from developed
countries. India, on the other hand, has a culture sensitive to what it might consider an insult and perhaps did
not need the help as much as Indonesia. The different attitudes and responses to the aid were the result of
the scale of damage. In Indonesia, the number of people killed by the tsunami was approximately 130,000
and 40,000 were missing. It is more than 10 times as many as in India. In India most of the damage occurred
on the islands situated near Indonesia. This constructivist study points out that it is a form of reflexivity. The
author's description is also a kind of claims-making, referring to the media construction of the situation. Other
constructivists who read this study can examine and challenge it as a construct in itself.
Constructivist studies not only look at the tsunami's after-effects in terms of damage and help from developed
countries, but also how the local people were victims of not only the disaster but also the reconstruction
process.
A region in the southern part of India, Tamil Nadu, was seriously affected by the 2014 tsunami. A constructivist
study found that the people who lived there were treated differently depending on social characteristics, reli-
gion, caste and socioeconomic status as well as by gender (Luke, 2012). The article points out that the gen-
der of the victim influenced their access to rehabilitation resources or toilet facilities for women. Women could
not get proper medical treatment, which was especially serious for pregnant women, and the fatality rate of
women was higher than men in that region. The author concluded that under normal conditions, women were
considered less important, but that during the after-effects of the tsunami, the situation escalated and they
were even more vulnerable than usual. ‘The origins of such disproportionate effects are not natural: rather,
they are socially constructed’ (Luke, 2012: 19).
In 2010 another large tsunami hit Indonesia and its neighboring islands and lands. The Mentawai Islands
form a chain of islands off the coast of Sumatra which are famous as a surfing destination, where a ‘Nirvanic
myth’ was constructed by the surfing tourism. This myth referred to the remote, exotic, beautiful area with the
best waves for surfing. The islands were developed by foreign companies that dealt in surfing tourism but did
not bother to build a good relationship with the local people. When the tsunami hit the islands it caused the
deaths of 400 people, destroyed 4,000 households and displaced more than 20,000 people (Ponting et al.,
2005; Ponting and McDonald, 2013).
Collective Identity
The construction of identity not only refers to the population of a state-nation, or people or group in a country,
but also people both inside and outside a country. Also, the construction of identity matters for internation-
al organizations. The Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN) has not reacted to the Rohingya crisis in
Myanmar at the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh. It has not tried to solve the situation nor intervene
in the conflict. Thousands of Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar and the UN Office of the High Commis-
sioner for Human Rights has issued official reports that Myanmar soldiers have committed genocide even
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though such crimes are banned by international treaties.
ASEAN has not intervened in the Rohingya crisis even though it is a signatory to the ASEAN Charter, the
ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights and the ASEAN Declaration of Human Rights. To
date, there are few papers that analyze the situation from a constructivist viewpoint, but the ones which do
point out similar cases, and posit that this inaction is caused by the norm of non-interference as well as a
collective identity among ASEAN member states. It is ironic then that the homepage of ASEAN shows its mot-
to: One Vision, One Identity, One Community. One constructivist author states that ‘[t]he absence of collec-
tive identity led to natural interest-oriented political processes rather than a regional-oriented one’ (Rosyidin,
2017: 53). ASEAN has ‘the unreflexive cognitive and behavioral qualities of regional relations’ (Glas, 2016:
833) which can be named the ‘habit of peace'.
These articles demonstrate that both constructivist analysis and the concept of reflexivity are relevant and
meaningful.
Conclusion
Constructivist studies bring fruitful and original insights into the fields of political science and sociology. As
well as astute analysis, the studies can also yield productive results. The constructivist approach is so intel-
lectually appealing that Asian as well as Western scholars have adopted it. As long as human beings interact,
interpret and produce meaning, constructivism will continue to contribute to the study of political science and
the social sciences.
Notes
1 These activities of social problem workers and policy outcomes may cause new claims-making.
2 In political science the label ‘strict constructionism’ has been applied to jurists who seek to interpret the
American Constitution as narrowly as possible. In other words, they refrain from progressive, comprehensive
or broad interpretations that seek to adapt the Constitution to fit modern advanced society's circumstances,
or to use the Constitution as a tool to promote social justice. When strict constructionism was named in the
study of social problems, this connection was implicit, but political scientists should not confuse the different
ways the same term is used in sociology and in law (Best, 2019).
3 Politicians who have been found guilty and imprisoned usually experience the damage caused by the get-
tough-on-crime social policies they promoted when in office; they are astonished to discover huge numbers
of non-violent offenders and the disproportionate majority of inmates who belong to racial minorities in prison
(Smith, 2015).
4 Here we can see a rule which suggests that a pure innocent such a child should not be victimized, and they
should be protected by law or ordinance at any sphere.
5 The other two models of culture of anarchy which Wendt pointed out are Lockean, based on the relationship
of rivalry, and Kantian, based on the role of friendship.
6 As this chapter is on social sciences, I have not mentioned psychology. There are several references of
constructivism concerning the work of Kenneth J. Gergen, and also in brief therapy in psychology in Japan.

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• constructivism
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http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n5

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Emile Durkhein's Sociological Insight Into Political
Phenomena
Contributors: Gianfranco Poggi

Chapter Title: "Emile Durkhein's Sociological Insight Into Political Phenomena"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
Print pages: 48-63
SAGE SAGE Reference
Emile Durkhein's Sociological Insight Into Political Phenomena

Gianfranco Poggi
As the authoritative biography by Steven Lukes (1985) indicates, Emile Durkheim – one of the founding fa-
thers of modern sociology – witnessed and took some part in the complex and often troubling political ex-
periences of the France of his times (1878–1917). He was a committed patriot, proud of his country's great
role as the site and prime promoter of political modernization, beginning of course with the French Revolution
itself. He was fully aware of the extent to which that event and many that followed had intensely divided the
population and inspired violent political and cultural contrasts.
Durkheim had what can be called a passion for unity, which inspired many aspects of his intellectual and
scholarly legacy. However, many controversial contemporary political events saw him taking sides. He gen-
erally aligned himself – privately but also in his dialogue and correspondence with colleagues and students,
and in occasional publications commenting on those events – with what one may call the progressive side of
the on-going debate.
Some particularly virulent contemporary contrasts in his time had to do with one particular import of the
French Revolution. The monarchical ancien régime had openly favored the Catholic Church, and endowed
it with multiple privileges, regarding especially its large wealth and its role in the education of the new gen-
erations. The subsequent political order had disestablished the Church; in the eyes of its opponents, it had
sinfully turned down the role France had long enjoyed as la fille ainée de l'Eglise (‘the first daughter of the
Roman Catholic Church'). This produced a deep-rooted and persistent social and cultural cleavage, which
found expression in a phenomenon of great personal significance for Emile Durkheim – anti-semitism.
Born to a Jewish family, he had been expected, in due course, to succeed in the position of rabbi his forebears
had long held, in the Alsatian town of Epinal, within its Jewish minority. However, as an adolescent Emile
ceased to be trained for that role, and successfully pursued, instead, a public, secular education. In spite
of this, no matter how faint the traces left on Durkheim's professional production by his early familiarity with
the great tradition of Jewish learning, his academic adversaries and their followers persistently and invidious-
ly reminded him – and his associates – that he was indeed a Jew (Moore, ‘David Emile Durkheim and the
Jewish Response to Modernity'). This rendered him, for his adversaries, a legitimate target of diffidence and
indeed suspicion, regarding not only his commitment to the power and welfare of the French nation, but also
the intrinsic significance and validity of his own academic achievements, teachings and publications. In the
latter context, his opponents always criticized the success Durkheim enjoyed as an academic politician, in
recruiting and training pupils and followers, then promoting their advancement within the highly prestigious
and competitive French university system.
All this Durkheim did in the untiring pursuit of what he considered his life-task – the promotion of sociology as
a significant, autonomous academic discipline. He elaborated a specifically sociological approach to a variety
of social and cultural phenomena; but – in my judgment – he did not explore political matters in as original
and thorough manner as he did regarding other major social phenomena. The Abstract of an important es-
say by Hans-Peter Mueller phrases this point as follows: ‘Emile Durkheim was neither a political scientist nor
a political sociologist. His oeuvre though exhibits a political dimension which is not easy to grasp’ (Mueller,
2009: 227).
Why so?
First of all, his life-work echoes an attitude vis-à-vis politics-as-such which characterizes the diverse intellec-
tual undertakings involved, beginning in the era of the Enlightenment, in the rise and establishment of the
modern social sciences. That attitude reversed the privileged position political phenomena had long held in
European intellectual discourse on social affairs. Basically, larger social entities had traditionally been seen as
chiefly constituted and managed as the object of rule from above, with underlying populations made to serve
the particular interests of variously constituted narrow minorities – typically, princely dynasties – if necessary
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by threatening or exercising violence on the subjects.
The nascent social sciences sought to overcome the intrinsic limitations which such views about the phenom-
enon of rule placed on the appropriate understanding and critique of broader social events and arrangements.
New disciplines undertook to theorize instead major new aspects of European social development, in ways
sometimes inspired by recent, massive advances in the knowledge of natural phenomena.
In particular, what came to be called ‘political economy’ argued that over recent generations the whole society
had benefitted from the extent to which more and more individuals had disregarded or circumvented political
constraints on the peaceful pursuit of their private interests. Increasingly, they invested their energies and re-
sources in self-seeking, open-ended activities, and freely exchanged with one another the respective products
on the market, whose workings, if left to themselves, would automatically recognize and reward the values
embodied in those products. The everyday pursuits of such individuals, if considered and respected as their
own private matter, no longer narrowly constrained by traditional normative expectations or by the arbitrium of
rulers, would continue to develop material and cognitive resources, and generate products addressing ever
new needs.
The main political requirement for this to take place could be expressed in a simple, negative recommendation
to the political and administrative personnel in charge of the political management of economic affairs: laissez-
faire, do not interfere. It was up to individuals to settle with one another, on the market, the terms of their
own transactions. A growing body of contemporary experiences suggested that such abstinence of authori-
ties would indirectly foster the general welfare.
Such a view was voiced in France, among others, by Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825), who saluted the
advent of the ‘industrial system'. He wrote that if a socially selective epidemic were to suddenly strike dead
3,000 men in possession of political prerogatives, society at large would impassively continue to function;
whereas it would be paralyzed by the death of 3,000 engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs.
One cannot attribute Durkheim's relatively low scholarly attention to the political phenomena of his time to a
similarly dismissive, indeed contemptuous view of their material import. He was fully aware of the changes
in government and public administration instituted in France after the end of the ancien régime, and proud
of the role his own country had played in promoting such changes in other ones. Rather, that lower attention
expressed his unwavering intent – inspired by the great on-going accomplishments of the natural sciences
– to establish an objective, empirically grounded, intrinsically valid understanding and critique of social phe-
nomena, much broader than that represented by the current scope of the burgeoning discipline of political
economy.
In this perspective, even the impressive body of scholarly thinking devoted to politics since the heyday of clas-
sical Greece, which Durkheim knew well and whose intellectual and literary merits he appreciated, appeared
to him intrinsically limited in its scientific significance by what one may call its speculative intent. That is: It
strove to discover not the nature and origin of social phenomena, not what they actually are, but what they
ought to be: its aim was not to offer as valid a description of nature as possible, but to present us with the
idea of a perfect society, a model to be imitated. Even Aristotle, who was far more concerned with empirical
observation than Plato, aimed at discovering, not the laws of social existence, but the best form of society.
Something similar might be said of the more recent tradition of juridical discourse about political institutions.
Durkheim had a keen interest in the contemporary development of French scholarship on constitutional law
– indeed, he markedly influenced the significant contribution to that field by a key figure, Léon Duguit. But
the content itself of that scholarship did not constitute a proper object for Durkheim's own overriding pursuit,
because it was concerned primarily how public affairs ought to be handled, not how they actually were.
A significant essay by Hans-Peter Mueller (2009) characterizes as follows Durkheim's position,
1. (He) rejected current politics with their conflicts and its intrigues, and the prevalence in political dis-

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course of ‘ideology', thus as the opposite of science. 2. Sociology as a rational, empirically grounded
must inquire into social reality ‘as it is', not ‘as it ought to be'. 3. Politics understood as party politics
pursues particular interests, whereas he wanted to commit his sociology to the service of the com-
mon good for the society as a whole. His attention was focused on the ‘polity', not on ‘politics'. In this
capacity, sociology could envisage, design and promote ‘a new morality’ focused on a distinctively
modern value: the autonomy of the human person. (Mueller, 2009, 245)
Durkheim was aware that accomplishing this entailed a big challenge, which his first masterpiece, The Divi-
sion of Labor in Society formulated as follows: ‘How does it come about that the individual, while becoming
more autonomous, depends ever more closely upon society? How can he become at the same time more of
an individual and yet more linked to society?’ (Durkheim, 2014: 7).
Durkheim saw the main methodological model for sociology as he understood it, in the way the natural sci-
ences had been lately spectacularly advancing and promoting intellectual modernization. He expounded that
model frequently and emphatically, especially in his second masterpiece, The Rules of Sociological Method
(Durkheim, 1982). Such rules presupposed the existence of a distinctive realm of reality, which Durkheim of-
ten designated as ‘society’ itself. It was constituted by the totality of ‘social facts’ – phenomena present in
the various environments in which human beings co-exist that were not established by nature (although they
were often perceived as grounded on nature itself), but on the one hand were produced by past human con-
duct, on the other conditioned present and future conduct.
‘Social facts’ both represented those phenomena and prescribed the appropriate forms of individual and
group conduct, seeking to enforce them when such conduct did not spontaneously comply with them. Their
content varied hugely according to time and place; thus sociology was engaged, on the one hand, in ascer-
taining the specific social arrangements in operation at a given time and place, on the other in comparing
such arrangements across time and space. To be valid, both pursuits were to advance objectively. As Nisbet
puts it: ‘Dispassionate study, objective research, were, above all others, Durkheim's ideals’ (Nisbet, 1975: 17).
As Durkheim himself stated,
Our main objective is to extend the scope of scientific rationalism to cover human behavior, demon-
strating that, in the light of the past, it is capable of being reduced to relationships of cause and
effect, which, by an operation no less rational, can then be transformed into rules of action for the
future and that an equally rational operation can subsequently transform those relations into rules of
action for the future. What has been termed our positivism is merely a consequence of this rational-
ism (Durkheim, 1982: 4).
In fact, the impact on Durkheim's sociological project of the example represented by the natural sciences,
was not merely methodological. His first major work, The Division of Labor in Society (Durkheim, 2014) trans-
ferred to the social realm a huge process which Darwin's On the Origin of Species had creatively detected
in the realm of nature. Darwin had argued that in the course of natural evolution new species progressively
differentiated that realm, in two ways: new species displaced previously existent ones by competing success-
fully with them for existent resources; their own internal structure was generally more complex than that of
previous species, comprising organs specialized in performing particular vital functions.
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) had already transposed Darwin's core argument to the course of human histo-
ry, emphasizing the salutary virtues of competition as the main promoter of social advance, triumphant at last
in the advance of modernity. However, Durkheim expressly denied validity to Spencer's utilitarian restatement
of Darwin's argument, contesting the fundamental role Spencer assigned to the human individuals’ egoistic
pursuit of their own private interest as the key mechanism of the whole process. They connected with one
another on their own initiative by means of contracts of their own making rather than by imposing or obeying
authoritative duties.
Durkheim had two main objections to this vision. First, individuals as Spencer construed them were them-

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selves produced by that process in its advanced phases. Previous to that, human beings had not perceived
themselves as of self-standing, self-activating, self-seeking entities. Second, not everything in contracts is
contractual. The making by individuals of particular mutual arrangements with the expectation of their being
duly executed, presupposes the institution of contract – a pre-existent set of general, binding, enforceable
arrangements establishing who could enter contracts with whom, about what, in what forms, to what effects.
In the name of such considerations Durkheim contested a recurrent motif in Spencer's thought, which had
attained large resonance within public opinion in England and threatened to do so also in France. Spencer
considered state institutions and policies as superannuated arrangements, damaging legacies of the past; for
Durkheim, however, the political activities that excited Spencer's indignation and hostility, continued to play an
indispensable role in fostering economic activities by conferring and upholding the rights of individuals. The
state could indeed turn despotic and oppressive, but ‘the social force it constituted could be neutralized by
other social forces counterbalancing it', especially by collective entities which encompassed significant plural-
ities of otherwise power-less individuals (Durkheim, 2018: 74).
In comparison with the temporal scope of Darwin's theory – which retrospects on nothing less than the advent
of life itself and its course over eons of time – the temporal scope of both Spencer's and Durkheim's theories
is relatively minimal, addressing exclusively events unfolding since the advent of human beings, and cov-
ered by pre-historical and historical scholarship on the basis of a variety of archeological and literary sources.
Spencer and Durkheim also share a prevalent interest in the nature and significance of what they consider
the major break within the unfolding of human experience. At a high level of abstraction, both of them con-
trast a before and an after within the apparent continuity of that experience, but differ markedly on how they
conceptualize that break.
Spencer focuses on what we might call the advent of modernity, a complex of relatively recent historical
events which he conceptualizes primarily as the transition from militant to industrial society. Durkheim views
this as an episode unfolding relatively late within a story that had begun long before, with the disappearance
at various moments and in various locales of societies we might summarily characterize as primitive.
According to Spencer, militant society, structured around relationships of hierarchy and obedience, was sim-
ple and undifferentiated: industrial society, based on voluntary, contractually assumed social obligations,
was complex and differentiated. According to Durkheim, however, the relationships of hierarchy and obedi-
ence structuring Spencer's militant society were themselves the product of a more fundamental evolutionary
process, affecting utterly simple societies, with small populations internally differentiated only by gender and
generation.
There may be a gradient of superiority/inferiority to this differentiation, but on the whole relations between
individual members of the population are tightly prescribed by universally recognized beliefs and norms. Typ-
ically their livelihood is chiefly secured (if at all) by shared access to the products of hunting and gathering,
practiced over the territory each population considers its own, on the basis of relatively elementary, tradition-
ally handed-down technology and knowledge. Durkheim characterizes as ‘segmental’ the relation between
two or more such populations whose territories lie next to one another. They may know of one another and
be similar, but between them there are few exchanges of communications or of products.
Each population of this kind reflects one answer to the dominant question in Durkheim's thinking, which can
be phrased as follows: ‘what makes a society hang together?'. He labels this one answer ‘mechanical solidar-
ity’ – the extent to which the individuals composing the whole population, due to the minimal extent to which
it is internally differentiated, unproblematically subscribe to and abide by the same beliefs and values.
The other answer Durkheim labels ‘organic solidarity'. It applies to societies generated by processes from
which primitive societies were typically excluded. Over time some of them, however, had come to terms with
one another's existence; their territories had come to overlap or had become the locus of intensified mutual
communication, becoming to that extent larger and no longer related ‘segmentally'. Their respective popula-
tions, now aware of different resources and techniques, have been induced to differentiate themselves inter-

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nally; their parts have engaged in diverse productive pursuits, and undertaken to exchange with one another
the respective products.
Over time, this same process has extended to the relations between populations previously juxtaposed with
one another. These innovations have often been refracted within previously separate sections of a society's
population, diversifying their particular needs, practices, expectations. The most visible – and consequence-
laden – aspect of such developments has been the distinction between town and country within previously
homogenous territories.
In turn, the activities carried out within towns may differ from town to town. They are also diverse within each
town, and divide the local population into sub-units associated with specialized productive and commercial
practices. No sub-unit aims at self-sufficiency, rather it seeks to exchange the products of its own activities
with those of others. The territory's physical structure itself is now marked by an increasingly extensive and
complex network of roads or canals which support the traffics in question. The network itself is internally dif-
ferentiated, with a particular unit playing a central role, mediating the exchanges between different regional
clusters.
In sum, we are now confronted by societies constituted, not by the replication of similar homogeneous seg-
ments, but by a complex system of different organs, each of which has a special role, and which themselves
are formed from different parts. The elements in society are not of the same nature nor are they arranged in
the same manner. They are neither placed together end-on, as are the rings of an annelida worm, nor embed-
ded in one another, but co-ordinated and subordinated to one another around the same central organ which
exerts on the rest of the organism moderating effects (Durkheim, 2014: 143).
Increasingly, the state monitors and controls the whole process, and on this account Durkheim denies validity
to the disparagement and hostility the state found in Spencer's views. In particular, it establishes and enforces
the institution of contract, allowing a multitude of private arrangements exchanging the products of multiple
parties to take place in an orderly fashion. The typical society in question is much larger than those we la-
beled primitive. It is highly diversified in terms not only of the resources it employs and produces but also of
the needs prevailing within its population and – as we might put it today – in terms of the identities of the
population's components, comprising highly distinctive and mutable sets of beliefs and values.
But one may detect some tension between on the one hand Durkheim's emphasis on the factuality of the
social phenomenon and on its thing-like nature, on the other the fact that at bottom, in both primitive and ad-
vanced societies the response to the question ‘what makes a society hang together?’ lies – to use a favorite
expression of his – in ‘répresentations collectives', ‘manières d'agir et de penser’ [‘collective representations',
‘ways of acting and thinking'], thus essentially in ‘things that people carry around in their heads'. Durkheim
appealed to this insight also to account for contrasting interests, irreducible animosities, hostilities, divisions,
especially in advanced societies – for instance the France of his times – where sometimes such potentially
disruptive phenomena found intellectual expression and justification in elaborate ideologies.
A great work of Durkheim, Le suicide; étude de sociologie (Durkheim, 1997) explored a further, somewhat
paradoxical import of this argument. Those ‘things that people carry around in their heads’ reveal their signif-
icance not only in conducts complying with them, but also in those contradicting, deviating from them.
All societies present, in different formulations, a strong, generally entertained expectation that their members
will not commit suicide even when they undergo at length disappointing, frustrating, painful experiences. This
is suggested by two different practices discussed in Suicide. On the one hand, many pre-modern societies
handle, and dispose of, the bodily remains of members who have committed suicide in ways which sym-
bolically indicate their strong disdain, spite, abhorrence, condemnation toward those members. On the other
hand, many modern communities only reluctantly attribute officially to suicide – over against, say, medical
conditions or accidents – the demise of particular members, in order to protect the social standing of their
survivors.

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Durkheim, however, gives a somewhat paradoxical twist to his own treatment of the suicide phenomenon.
Against the background of the expectation mentioned above, he sees the phenomenon itself as strongly in-
fluenced – and in a manner, caused – by the bodies of belief-and-thought prevailing in different societies. He
connects with this insight his own, original typology of suicide, based on the cultural makings not so much of
individual suicidal acts as of the different suicide rates characterizing particular social locales and historical
circumstances.
Consider first the type Durkheim labels altruistic suicide. It presents itself in societies (mostly primitive ones)
where the suicide rate expresses the prevalence of norms and beliefs which extol the significance of the com-
munity's own interests, and belittle that of the single individual's private interests. This may go so far as to
produce in some individuals a willingness, in certain circumstances, to place their very existence at the dis-
posal of the community; to sacrifice themselves in order to benefit somehow their community.
There is much historical and literary evidence for this phenomenon in pre-modern societies, which however
do not produce the kind of evidence Durkheim privileges in Suicide; largely derived from police sources, thus
carefully collected, quantitatively coded and processed via mathematical analysis (Selvin, 1958). Thus, his
discussion of altruistic suicide largely concerns its well-documented occurrence in one highly particular sec-
tion of contemporary societies – the military profession – where self-sacrifice is to an extent positively ap-
praised and symbolically rewarded.
In other societies, however, and signally in contemporary ones, the much increased incidence of the suicide
phenomenon largely concerns the type Durkheim calls egoistic. Here, the individual's private interests (not
necessarily economic ones; they may derive as well, say, from their intense commitment to a love relation)
have priority, and when they are threatened by a change in the circumstances (say, the partner's own commit-
ment to the relation is definitively withdrawn) the individual may feel irreparably hurt and damaged, deprived
of the main source of meaning in their existence. That may induce them to commit suicide. In altruistic sui-
cide the individual obeys the dutiful expectations issued imperatively by their collective belonging; in egoistic
suicide, the individual, so to speak, turns their back on the expectations of associates, even the closest ones.
Durkheim connects a third type of suicide, which he calls anomic, to a further, massive aspect of contempo-
rary culture. The term anomic is the adjectival form of ‘anomie', a noun meaning normless-ness – another
phenomenon characteristic of contemporary societies and causally associated (among other things) with the
increased incidence of suicide in them. In principle, even under contemporary conditions, individuals gener-
ally derive their views about reality, and the binding expectations orienting their conduct, from authoritative
complexes of norms and values they share with their fellow beings. However, two overlapping, imperious de-
velopments – on the one hand rapid changes in the economic conditions of society and in its cognitive and
technical resources, on the other the expectation that individuals will act more and more exclusively on behalf
of their own particular interests of whatever nature – render such complexes of norms and values less stable,
less generally known and subscribed to, thus less likely to provide individuals with moral guidance. This may
happen even when the norms in question have been produced, diffused and sanctioned by public authorities.
To contain such phenomena and reduce their problematical effects is a responsibility that falls largely on the
state, as we shall see later on.
Meanwhile, in any case, a change in the personal circumstances of individuals – paradoxically, even a positive
change in their economic position – may make it more difficult for individuals to attach an intensely felt mean-
ing to oneself, one's possessions, associates, prospects. Such meaninglessness in one's existence may be
very hard to bear, and in certain circumstances may induce individuals to do away with themselves on ac-
count of a feeling that they no longer have something to live for. One can account in this way, Durkheim sug-
gests, for the fact that – as he claims to find from contemporary data – in contemporary societies. suicides
may be rendered more frequent not only by suddenly deteriorating economic conditions but also by suddenly
improving ones, which may induce in them that very feeling.
However, in contemporary societies the appearance of such a distinctive, unprecedent ‘suicidal current’ – to
use an expression of Durkheim's – is only one, relatively minor, symptom of a general condition of anomy,

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which in turn is a crucial component of a broad, disturbing situation of crisis, the acute awareness of which
plays a major role in Durkheim's thinking and to an extent motivates it. Indeed, Steven Lukes characterizes
Durkheim as being ‘haunted by the idea of man and society in disintegration’ (Lukes, 1985, 218), connecting
him to the theme of social dissolution widely present in 19th-century French thought.
What motivates such concerns, for Durkheim in particular? Many developments in contemporary industrial
society, beginning with France, fail to fulfil or even just to approximate a condition of ‘organic solidarity'. They
are beset by tensions, riven by contrasts, by mutually incompatible attempts to impose the priority of the col-
lective interests of one part over those of other parts. Public discourse is largely carried out by the proponents
of incompatible ideologies, sometimes masquerading as scientifically grounded understandings of the way in
which society should be ordered, or trying to revive over-idealized past conditions or prospecting unattainable
future ones.
True, the former tradition-based attachment of individuals to their own ‘segmental’ society has been replaced
by new attachments, in particular those related to their occupational roles; but the content of these is con-
stantly altered by new technological developments, and above all they generate vis-à-vis other occupations,
antagonisms, the most significant (and disruptive) of which constitute the class conflict emphasized by vari-
ous forms of socialist doctrine.
All this renders problematical the assumption that in industrial societies the process of social and cultural
differentiation will be complemented and countered by a process of integration addressing in new ways the
question ‘what makes a society hang together?'. This can only take place if such societies operate a political
entity authorized and empowered to monitor, orient and control both processes. Again, on this entity – ‘the
state’ – falls the responsibility for ensuring that the on-going division of labor is accompanied by appropriate
developments of a moral nature – chiefly those promoting moral individualism as the dominant societal value
(Mueller, 2009). For this to take place the state must contrast and override the ‘spontaneous development’ of
two ‘abnormal’ forms of the division of labor – the enforced and the anomic form (Mueller, 2014: 82).
The enforced division of labor takes place when large numbers of individuals are compelled to accept disad-
vantageous occupational positions largely because they lack economic resources that would allow then for
advantageous ones. Durkheim is particularly sensitive to the extent to which the actual workings of the la-
bor markets systematically privilege individuals mobilizing resources handed down to them by their families,
rather than drawing primarily on their own natural capacities and their educational experience. This phenom-
enon appears illegitimate to Durkheim, who occasionally suggests it should be eliminated or moderated by
changes in the state's law of succession. He also shares some arguments (including some found in Marx) to
the effect that in the relationship between employers and employees is inherent at least the possibility of the
former exploiting the latter (Giddens, 1986: 30–1).
But there is another critical task for the state: it must not allow changes in the economic sphere and in the oc-
cupational structure to take place within an anomic environment, and must orient and control those changes
by means of appropriate arrangements in the political sphere – particularly the formation and when necessary
the reformation of public, enforceable, legal and administrative rules. Durkheim's more sustained treatments
of such matters are present not so much in his four masterpieces (Division of Labor, Rules of Sociological
Method, Suicide, Elementary Forms of Religious Life) or in other writings he himself published, but in a set
of manuscripts Durkheim drafted toward the end of the 19th century himself, and subsequently revised on
the several occasions in which he taught introductory courses in the discipline of sociology. Their content
is known to us chiefly from the notes he wrote to lecture from, edited as late as 1950 by a Turkish scholar
and published in Istanbul with the title Leçons de sociologie. They appeared in Paris that same year, and an
English version was subsequently published under the title Professional Ethics and Civic Morals (Durkheim,
2018).
I derive chiefly from this work what I consider the three most significant aspects of Durkheim's views concern-
ing the political management of the inherent tendencies to disorder that are inherent in contemporary society.
The following statement from an essay by Hans-Peter Mueller prospects the argument that follows, intended

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to complement what has been said before on the political aspects of Durkheim's thought,
If it is possible through institutional reforms to achieve smooth coordination between professional

groups, the democratic state, and the individualistic ideal, then the division of labor will create organ-
ic solidarity and ensure social integration. In Lecons de sociologie, (Durkheim) therefore outlines the
nomos of a functionally differentiated society and sketches a normative picture of a dynamic and just
social order. (Mueller, 1993: 98)
His views to this effect can be subsumed under three headings:
1) The state as the societal brain. In the context of the prolonged process which has rendered more and
more complex the structure of modern society, a properly constructed and managed state must monitor atten-
tively that process itself and as far as possible secure society at large from some of its potentially disruptive
effects. On this account, Durkheim proposes a view of the state which we might label cybernetic. That is: the
state has primarily the task of constantly obtaining and communicating knowledge as objective and up to date
as possible, about what goes on in the society at large whose parts continuously affect one another. On this
account the state should also decide what, if anything, can and should be done about such processes by the
governmental and administrative components of the political system the state itself lies on top of. It should
design appropriate authoritative arrangements but entrust their operation to those components, again moni-
toring their activities and modifying them if necessary.
Thus, Durkheim developed a view of the state as constituting ‘the brain, the cerebral-spinal system’ of society.
On this account, it is primarily the site of intellectual activities, operating autonomously on behalf of society.
‘When the State takes thought and makes a decision, we must not say that it is society that thinks and de-
cides through the State, but that State thinks and decides for it’ (Durkheim, 2018: 49). Essentially, the state,
is a group of officials sui generis, within which representations and volitions involving the collectivity
are worked out, although they are not the product of collectivity. It is not accurate to say that the state
embodies the collective consciousness … Rather, it is the centre only of a particular kind of con-
sciousness, of one that is limited but higher, clearer, and with a more vivid sense of itself.…We can
therefore say that the State is a special organ, whose responsibility is to work out certain represen-
tations which hold good for the collectivity.… distinguished by their higher degree of consciousness
and reflection. (Durkheim, 2018: 50)
2) Democratic processes of society-to-state information and guidance. However, the state does not only
transmit to the rest of the political system judgments and decisions elaborated by it on the basis of the in-
formation it possesses. It can do this promptly, competently, and efficiently, only if it can avail itself in turn
of information generated, and reliably conveyed to itself, from a diffuse set of listening posts, of sites self-
consciously reporting the needs, the resources, the successes or failures of an increasingly complex (and
increasingly dynamic) society.
Within the early history of the modern state, the standard arrangement to this effect was for outlying, largely
autonomous components of the political system not only to receive and act upon decisions elaborated on
and emitted by the state, but also to provide it with the kind of information we mentioned. In case of war,
say, the outposts of the state deployed military resources of their own on terms agreed with the state; during
peacetime, they managed some local fiscal arrangements whereby the state extracted and allocated its own
economic resources. Further inputs from below regarded the views and preference of local notables about
state initiatives concerning the territory.
Unavoidably, such information was often, so to speak, biased to favor the interests of the sources which gath-
ered and transmitted it – in particular, the interests of the local members of privileged strata. To counter such
an effect, in the course of its development the state relied more and more on personnel which it selected,
trained, appointed to special offices, and sent out to the various localities. In many cases it would not leave
the members of that personnel in particular localities long enough for them to become excessively sensitive

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to the particular needs of those localities and/or to those of the privileged strata.
The same effect was pursued (especially in Austria and Prussia) by selecting and training public officials with
reference to sophisticated bodies of academic knowledge concerning the proper handling of administrative,
economic and financial affairs. The activities of those officials were unavoidably oriented also by their career
interests, but these were considered by the state itself as more conducive to its own interests.
The communication upwards, to the state itself, of potentially significant information, massively increased its
own significance, from the 18th century on, with the advance of two phenomena. One was the increasing
reach and effectiveness of various kinds of public education agencies, which markedly increased the literacy
of the population, and thereby fostered the formation of bodies of opinion which, via the press, also vari-
ously dialogued or contended with one another regarding political affairs (Habermas, 1991). The other was
the democratization of political systems, thanks to which different judgments and demands concerning state
activities came to be legitimately transmitted to the state by its arranging periodic, regular electoral consul-
tations at various levels intended to select the personnel operating key public agencies and to have them
issue authoritative directives of public officials (Birnbaum, 1976). In Durkheim's cybernetic view of democracy,
this amounts to complementing the top-to-bottom transmission of information and decisions concerning policy
with a bottom-to-top transmission. In a democracy,
communications between the state and the other parts of society are many, and both regular and or-
ganized. The citizens are kept in touch with what the State is doing and the State is at given periods,
or may be continuously, told of what is going on in the deep layers of society. It is informed either
through administrative channels or by the voice of the electorate. (Durkheim, 2018: 92)
Only by availing itself of such a two-way process of communication can the state design and manage a project
ultimately intended to curb the anomic tendencies inherent in an advanced process of division of labor left
entirely to itself.
3) Durkheim's corporatist project. There is something paradoxical about a further component of Durkheim's
thinking about policy and the state. It expressed his intention to reform existent arrangements, enabling them
better to deal with contemporary and future conditions; but it was largely inspired by his views about earlier
arrangements, established in various parts of Europe in the course of early modernity, with distant precedents
in classical antiquity. The key aspect of those arrangements – mostly referred to by such expressions as cor-
porative order, corporativism – was the existence of groupings constituted by the practitioners of diverse ‘arts
and trades’ (to begin with, within single towns) in order to further the economic interests (in principle, private
interests) those practitioners shared with one another. Typically, such groupings – say, various guilds or co-
operatives – would impose on their own members some obligations, for instance, about whether and to what
extent they could add new members to their number, how and at what length these should be trained, what
techniques and materials members were allowed to use in production, how much they should charge non-
members for their products, etc.
The main intent of such arrangements was to limit the number of practitioners of a given trade, to prevent
them from competing with one another by producing novel objects or services and/or by adopting new tools
and practices, or by accepting low bids for their products. If complied with, those arrangements would es-
sentially place each grouping, in its dealings with others or with prospective customers, in the advantageous
position of a monopolist. This allowed each grouping to restrict the freedom of its members in order to pro-
mote its own collective interest, by exercising powers of public nature, normally vested in offices legitimately
managing a larger, more comprehensive collectivity. If this happened across a large number of diverse group-
ings in a given locale – a town, a market, a territory – their ensemble constituted an essential component of
the overall authoritative ordering of that locale. Often, the leading members of one or more groupings had
exclusive access to significant official positions in the overall political structure of the whole locale, often to
the disadvantage of those excluded from such groupings.
Durkheim objected to some effects of those arrangements, particularly the opportunity they had given in the

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past to some favored groupings to prevent, retard, bias the content of, the commercialization and industrial-
ization of some European economies. However, he also thought that an advanced economy would benefit
from a public recognition of the persistent significance for great numbers of individuals of their occupational
identities.
Optimally, this would involve the operation, within each major sector of the national economy, of a publicly in-
stituted agency, which Durkheim often called a corporation. Here, one organization representing the sector's
employers and one representing its work force, while continuing to pursue the interests of the respective base,
would cooperate with the appropriate governmental agency in designing the policies required by the sector
as such. Thus structured, the corporation would constitute for the state as a whole an intermediate layer of
authority, which would prevent the state's dangerous tendency to centralize all public activation and monitor-
ing of activities of an economic (and, increasingly, industrial) nature.
In a passage toward the end of Suicide, Durkheim argued his own preference, instead, for ‘the only decen-
tralization which would make possible the multiplication of the centers of communal life without weakening
national unity, what might be called occupational decentralization'. But this ‘can fulfil its destined role only if
[the corporation], instead of being only a creature of convention, becomes a definite institution, a collective
personality, with its own customs and traditions, its rights and duties, its unity'. All these aspects of its exis-
tence and its autonomy must be expressly established by the state by means of legislation, produced and
validated by constitutional legislation (Durkheim, 1997: 360).
Once so established, each corporation would perform two tasks. On the one hand, it would make competent
inputs into the making of appropriate public policies; of course, this required frequent and orderly consultation
between the corporation and of the relevant state organs, and as far as possible the joint formation of policy
and monitoring of its execution. On the other hand, each corporation would instruct and discipline its mem-
bers (both those organized by unions and those belonging to employer's associations) in order to assist the
responsible execution by the state of those policies.
Durkheim's corporatist proposal was controversial. In its revolutionary phase, with the Loi le Chapelier, the
French state had expressly abolished all intermediate bodies – most of which constituted by various ‘arts and
crafts’ – and had re-engineered its own structure chiefly with reference instead to the geographical compo-
nents of its territory, with each department been administered chiefly by a prefect appointed from the center.
The electoral system in Durkheim's time also emphasized local constituencies, in spite of the fact – he re-
marked – that the population had long become more and more mobile, the scope of that mobility often en-
compassed the whole national territory, and individuals identified with their occupation much more than with
their locality.
This suggested the constitutional changes he proposed. At bottom, their intent was to generate and manage
a new form of public morality – a key concern of his, variously echoed in many of his writings. Relations be-
tween individuals and between groups should express not only the parties’ pursuit of their own interests, but
also a respect for those of the other parties, and for the constraints imposed on each party by the shared
recognition of the legitimacy of those constraints, of their morally binding nature. Thus, relations should be
oriented not only by mere considerations of convenience, or by the awareness that the violation of those con-
straints would activate sanctions – but also by a recognition of the dutifulness of one's own compliant conduct,
by the activation of what one might call a sense for the ought-ness of some expectations
In principle, this should be the case – to a different extent and in different forms – in all social relations,
from those between individuals motivated by personal feelings, to those formed on the market resulting from
shared occupational memberships, or for that matter, from shared loyalty to one's country. Durkheim's last
masterpiece, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912) argued that there was a religious dimension to
all these manifestations of social life.
Durkheim defined sociology as ‘the science of institutions', that is of ‘ways of acting, thinking and feeling …
existing outside the consciousness of the individual.… but … endowed with a compelling and coercive power

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by virtue of which, whether he wishes or not, they impose themselves on him’ (Durkheim, 1982: 51). His work
presented and analyzed several institutions, for instance education, the family, contract, science. But religion
is the only institution to which he dedicated a whole book, which soon attracted considerable attention (there
was an English version as early as 1915) and is still widely recognized as a major contribution to ‘classical’
social theory (Durkheim, 1995).
He had expressed previously his professional interest in religious phenomena, but Elementary Forms of Reli-
gious Life approached them in a distinctive – and controversial – manner. It focused its discourse on a pecu-
liar set of those phenomena, those embodied in Aboriginal Australian totemism. Here all significant ‘ways of
acting, thinking and feeling’ of any given clan, have their source, and derive their unique significance for the
clan itself, from the reference to sacred entity. Typically, in the clan's natural environment there is present one
animal species, which the whole clan identifies with and worships. That is, it renews its collective awareness
of one set of beliefs and its commitment to one set of religious practices, via its members’ universal or near-
universal participation in periodic ceremonies. These celebrate the totem's virtues and evoke their abiding
significance for collective life at large, not just its religious aspects. The clan's totem – whatever its nature –
evokes in both the clan as a whole and its individual members, on the one hand a sense of submission and
dependence, on the other an exalting, empowering sense of self-identification with it.
Over the last few decades of the 19th century, and in first one of the 20th, Western explorers, missionaries,
traders, ethnographic scholars, had built up a considerable body of knowledge about totemism, and speculat-
ed on its relation with other, more familiar, such phenomena.
In the scholarly debate about which of these might represent the most primitive manifestation of religion,
Durkheim's Elementary Forms expressly argues that Aboriginal totemism is uniquely entitled to this position.
In the evolutionary framework of analysis put forward in Division, this turned all other religions, starting with
totemism itself, into successive products of one all-encompassing process of differentiation. Thus, a close-up
analysis of the Aboriginal variety of religion would contain general propositions valid for all religions, concern-
ing among other things their significance for other cultural and social phenomena. As Durkheim puts it in the
very first pages of Elementary Forms,
Whenever we set out to explain something human at a specific point of time – be it a religious belief,
a moral rule, a legal principle, an aesthetic technique, or an economic system – we must begin by
going back to its simplest and most primitive form. We must seek to account for the features that
define it at that period of its existence and then show how it has gradually developed, gained in com-
plexity, and become what it is at the moment under consideration. (Durkheim, 1995: 3)
Thus, the whole book developed insights it considered valid for religion-as-such, no matter how numerous
and diverse its manifestations had been across space and time. At bottom, the religious phenomenon ‘always
assumes a bipartite division of the universe, knowing and knowable, into two genera that include all that exists
but radically exclude one another’ which Durkheim labels as respectively the profane and the religious realm.
‘Sacred things are things protected and isolated by prohibitions; profane things are to those to which the pro-
hibitions are applied and that must be kept at a distance from what is sacred’ (Durkheim, 1995: 38).
On this account the human universe is structured by one critical, sharply asymmetrical relationship. Totemic
practices exhibit the typical attitude of individuals and groups regarding the sacred realm – an attitude of re-
spect, a reverence reflecting both the awareness of the realm's unique, sovereign power and significance,
and the individual's or the group's aspiration of be affiliated with it and protected by it. On the other hand, the
attitudes appropriate to profane things range from indifference to casualness, to an attention focused on such
things’ de facto usefulness or lack of it; they encourage or allow individuals and groups, as they seek their
own mundane advantage, to deal with such things matter-of-factly.
Religion's job, then, consists in positing and reaffirming that fundamental asymmetry. Against what? Against
the threat represented by an equally basic feature of the human being, which Durkheim characterizes as its
being homo duplex, two-fold man.

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What does this mean? I quote at length, below, from my chapter on Durkheim in a book I co-authored with
Giuseppe Sciortino,
As any other animal species, humans exist only as individuals; but two components operate in the
mental life of each one of them. The first is directly grounded in the individual's bodily, sensorial ap-
paratus, and primarily concerns desires and activities related to the natural needs associated with
its path from birth to death. The second component, however, is constituted by expectations, beliefs,
aspirations, understandings, and values that primarily derive from, and in turn orient, each individ-
ual's relationship to others, and manifest themselves in activities expressing solidarity, indifference,
or hostility toward some of them.… It owes its existence to the fact that, more than any other an-
imal, each human being is necessarily engaged in relationships with fellow human beings; thus it
is the source of the vast majority of the contents of the individual's mind.… These contents are not
simply juxtaposed with the bodily and sensory human apparatus; it is their task – while registering
the passions, instincts, and behavioral modalities that derive spontaneously from that apparatus –
to assert their own superiority over the first component, to orient the individual's sentiments and ac-
tivities toward needs and preferences beyond its own immediate survival and physical well-being.
However, the superiority of the second component over the first, though justified and necessary, is
intrinsically problematic. It does not result automatically from merely natural processes; nor does it
spontaneously generate congruent behavioral tendencies. Instead, it manifests itself by shaping af-
ter its own image, so to speak, the tendencies arising from the first component, or where necessary
by denying them expression and repressing them.
At the same time, the first component is not docile … it contrasts and resists the disciplines the sec-
ond seeks to impose on it. Therefore the relationship between the two components is irreducibly
contingent; it is never certain which in any specific case will prevail over the other…. If human soci-
ety is to establish and maintain itself, it is necessary for the second component to prevail over the
first, even if not always and everywhere. Such necessity descends from the fact that humans are
intrinsically social beings, and their sociality can be affirmed and maintained only if (at the least) the
majority of individuals in most circumstances orient their behavior to expectations expressing their
awareness of others and their needs, and comply with codes, criteria, and sentiments they share
with one another…. Each individual, in considering and addressing the others, abides by salient,
long-lasting, demanding constraints on conduct that reflect and affirm the superiority of the second
component. Normally, indeed, the interests the individuals share must prevail over those private to
each of them. (Poggi and Sciortino, 2011: 28–9)
Typical totemic rituals, according to Durkheim, acknowledge and affirm that superiority in a particularly im-
pressive, emotion-laden manner. They directly confront each individual member of the clan with its member-
ship as a whole, generating in it a ‘collective effervescence’ which not only reproduces in each individual
her/his awareness of the clan's demands and assurances, but reaffirms their significance for the group as a
whole. This effect, Durkheim suggests, finds a more or less distinct echo in all religious practices: they mo-
tivate in participants on the one hand a sense of dependency visa-à-vis the group, on the other a pride in
membership within it.
In 1889, in his Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, Robertson Smith had paid great attention to the
rituals of sacrifice (Adam & Charles Black 1889). Typically, such rituals involved killing a particular animal
victim, cooking and feeding it to the participants, thereby symbolically affirming the group's dependency on
the benevolence of its gods. ‘One of the most important functions that fall squarely upon the shoulders of the
deity is to see that men have the food they need to live.’ But Smith denied that an associated ritual – offering
some of the victim's remains to the gods themselves – credibly expressed the opposite symbolic meaning:
that the gods relied on such human offerings for their own subsistence. ‘It seems contradictory for the gods to
expect their food from men, when it is by them that man himself is fed.'
But Durkheim sees no contradiction here. As the ritual experience suggests,

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‘social life….unfolds as if in a circle. On the one hand man receives from society all that is best in
him…. Take away from him language, science, the arts, moral beliefs, and he descends to the lev-
el of animals…. On the other hand society does not exist and live except within and by means of
the individuals…. it possesses reality only to the extent that it maintains its existence within human
consciousness, and it is our task to guarantee such a position to it. Society can no more do without
individuals than these can do without society … Allow the idea of society to become extinct within
the minds of individuals, allow the beliefs, traditions, aspirations of the collectivity cease to be per-
ceived and shared by individuals, and society will perish.’ (Durkheim, 1995: 351)
Durkheim's view of the effects on the minds and actions of participants in ritual celebrations of the fundamen-
tal symbol of the clan – the totem itself – leads to a provocative question. If the totem ‘is at the same time the
symbol of the god and of the society, is it not because the god and the society are one and the same thing'?
His own answer to this question was definitively positive. It provoked much debate, and still does; some of the
interventions in the debate object that the answer unduly deifies society, others that it renders the religious
phenomenon too mundane. We cannot review the debate here, much less try to settle it. We might just say
that in Durkheim's judgment no society can do without something like a worship of itself.
One definition of religion in Elementary Forms complements somewhat the huge significance the whole book
attributes to ‘beliefs and practices', by adding to it what one might call an organizational component: ‘A society
whose members are united because they imagine the sacred world and its relations with the profane world
in the same way, and because they translate this common representation into identical practices, is called a
Church'. (Durkheim, 1995: 41). But in the rest of the work there is little sustained elaboration of this compo-
nent – except perhaps for its being called upon to separate religion from magic: ‘There is no church in magic
…The magician has a clientele, not a Church’ (Durkheim, 1995: 42).
Perhaps the main strength of ‘Durkheim-on-religion’ remains the central role played in it by the analysis of
myths and rituals. It was based on a large body of literature regarding, again, totemism and especially in its
manifestations in Aboriginal Australia, some of which he presents diffusely in – one might say – luminous
language. But some aspects of its content are rendered controversial, of course, by the fact that Division is
not based on data collected by the author in the course of author's own, original field research – Durkheim
never even traveled to Australia. It refers instead to data collected by other scholars, many of these seriously
challenged by successive sources.
‘Durkheim-on-religion’ has a further weakness, suggested by comparing it with ‘Weber-on-religion', which

expressly compares and contrasts a number of historically significant religions. Durkheim was interested of
course in the variety of manifestations of religion, as one can see, for example, in his comparison between
the contemporary suicide rates of respectively Protestant, Catholic and Jewish populations. But Elementary
Forms does not discuss that variety; rather, it assumes that the essential properties of totemism characterize
sociologically religion-as-such.
References
Birnbaum, Pierre, ‘La conception durkheimienne de l'Etat : l'apolitisme des fonctionnaires', Revue française
de sociologie, vol. 17, 2, 1976, 247–258.
Durkheim, Emile, The Division of Labor in Society. New York: Free Press, 2014.
Durkheim, Emile, The Rules of Sociological Method. New York: Free Press, 1982.
Durkheim, Emile, Professional Ethics and Civic Morals. London: Routledge, 2018.
Durkheim, Emile, Suicide: A Study in Sociology. New York: Free Press, 1997.
Durkheim, Emile, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. New York: Free Press, 1995.
Giddens, Anthony (ed.), Durkheim on Politics and the State, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1986.
Habermas, Juergen, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bour-
geois Society, Boston: MIT Press, 1991.
Lukes, Steven, Emile Durkheim: His Life and Work: A Historical and Critical Study, Stanford: Stanford Univer-
sity Press, 1985.
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Moore, Deborah Dash, ‘David Emile Durkheim and the Jewish Response to Modernity', Modern Judaism, vol.
6, 3, October 1986, 287–300.
Mueller, Hans-Peter, ‘Durkheim's political sociology', in Turner, Stephen (ed.), Emile Durkheim: Sociologist
and Moralist, London and New York: Routledge, 1993, pp. 95–110.
Mueller, Hans-Peter, ‘Emile Durkheims Moralpolitik des Individualismus', Berliner Journal für Soziologie, vol.
19, 2, 2009, 227–247.
Nisbet, Robert A., The Sociology of Emile Durkheim, London: Heinemann, 1975.
Pinon, Stéphane, ‘Le positivisme sociologique: l'itinéraire de Léon Duguit', Revue interdisciplinaire d'études
juridiques, vol. 67, 2, 2011, 69–93.
Poggi, Gianfranco, ‘The Place of Political Concerns in the Early Social Sciences', European Journal of Soci-
ology, vol. 21, 2, 1980, 362–371.
Poggi, Gianfranco and Giuseppe Sciortino, Great Minds: Encounters with Social Theory, Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2011.
Robertson Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites. Fundamental Institutions. First Series London:
Adam & Charles Black 1889.
Selvin, Hanan C., ‘Durkheim's Suicide: Further Thoughts on a Methodological Classic', American Journal of
Sociology, vol. 63, 6, 1958, 607–619.
• politics
• sociology
• political economy
• Émile Durkheim
• public administration
• attitudes
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n6

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Economic Analysis in Political Science
Contributors: James F. Hollifield & Hiroki Takeuchi

Chapter Title: "Economic Analysis in Political Science"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
Print pages: 64-82
SAGE SAGE Reference
Economic Analysis in Political Science

James F. Hollifield Hiroki Takeuchi
Rational Choice and Strategic Interaction

Most political scientists would agree that politics involves control, influence, power, or authority. If we add Max
Weber's concerns about government, legitimacy, and the state, together with Aristotle's more normative fo-
cus on issues of participation, citizenship, and justice, we have a fairly complete picture of what Robert Dahl
(1991) calls the ‘political aspect'. We can see immediately how politics touches every dimension of human
activity, including the procedural or distributional dimension – who gets what, when, how, why, and at whose
cost; the legal or statist dimension, involving issues of governance and legitimacy; and the ethical or norma-
tive dimension, which revolves around questions of citizenship, justice, and participation.
The study of politics, like economics, also involves preferences, interests, and trade-offs. But unlike econom-
ics, where the emphasis is on scarcity and efficiency, in politics the primary emphasis is on power, influence,
and authority, with strong ethical and normative overtones, concerning justice, membership, and citizenship.
In a free market, the allocation of scarce goods and resources takes place according to the logic of the mar-
ketplace (the price mechanism), that is, the interaction of supply and demand. The exercise of power, howev-
er, takes place in the ideational, legal, and institutional confines of political systems.
Then what have economic theories added to the study of politics? We know that politics, unlike economics,
is not interested narrowly in the allocation of scarce goods and resources. Although politics affects markets
through policies, laws, and rules that regulate competition, in a mixed capitalist system politics is not directly
concerned with the individual economic decisions of consumers and producers or the optimal allocation of
scarce resources. Nonetheless, politics, like economics, does involve choices and strategic interactions. This
is where those who advocate a positive approach to the study of politics join forces with economists to lay the
micro-foundations of political analysis. So-called rational choice approaches in political science share com-
mon assumptions with economists about human rationality and strategic decision-making, and they seek to
construct economic theories to explain political behavior (see also Paine and Tyson, Chapter 11, this Hand-
book).
The most common ‘economic theories’ of politics take rational choice approaches. They assume that individ-
uals are rational in the sense that they will make choices to ‘maximize their chances of achieving their goals’
(Geddes, 2003: 177). They give priority to agency (individual rational actors) over structure (institutions and
other political constraints). They assume that individuals have goals, and that institutions and other factors
affect individual strategies and preferences. In this framework, utility-maximizing individuals will do what they
can to achieve their goals, engaging in strategies to anticipate the actions of others (their opponents), who
will in turn anticipate the actions of the other side. Strategic interactions therefore refer to the ways in which
each individual not only looks out for his or her own interests but also takes into account the interests and
strategies of others. In this rational choice framework, conflict and cooperation, and the give and take of po-
litical life, are the result of myriad strategic interactions.
Rational choice approaches often use game theory to understand the complexity of strategic interactions in
situations of conflict. Developed by applied mathematicians in the mid 20th century, game theory is widely
used by economists and to an increasing extent, by political scientists. Game theory is not a ‘theory’ in the
sense of a set of claims, laws, or propositions about the way the world works. It is rather a method for con-
structing theories, and it offers the analyst a set of concepts and tools that enable her to formalize her argu-
ments. Game-theoretic analysis requires careful specification of the beliefs, wants, and needs of individuals,
and a clear understanding of what strategies are available to them. The need for specificity makes game the-
ory less useful as a tool for applied political and social science; nonetheless, it helps us to understand the
logic and structure of politics, whether we are studying domestic politics, international relations (IR), political

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economy, or public policy.
Strategic Interactions and Democracy

Economic analysis in political science begins with assumptions about individual rationality. Yet the problem
remains of how collective decisions relate to individual choices? To answer this question, social choice theory
focuses on how individual preferences add up to collective action, and what roles institutions play in ‘engi-
neering’ social choices. The disjuncture between individual and collective preferences is Condorcet's paradox
– the puzzle that calls into question the notion of majority rule, which is incapable of producing a stable re-
lationship between individual preferences and collective decisions. Kenneth Arrow (1963) seeks to address
the puzzle of how individual preferences affect collective choices, and he concluded there is no mechanism
short of a dictatorship that can achieve collective rationality. This is Arrow's impossibility theorem. Arrow's
theorem helps us to understand how democracies work. Arrow does not prove that collective rationality would
transitively guarantee the aggregation of individual preferences. Rather his theorem requires concentration of
power in the hands of a single decision maker or dictator. The main implication of Arrow's argument is that
institutions are the critical link in understanding how radically divergent individual preferences are translated
into collective action in rather stable ways.
Building on Arrow's social choice theory, William Riker (1980) states,
politics is the dismal science because we have learned from it that [unlike economics] there are no
fundamental equilibria to predict. In the absence of such equilibria we cannot know much about the
future at all, whether it is likely to be palatable or unpalatable, and in that sense our future is subject
to the tricks and accidents of the way in which questions are posed and alternatives are offered and
eliminated. (Riker, 1980: 443 italics in the original)
While Riker recognized the failure to find equilibria for collective rationality, he stressed the importance of in-
stitutions for the smooth functioning of a democracy. He answers the question of how democracies can reach
collective decisions despite the lack of equilibria in the following way: ‘[in a democracy] the way … tastes
and values are brought forward for consideration, eliminated, and finally selected is controlled by … institu-
tions. And institutions may have systematic biases in them so that they regularly produce one kind of outcome
rather than another’ (ibid.: 443).
Following Riker's expansion of Arrow's theorem, we must ask ourselves how institutions matter in democratic
decision-making. Many studies have debated whether and how institutional structures determine the exis-
tence and location of equilibria for collective choice. Anthony Downs (1957) argues that governments are not
really interested in maximizing individual voters’ preferences, but in maximizing votes tout court. In his analy-
sis, the sole point of politics is to gain and hold power; and in a two-party system, politicians must take posi-
tions as close as possible to the median voter. His view explains why candidates tend to become moderate
in the general election while they emphasize their party's ideologies – such as conservatism or liberalism –
during the party's primary election, especially in American presidential or congressional elections.
Voting has long been a principal subject of political science. Maurice Duverger (1954) pointed out that strate-
gic behavior of voters and candidates is heavily influenced by electoral institutions. Duverger's Law holds that
plurality voting in single-member districts tends to produce two-party systems, whereas voting based on pro-
portional representation or multi-member districts leads to multi-party systems and coalition governments. In
two-party systems, candidates have an incentive to obfuscate and avoid taking strong stands on key issues,
as they jockey for position vis-à-vis the median voter; whereas in multi-party systems, candidates have an
incentive to take stronger positions to attract a significant minority of voters, but their positions may change
once they enter a coalition government. Riker (1982) argues that Duverger's Law is applicable to many coun-
tries’ party politics controlling regionally – but not nationally – strong third parties. In retrospect, these argu-
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ments may seem obvious or almost self-evident; but they are in fact early examples of economic analyses in
political science, stressing the role of strategy, procedure, and institutions.
Following Duverger and others, we can see that political parties and electoral systems are the most important
institutions for the smooth functioning of a democracy. They translate and aggregate individual preferences
into policy. John Aldrich (1995: 76) argues that democracies would not work without parties, noting that ‘ma-
jority voting was highly unstable, shifting, and chaotic – just what would be expected in multidimensional
choices that lack preference-based equilibrium'. He shows how parties regulate the number of people seeking
office, and how they mobilize voters to achieve and maintain the majorities needed to implement policy once
they have gained power. As a result, ‘institutional arrangements could induce equilibrium where preferences
alone would not’ (ibid.: 77). By aggregating individual preferences, parties help to solve Arrow's impossibility
theorem; and they move society toward equilibria that make governing possible. Moreover, party competition
enables democracy to lead to political outputs that better the interests of its citizenry because of politicians
who face the real possibility of losing their next election. John Aldrich and John Griffin (2018) find that even
in the American South – where historically political parties were weak and underdeveloped – recently, a two-
party system has emerged, and party competition in the South has played the same roles as that of the North
for democracy to work.
The argument for the importance of parties relies heavily on economic reasoning, and it assumes that voters
are able to make informed choices. Studies of democratic elections, by contrast, have found that individuals
appear to know very little about politics (e.g., Lupia, 2016; Lupia and McCubbins, 1998; Page and Shapiro,
1992; Popkin, 1994). However, the fact that people lack information about politics does not mean that they
make random political choices. Arthur Lupia and Mathew McCubbins (1998: 5) argue that people ‘use a wide
range of simple cues as substitutes for complex information’ and choose elite cues among competing mes-
sages based on the credibility of the senders of the messages. As a result, voters vote as if they have suffi-
cient information to make reasoned choices. However, nowadays as people get news increasingly from social
media, voters rely less on expert opinion that includes multiple competing messages. Rather they are wed-
ded to monolithic perspectives that they want to hear, victims of selection and confirmation bias. Economic
analysis in political science can explain why and how social media have made it more difficult for democracy
to function and to produce stable governing coalitions.
Strategic Interactions and War

Economic analysis in political science abounds in the study of one of the most important issues in IR: war
and peace. At first glance, it is not surprising to see that states are more often than not in conflict, because
each state must pursue its own interests, maximizing its power and wealth in order to provide security. States
are trapped in a ‘security dilemma', which arises when efforts that states make to defend themselves lead
other states to feel less secure and to fear that they will be attacked. The logic of the security dilemma is
often explained in game-theoretic terms, using the so-called ‘Prisoner's Dilemma', whereby the two actors’
rational strategy to maximize individual payoffs creates a worse outcome than some other possible outcome
that would be better for both actors. This interaction captures why international cooperation is difficult under
anarchy: in the absence of enforcement mechanisms to punish defections, states can give into a temptation
to act unilaterally. The point is that states have an individual incentive to defect, which leads to an outcome of
mutual defection even though both would be better off with cooperation. In sum, the Prisoner's Dilemma pro-
vides the micro-foundations for realist theories of IR, which argue that states always will approach IR as a ze-
ro-sum (win or lose) game, thus leading to the anarchic nature of the international system (e.g., Mearsheimer,
2001; Waltz, 1979). While it may seem irrational for states to engage in an arms race, thereby increasing the
propensity to go to war and making it more difficult to resolve conflict through negotiations, conflict and inse-
curity, according to realists, are enduring features of world politics (see also David and Rapin, Chapter 83,
this Handbook).

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In the meantime, international cooperation is more likely if interactions occur repeatedly with the same part-
ners (Axelrod, 1984). In this situation – commonly known as the repeated (iterated) Prisoner's Dilemma –
actors find their best interest to be cooperating in every period if future payoffs are valued highly enough –
this is the so-called ‘shadow of the future’ and it forms a basis for cooperation in world politics. In this way, the
danger of war is lessened or eliminated through interdependence and institutions. The repeated Prisoner's
Dilemma lays the micro-foundations for liberal theories of IR (see Hellmann, Chapter 76, this Handbook). In-
terdependence and constant strategic interaction produce common interests and therefore decrease conflict
among states, reducing the role of military power and the insecurity it breeds. Institutions, then, both inter-
national and domestic, can mitigate the effects of anarchy and, as a result, there is opportunity for positive-
sum, mutually beneficial cooperation (e.g., Ikenberry, 2011; Keohane, 1984; Lake, 2011; McDonald, 2009).
Even under anarchy, international institutions help states to overcome the security dilemma and promote co-
operation by creating the expectation of repeated interactions across time and with multiple partners, defining
norms (standards of acceptable behavior), providing information about activities of other states, and creating
linkages across policy dimensions (Jervis, 1976; Martin and Simmons, 2001; Voeten, 2005). This logic of co-
operation suggests that alliances would work if states seize opportunities to cooperate over time and across
issues, and if each state trusts that the other states see the virtues of cooperation. If a powerful state accus-
es its allies of defection and free-riding, the shadow-of-the-future-based cooperation would not work and the
chance for peace and stability in IR will diminish. Hence, the iterative Prisoner's Dilemma suggests that the
America First foreign policy of the United States under Donald Trump will undermine international security.
War is an extremely costly way for states to settle their disputes (see David and Rapin, Chapter 83, this Hand-
book). Given the human and material costs of military conflict, why do states sometimes wage war rather than
resolving their disputes through negotiations? Motivated by this puzzle, James Fearon (1995) offers ‘ratio-
nalist explanations for war'. He postulates three mechanisms of how conflict escalates into war. He sees two
ways that miscalculation can lead to war. First, if there is uncertainty about an adversary's capabilities – such
as the size of the military, the effectiveness of military technology, the quality of leadership, the contribution,
if any, of allies; or if there is uncertainty about the adversary's resolve to fight wars, which raises questions
about how much each side values the ‘good’ that is in dispute and what the ultimate cost of war will be in
terms of blood (casualties), treasure (wealth), and domestic politics (whether the leader can stay in office) –
the international system will be destabilized leading to war. Second, Fearon sees three scenarios where war
may occur because of ‘commitment problems’ when states are unwilling to trust their adversaries to honor
a negotiated deal. The first scenario is that when the issue in dispute affects future bargaining power (e.g.,
strategic territory, weapons programs, etc.), the bargaining can fail if a state fears that its adversary will exploit
concessions to make further demands – this is the so-called dilemma of coercive disarmament. Moreover,
when the relative power of one side is expected to grow rapidly (e.g., rapid economic growth, acquisition of
new weapons, etc.), the declining state may have an incentive to fight now to prevent or slow the power shift,
and a war fought for this reason is called a preventive war. Furthermore, if the outcome of the war depends
on delivering the first blow, a first-strike advantage exists and creates incentives to engage in a preemptive at-
tack to take the first shot before the adversary does – a ‘guns of August’ scenario. In the last scenario, Fearon
discusses a problem that can prevent states from reaching settlements because the disputed good is indivis-
ible. Fearon (1995) and Robert Powell (2006) argue that we should be skeptical because claims that goods
are indivisible may reflect a bargaining position adopted for strategic reasons rather than a true description of
the good.
Fearon's rationalist explanations for war show us that a mutual (and rational) preference for peace is not suf-
ficient for states to overcome the incomplete information problem or the commitment problems. Threats may
lack credibility, because states generally have incentives to exaggerate and misrepresent their capabilities
and their resolve to fight. States have a big incentive to bluff; witness Saddam Hussein in the two Gulf Wars.
In July 1990 when Iraq was engaged in coercive diplomacy with Kuwait, both Iraq and Kuwait had the mis-
taken belief that the other side would cave. In such a situation, even though war is costly and regrettable
ex post, actions that entail a risk of war can be sensible ex ante. Meanwhile, in the cases of commitment
problems, states face a choice between war today on favorable terms and the threat of war tomorrow on un-
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favorable terms. The threat of war tomorrow diminishes if states can make credible promises not to use force
to revise subsequently the terms of the deal. However, it is difficult for a state to make such a promise in a
credible manner in the absence of any enforcement mechanisms, and hence a commitment problem arises
in IR where states interact under anarchy.
One of the enduring issues in the study of IR is the so-called democratic peace argument, with many com-
peting arguments about why there are few, if any, clear cases of war between mature democratic states. Why
is it that democracies do not fight each other? A common theoretical argument is rooted in the idea that de-
mocratic states experience a lower probability of war with one another due to domestic political constraints
and cooperation flows from a presumption of mutual trust and respect, and shared strategic interests (Doyle,
1986; Gowa, 1999; Russett, 1993). Democracy increases the political costs of war by making elected lead-
ers accountable to people who ultimately must pay the costs of war. The rationalist explanations for war can
shed light on this debate, focusing on how democracy influences bargaining interactions between states and
increases the chances that a peaceful settlement will be found. For example, Kenneth Schultz (2001) argues
that democracy increases transparency, which may help overcome the incomplete information and commit-
ment problems in strategic interactions between states, thereby reducing uncertainty about the capabilities
and resolve of democratic states. In addition, democratic leaders may be able to communicate their resolve in
a credible manner, because backing down from a threat creates public disapproval and democracy magnifies
the political importance of this effect (e.g., Fearon, 1994; Tomz, 2007). Yet the question remains, why are de-
mocratic states unlikely to fight each other but are more warlike in general? Some scholars suggest that while
fellow democracies enjoy a presumption of friendship, democratic publics treat autocrats with suspicion and
mistrust (e.g., Dixon, 1993; Mousseau, 1998; Tomz and Weeks, 2013). Rationalist explanations of IR interpret
this observation by pointing out that democratic states have preferences that favor compromise over the use
of force when bargaining with other democratic states. With this logic, in the extreme, autocrats are legitimate
targets for regime change, as, for example, when President George W. Bush argued that bringing democracy
to Iraq would advance US national security. In sum, economic analysis in political science suggests that the
two Gulf Wars occurred because of Iraq's failure to communicate credibly its capabilities and resolve, as well
as US lack of norms that favor compromise over the use of force against autocracies.
Strategic Interactions and Politics of International Trade

Economic analysis in political science also helps us to understand the politics of trade. Economic theory tells
us that free trade is beneficial (see also Stéphane Paquin, Chapter 74, this Handbook). Why, then, do states
not always embrace trade liberalization? Why has the international trading system been open only under par-
ticular conditions?
The core concept of the economics of trade, explaining how trade is beneficial for all trading partners, is com-
parative advantage. Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (1979 [1776]) suggests that there is a benefit to an
international division of labor whereby countries specialize based on skills or endowments. In this way, self-
interested economic exchange makes everyone better off through the ‘invisible hand’ of the market. Applying
Smith's theory to international trade, David Ricardo in On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation
(2015 [1817]) proposes the idea of comparative advantage: a system of free trade in which countries special-
ize in the areas where they have a comparative advantage, leading to the optimal allocation of scarce goods
and resources. ‘Comparative’ means that it is not necessary for a country to have an absolute advantage in
the production of a good or service. All countries have a comparative advantage, in that they can produce
some goods and services more efficiently than other countries; and trade will lead them to specialize. Thus, it
is wrong to say that trade is only beneficial for wealthier developed countries. Explaining why countries trade,
the Heckscher-Ohlin theory (H-O) takes the logic of comparative advantage a step further, pointing out that
countries will export goods that require large inputs of their more abundant factors, and import goods that
require inputs of more scarce factors. H-O theory explains trade based on factor prices and endowments. De-
veloping countries that are abundant in unskilled labor (or land) should export labor-intensive manufactured
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goods such as textiles and clothing (or agricultural products), whereas developed countries that are rich in
(human) capital should specialize in more high-tech products and services. In sum, comparative advantage
and H-O theory can explain why developing countries demand access to developed countries’ markets of tex-
tiles and apparel (or agriculture) – instead of protecting their own domestic markets – in trade negotiations.
Although economists make a strong case that trade is beneficial for global welfare, political scientists point
out that every country currently has at least some restrictions on trade, called protectionism, involving the im-
position of barriers to restrict imports. Why do governments restrict trade? Using the simple economic logic
of the Stolper-Samuelson theorem, which postulates that protection benefits the scarce factor of production,
Ronald Rogowski (1989) explains which interests will support protectionism and which will support trade lib-
eralization. According to H-O theory, countries export goods that are intensive in the factors of production that
are relatively abundant, while importing goods that are intensive in the factors of production that are relatively
scarce. Therefore, trade liberalization will increase the income of the relatively abundant factor by increas-
ing its exports, while decreasing the income of the relatively scarce factor by increasing import competition.
This logic suggests that the demand for protectionism should come from those whose income would suffer
because of trade liberalization. Applying this logic to the United States, which is a labor-scarce country com-
pared with developing countries, unskilled labor benefits from protectionism and loses from trade liberaliza-
tion with developing countries such as China and Mexico (Spence, 2011). In addition, the Ricardo-Viner mod-
el suggests that interests in trade may be industry-specific. Exporting industries want open foreign markets,
import-competing industries want to protect the home market to reduce competition, and industries using im-
ports as inputs want the open home market to be open to reduce production costs.
In sum, the Stolper-Samuelson theorem explains why unskilled workers support measures to restrict trade
that would benefit their industries. When the United States approved China's entry into the World Trade Orga-
nization (WTO) in 1999, labor unions representing autoworkers (the United Auto Workers), lorry drivers (the
Teamsters union), and dockworkers (the International Longshore and Warehouse Union) opposed China's
accession to the WTO. This is despite the fact that increasing trade with China would benefit their members,
by lowering prices for consumer goods, stimulating economic growth, and raising employment (Friedman,
2000). They fear that if worker incomes drop in import-competing sectors, trade would depress labor income
in all sectors, because unskilled labor is a substitute for trade, not a complement. Likewise, the Ricardo-Viner
model explains how protectionism may hit the firms that use imports as inputs. For example, the US imposi-
tion of tariffs on auto parts under the Trump administration hurt domestic auto producers that use imported
parts, even though Trump argued that tariffs would protect them. Car tariffs – presumably designed to protect
the jobs of US autoworkers – have raised production costs of car manufacturing in the United States, and as
a result in 2018 General Motors announced that it would close four plants in the United States and one in
Canada, cutting 14,000 jobs (Sandbu, 2018).
The Stolper-Samuelson theorem and the Ricardo-Viner model show that even if trade liberalization makes a
country as a whole better off, it creates winners and losers within the country, and it is the shifting constella-
tion of interests, according to Rogowski, that will drive openness and closure to trade. Even when there are
more winners than losers from free trade, the losers can be compensated with the winners’ gains. National
welfare can be improved by compensating with winners’ gains. Economic theory calls such a move Pareto im-
proving, which makes at least somebody (if not everybody) better off without making anyone worse off. What
policies mitigate the negative impacts of trade and create Pareto improvement? Economic theory assumes
that labor can move between different jobs with no cost. What this theory implies is that policies that lower the
cost for labor to move from a declining industry to a growing industry would lead to a Pareto improvement.
Social welfare policies such as improving unemployment insurance and enhancing job training are essential
to build support for free trade (Scheve and Slaughter, 2007). The cost of moving from one sector to another
would be high if a worker loses basic health insurance coverage when changing jobs. Therefore, a national
health care system would help to achieve a Pareto improvement. Perhaps most importantly, education reform
to improve basic skills in the workforce is key for workers in developed countries to compete with those in
developing countries in the global economy (Alden and Taylor-Kayle, 2018; Scheve and Slaughter, 2019). If
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the productivity of better-paid developed countries’ workers is the same as that of less-paid developing coun-
tries’ workers, developed countries’ workers will face downward pressure on their wages. While protectionism
neither builds the needed safety net nor makes its workers more competitive, it makes domestic producers
less competitive in the global market. As a result, economic growth is constrained, making it more difficult to
establish a safety net because of declining GDP and lower tax revenue.
The H-O theory, together with the Stolper-Samuelson theorem, explain why trade with developing countries
has led to reduced wages for many unskilled workers in developed countries, which has caused a protection-
ist backlash in the United States and other developed countries. During the 2016 US presidential election,
Donald Trump told workers that he would bring back unskilled jobs by restricting trade, foreign investment,
and immigration, campaigning on the nationalist slogan of ‘America First'. In fact, economic research shows
that trade with China has been responsible for a significant part of the decline in US manufacturing employ-
ment in the last two decades, and there is no evidence that trade with other developing countries is responsi-
ble for job or wage losses of US workers – in short, China is different. One study estimates that US trade with
China during 1999–2011 led to net job losses of 2.0–2.4 million in the United States (Acemoglu et al., 2016).
Another study finds that people who work in parts of the United States most affected by import competition
from China tend to have greater unemployment and reduced lifetime income (Autor et al., 2016). Still, other
studies argue that enhanced productivity because of automation has had a far bigger effect than import com-
petition with developing countries, pointing to the fact that US manufacturers have increased their productiv-
ity and need fewer workers. Although the US steel industry lost 400,000 jobs (75% of its workforce) during
1962–2005, its production did not decline (Collard-Wexler and De Loecker, 2015). Even though technology is
a bigger threat to unskilled jobs than trade, foreign countries – China or Mexico – are more convenient scape-
goats than machines or robots. Lawrence Katz, quoted in a New York Times article: ‘Just allowing the private
market to automate without any support is a recipe for blaming immigrants and trade and other things, even
when it's the long impact of technology’ (Miller, 2016). Edward Alden (2017) argues that the United States has
failed to adjust economic and trade policies to the new reality of an automated and globalized economy. As a
result, those who have lost the safety net see immigrants and trade as the cause of their economic difficulties.
Strategic Interactions and International Migration

Another field of study where economic theories help explain political outcomes is international migration – the
movement of people across national borders – which has been steadily increasing in every region of the globe
since the end of World War II (see Badie, Chapter 84, this Handbook). In 2017 approximately 258 million peo-
ple reside outside of their country of birth and over the past half-century individual mobility has increased at
a steady pace (see Figure 4.1). Tens of millions of people cross borders on a daily basis, which adds up to
roughly two billion annually. International mobility of people is part of a broader trend of globalization, which
includes trade in goods and services, investments and capital flows, greater ease of travel, and a veritable
explosion of information. While trade and capital flows are the twin pillars of globalization, migration is the
third pillar or the third leg of the stool on which the global economy rests.
Figure 4.1 Trends in international migration: A ‘Crisis'?

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Source: UN Population Division.
Migration is in many ways connected to trade and investment, yet it is profoundly different. People are not
shirts, which is another way of saying that labor is not a pure commodity. Unlike goods and capital, individu-
als can become actors on the international stage (they have agency) whether through peaceful transnation-
al communities or violent terrorist/criminal networks. In the extremely rare instances when migrants commit
terrorist acts, migration and mobility can be a threat to the security of states. However, many economic stud-
ies show that the benefits of migration far outweigh the costs (Martin, 2015). Immigrants bring much needed
manpower in demographically deficient countries, human capital, and new ideas (entrepreneurial know-how)
and cultures (diversity) to their host societies. However, in liberal democracies, they also come with a basic
package of (human and civil) rights that enables them to settle and become productive members of society, if
not citizens of their adoptive countries. Conversely, they may return to their countries of origin where they can
have a dramatic impact on economic and political development (Martin et al., 2006), with a brain drain turning
into a brain gain or brain circulation.
Migration and Governance

In strategic interactions over the issue of migration, international cooperation is difficult. Figure 4.2 highlights
the inadequacies of global migration governance compared to trade and finance. Why has no international
migration regime emerged to complement the Bretton Woods regimes for trade (General Agreement on Tariffs
and Trade (GATT)/WTO) and finance and development (International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank)?

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The answer lies in collective action problems. To date, unwanted labor migration is more of a nuisance for host
countries, especially from a political and security standpoint. Labor migrants are not fundamentally threaten-
ing, the building of walls along the US–Mexican border notwithstanding. Migration governance often is unilat-
eral and done on an ad hoc or bilateral basis. The payoff from international cooperation in the area of unwant-
ed labor migration is negative, and opportunities for defection from a global migration regime are numerous,
notwithstanding the new UN ‘global compact on migration.’ The possibilities for monitoring, enforcing, or de-
veloping some core principle of non-discrimination (as in the WTO) are minimal at this point, and there is little
or no reciprocity. Thus, states have a strong incentive to free-ride other states’ efforts, and international mi-
gration of all types poses a challenge for individual states, as well as for regional integration processes like
the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and for the international
community as a whole (Hollifield et al., 2014). That brings us back to the domestic level in our quest to un-
derstand migration governance and to explain why states risk openness, and it requires a political economy
approach.
Figure 4.2 A typology of international regimes
Despite its benefits, both economically and culturally, international migration is one of the most politically con-
troversial issues in developed countries. Reactive populism in Europe and the United States is nativist and
xenophobic, and immigration is a key issue for many voters, as evidenced by the British vote to leave the EU
and the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States. Four factors drive immigration policies:
economic interests (markets), cultural and ideational concerns, security, and rights (see Figure 4.3). Oppo-
nents claim that immigrants suppress the wages of native workers (markets), impose welfare burdens and
diminish citizenship (rights), threaten national identity (culture), and cause crime and terrorism (security). In
their research on public opinion, Gary Freeman and Alan Kessler (2008) find that opposition to immigration is
related not only to economic factors, such as job market threat from immigrants and higher taxes to support

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immigrants’ use of welfare programs, but also to non-economic factors, such as the desire for cultural homo-
geneity and a fear of loss of national identity (see also Huntington, 2004).
Figure 4.3 The dilemmas of migration governance
In ‘normal’ times, the debate about immigration control in liberal democracies revolves around two poles: mar-
kets (numbers) and rights (status); or how many immigrants to admit, with what skills, and with what status?
Should migrants be temporary (guest) workers, or allowed to settle, bring their families, and get on a ‘path
to citizenship'? To explain the push and pull factors of international migration, economic analysis assumes
individual migrants as preeminently rational, utility-maximizing agents (Martin, 2015). For example, George
Borjas (1990) argues that the welfare state itself is a significant pull factor because low-skilled migrants would
choose to migrate expecting that they can benefit from the recipient country's social welfare services after
admission. As a result, Martin Ruhs (2013) argues, there are trade-offs in the policies of developed countries
between openness to admitting immigrants (numbers) and the rights granted to immigrants (status).
Those who argue for the trade-offs between markets and rights assume that migrant and native workers are
substitutes, and hence that immigration harms native workers as their wages fall (e.g., Borjas, 2003). How-
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ever, migrants and native workers can be complements if they belong to different skill groups, so that immi-
grants may have a positive impact on the wages of native workers (e.g., Peri and Sparber, 2009). Accounting
for the complementarity effects, Gianmarco Ottaviano and Giovanni Peri (2012) find that in the United States
immigrants during 1990–2006 had a small positive effect on average wages of US-born workers (including
unskilled workers) and a substantial negative effect on wages of recent, low-skilled immigrants. This econom-
ic analysis draws two important policy implications: the more social mobility the workers – both migrant and
native – have, the more beneficial the arrival of migrant workers are for both native workers and employers,
and previous immigrants would lose from more immigration if they fail to raise their skill levels after arrival. In
other words, policies that increase workers’ social mobility would mitigate the negative impacts of immigration
and create a Pareto improvement. Thus, regulatory reform to create more flexible labor markets and educa-
tion reform to enhance skill levels of both native and migrant workers would be important to mitigate negative
public reactions to immigration.
The logic of collective action suggests that organized groups would have more impact on policymaking than
disorganized public opinion, especially in democratic countries where vote-maximizing politicians find it more
important to cater to influential interest groups (Olson, 1965). How do interest groups shape US immigration
policy at the sector level? Margaret Peters (2017) argues that firms that lobby for open immigration to lower
their labor costs when trade policy is closed will adapt to import competition by other means – such as in-
creasing labor productivity or closing their businesses – when trade policy is open. She states that trade liber-
alization and the increased ability of firms to move overseas has reduced the business community's pressure
for open immigration, empowered anti-immigrant groups, and spurred greater limits on immigration. Giovanni
Facchini and his co-authors (2011) assume that labor unions want restrictions on immigration – so as to main-
tain higher wages for native workers – while business groups want greater openness to immigration, and they
find that barriers to immigration are lower in sectors where business groups incur larger lobbying expendi-
tures and higher in sectors where labor unions are more powerful. In sum, economic analysis of international
migration suggests that business firms seek greater openness to immigration to confront import competition,
while workers demand greater controls on immigration when they fail to upgrade their skill levels and hence
have to confront the downward pressure of their wages due to automation – not immigration.
In times of war and political crises, the dynamic of markets and rights give way to a culture-security dynamic
and finding equilibrium (compromise) in the policy game is much harder – this is the policy dilemma facing
leaders across the globe in the 21st century. Cultural concerns – where should the immigrants come from,
which regions of the globe, with which ethnic characteristics – and issues of integration often ‘trump’ mar-
kets and rights, and the trade-offs are more intense in some periods and in some countries than in others.
Indeed, studies of public opinion toward immigration show that cultural concerns play a significant role in how
willing people in recipient countries are to accept newcomers (e.g., Hainmueller and Hopkins, 2014). For ex-
ample, in Germany, widely shared but wildly fabricated stories of Arab men raping Western women epitomize
the view that the newcomers with particular religious and ethnic backgrounds are defiling the nation (Eddy,
2017). Michael Lusztig (2017) takes issue with multiculturalists (Kymlicka, 1995), arguing that multicultural-
ism and other forms of culturalism pose a threat to liberal democracy. With the terrorist attacks of September
11, 2001 in the United States, and again with attacks in Europe on November 13, 2015, in Paris, immigration
and refugee policymaking has been dominated by a national security dynamic (with a deep cultural subtext,
fear of Islam) and the concern that liberal immigration and refugee policies pose a threat to the nation and to
civil society. In the United States, Donald Trump has stoked fear of immigrants to gain votes, and as a result
anti-internationalism has escalated from protectionism into xenophobia, nativism, and racism. Even though
immigration is not a cause of job losses, the perception that immigrants are ‘taking our jobs’ has proven to
be politically potent (e.g., Scheve and Slaughter, 2001). Those who feel ‘immigrants have stolen our jobs’ are
open to Trump's xenophobic one-way Twitter demagoguery of ‘we are deceived by foreigners'. Protectionism
and restricting immigration have become the rallying cry of anti-globalists. Without a social welfare safety net
that would create a Pareto improvement, those in the United States who feel left behind by globalization find
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immigrants and foreigners to be convenient scapegoats. However, the situation in Europe is different. Despite
strong welfare states, the fear of Islam and terrorism overrides the basic political economy dynamic of mar-
kets and rights (see Figure 4.3).
Migration Interdependence and International Cooperation

If the domestic four-sided game (Figure 4.3) is not complicated enough, it becomes more difficult by virtue
of the fact that migration control has important foreign policy implications. The movement of populations af-
fects international security, and in some situations like the partition of India or the breakup of Yugoslavia, it
can change the balance of power. Hence, political leaders are always engaged in a strategic interaction, a
two-level game, seeking to build domestic coalitions to maximize support for policy but with an eye on the for-
eign policy consequences (Putnam, 1988). Migration is an important factor driving economic interdependence
and creating an international labor market. The first rule of political economy is that markets beget regula-
tion. Hence, some type of a stronger global or regional migration regime is necessary to sustain open labor
markets. What will be the parameters of such a regime, how will it evolve, and how can economic theories of
politics help us to understand it?
One of the principal effects of economic interdependence is to compel states to cooperate (see the discussion
of trade in the previous section). Increasing international migration is one indicator of interdependence, and
it shows no signs of abating. From Figure 4.4, we can see levels of migration interdependence, with states
in Europe, North and South America, Africa and Asia relying heavily on migration for national development,
whether through labor migration (both high- and low-skilled) or income generators via remittances. As the
international market for skilled and unskilled labor grows, pressures to create an international regime will in-
crease. Economic theories help us to identify two ways in which states can overcome coordination problems
in the absence of a multilateral process that builds trust and reciprocity and thereby helps to overcome asym-
metries: (1) through the centralization of regulatory power and pooling of sovereignty (as in the EU), and (2)
suasion and ‘tactical issue linkage'.
Figure 4.4 Migration interdependence

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We already have seen an example of the first strategy at the regional level in Europe (see Fawcett, Chapter
80, this Handbook). The EU and, to a lesser extent, the Schengen and Dublin regimes were built through
processes of centralization and pooling of sovereignty. This was easier to do in the European context be-
cause of the symmetry of interests and power within the EU and the existence of an institutional framework
(the various treaties of the EU). It is much more difficult to centralize control of migration in the Americas or
Asia, for example, where the asymmetry of interests and power is much greater, and levels of political and
economic development vary tremendously from one state to another. Different from the EU, it is unlikely that
regional trade regimes like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Asia-Pacific Economic Co-
operation, or the Trans-Pacific Partnership (now Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pa-
cific Partnership) will lead quickly to cooperation in the area of migration. Nevertheless, the regional option
– multilateralism for a relevant group of states where migration governance is a club good – is one way to
overcome collective action problems and to begin a process of centralization of regulatory authority.
Most international regimes have had a long gestation period, beginning as bilateral or regional agreements.
It is unlikely, however, that an international migration regime (a Global Compact on Migration and Refugees)
could be built following the genesis of international organizations such as the GATT (now the WTO), the IMF,
and the World Bank, which provide a certain level of multilateral governance for the other two pillars of glob-
alization. In the area of migration governance, it is difficult to fulfill the prerequisites of multilateralism: indivis-
ibility, generalized principles of conduct, and diffuse reciprocity. The norm of non-discrimination (equivalent of
the most-favored nation status) does not exist, and there are no mechanisms for punishing free-riders and no
way of resolving disputes. In short, as depicted in Figure 4.2, the basis for multilateralism is weak, and the in-
stitutional framework is not well developed. However, this has not prevented the international community (via
the United Nations) from moving forward with a Global Compact for Migration, built around the principle of
‘safe, orderly and regular migration'. The challenge of course will be to convince the most powerful states, es-
pecially the United States, to support a multilateral process for global migration governance. For the moment,
the United States and other powerful countries (like the UK) are moving in exactly the opposite (nationalist
and unilateral) direction.
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With the asymmetry of interests and power between developed (migration receiving) and less-developed (mi-
gration sending) countries, suasion, including financial incentives, is the only viable strategy for overcoming
collective action problems, whether at the regional or international level. This game follows several steps. The
first step is to develop a dominant strategy, which can be accomplished only by the most powerful states,
using international organizations (like the UN) to persuade or coerce smaller and weaker states. From the
standpoint of recipient countries, the orderly movement of people, defined in terms of rule of law and respect
for state sovereignty, should be the principal objective of the powerful liberal states. From the standpoint of
the sending countries, migration for development, taking advantage of remittances and returns (brain gain)
or circular migration, should be the guiding principle of an international migration regime. Then, the second
step is to persuade other states to accept the dominant strategy. This will necessitate tactical issue linkage,
which involves identifying issues and interests not necessarily related to migration, and using these to lever-
age, compel, or coerce states to accept the dominant strategy. This is, in effect, an ‘international logroll'.
Such tactics will have only the appearance of multilateralism, at least initially. Tactical issue linkage is central
in negotiations between the United States and Mexico over the NAFTA (now United States-Mexico-Canada
Agreement (USMCA)) and over refugee flows from Central America. Likewise, migration management figured
prominently in negotiations between the EU and neighboring states, especially EU candidate countries in the
Western Balkans and Turkey. The third step for developed countries is to institutionalize this process. The
long-term benefits of such a strategy for recipient countries are obvious. It will be less costly to build a multi-
lateral migration regime than to fight every step of the way with every sending state, relying only on unilateral
or bilateral agreements. Multilateral processes may entail some short-term loss of control and sovereignty in
exchange for long-term stability and orderly migration based on rule of law. The payoff for sending states is
greater freedom of movement for their nationals, greater foreign reserves and a more favorable balance of
payments, increased prospects for return migration, and increases in technology transfers. Thus, it is poten-
tially a ‘win-win-win’ for sending and recipient countries and the migrants themselves.
Changes in the international system with the end of the Cold War have altered this game in several ways.
First, it has made defection easier. Since the 1990s, states have had a more incentive to free-ride by not co-
operating with neighboring states in the making of migration and refugee policies. Second, the new configura-
tions of interests and power make it more difficult to pursue a multilateral strategy for managing international
migration. In recipient countries, internationalist rights-markets coalitions of the left and the right (for example,
civil rights Democrats and business or so-called ‘Wall Street’ Republicans in the United States) have broken
apart. Instead, increasing polarization and politicization over immigration and refugee issues have led to na-
tionalist culture-security coalitions of the far left and the far right (for example, job threatened unionized work-
ers and economic nationalists). Yet liberalization and democratization in formerly authoritarian states have
dramatically reduced the transaction costs for emigration. Initially this caused panic in Western Europe, where
there was a fear of mass migrations from east to west. Headlines screamed, ‘The Russians are coming!'.
Even though these massive flows did not materialize, Western states began to hunker down and search for
ways to reduce or stop immigration. The time horizons of almost all Western democracies are much shorter
because of these changes in domestic and international politics since the end of the Cold War. The terrorist
attacks of the 2000/10s have exacerbated these fears, and migration and mobility are perceived by many to
pose a threat to national security.
If, as seems likely, the United States and the EU defect from international cooperation over migration and
refugee flows, such defections would alter the equilibrium outcome, making migration more costly in political
terms to all states and to the international community, and the economically virtuous process of increased
exchange and mobility would be reversed. International cooperation on migration depends on how the more
powerful recipient countries manage migration and whether they will pursue an aggressive strategy of mul-
tilateralism. To avoid a domestic political backlash against immigration, powerful liberal states must take the
short-term political heat for long-term political stability and economic gain, much as Angela Merkel and Ger-
many did in the face of the refugee ‘crisis’ of 2015–16. However, the asymmetry of interests, particularly be-
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tween developed and developing countries and short-term political considerations (countering the rise of the
extreme populist right) are too great to permit states to overcome problems of coordination and cooperation.
Economic analysis in political science suggests that even as states become more dependent on trade and
migration, they are likely to remain trapped in what James Hollifield (1992) calls a liberal paradox, needing to
be economically open and politically closed, for decades to come.
Conclusion
The election of Donald Trump to be President of the United States in 2016 poses a great challenge to the
economic analysis of politics, specifically rational choice theory. Trump's unpredictability questions one of the
key assumptions of rational choice: the consistency of each actor's preference ordering. Is Trump irrational?
We suspect that the reason why Trump is unpredictable is that his policy agenda has no basis in strategy but
relies instead on social psychology. New York Times columnist David Brooks (2017a) wrote: ‘It's not clear if
Trump is combative because he sees the world as dangerous or if he sees the world as dangerous because
it justifies his combativeness. Either way, Trumpism is a posture that leads to the now familiar cycle of threat
perception, insult, enemy-making, resentment, self-pity, assault and counterassault'. While many analysts
have struggled to identify a strategy behind his erratic pronouncements, it makes more sense to assume that
he chooses his policy positions based on preference ordering in a way to maximize his ego satisfaction. Even
if some in the Trump administration believe rulemaking through multilateral institutions benefits US strategic
interests, President Trump will not listen to their advice because he is impervious to strategic arguments, and
only responds to what satisfies his ego. He also attacks political institutions such as the separation of pow-
ers and freedom of speech because those institutions hurt his ego. For many of his supporters the less civil
he is the more attractive his rhetoric is, as his anti-institutionalist attitude and lack of civility are criticized by
those who, he tells his supporters, look down upon them (Brooks, 2017b). To understand the strong backlash
against a liberal, rationalist view of politics, may require us to make more room for interpretivist, social psy-
chological, and even Freudian approaches.
Perhaps, economic analysis in political science constitutes a ‘scientific revolution’ à la Thomas Kuhn (1962),
moving the study of politics away from its formal-legal and socio-psychological roots and in the direction of
more systematic and falsifiable propositions. However, the irony is that the study of economics and politics is
moving in opposite directions, with a renewed emphasis on socio-psychological approaches to the study of
markets and economic behavior. As our analysis of trade and migration show, Trump's seemingly irrational
behavior can be explained best by incorporating psychological factors into his preference ordering. Perhaps,
rationality and psychology will meet halfway and a true political economy will emerge; but this strikes us un-
likely because the objects and the subjects of inquiry are quite different. In a single essay, we cannot begin
to resolve the dispute between rationalists, social psychologists, and institutionalists. We instead fall back on
Max Weber who leaves ample room for rationalist and interpretivist approaches to the study of politics.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n7

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Functionalism and Its Legacy
Contributors: Timofey Agarin

Chapter Title: "Functionalism and Its Legacy"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
Print pages: 83-95
SAGE SAGE Reference
Functionalism and Its Legacy

Timofey Agarin
Introduction
Functionalism is a methodological concept explaining social phenomena by specifying an asymmetrical re-
lationship between the two objects under consideration. Functionalism in political science focusses on the
process of interaction between political institutions (e.g. parties in electoral competition or during government
formation), states (e.g. during regional integration) or international organisations (e.g. when negotiating eco-
nomic policies), with particular attention to growing integration of the interacting elements into a politically
and thus functionally consistent system. Functionalism rests on the assumption that phenomena can best be
explained in terms of what they do and what their impact is on other phenomena: it considers systems of in-
teraction among individuals and groups. A functional definition of functionalism can take the following general
form:
Given a system S in a certain state s with a structure T there is an activity a from the point of view of
the observer, regularly coming from an element E of T, and having an effect upon S or its environ-
ment.
The theoretical status of s can be either stationary (the most frequent case) or dynamic. If one can, with re-
sponse to a certain theoretical point of reference, claim a systematic relationship between a and s then E can
be interpreted as a ‘function'. It can also be interpreted as a ‘functional contribution’ to the maintenance of
S whether it means stability, identity, equilibrium or changing of S. This explanation of s neither involves an
explication of a's origin nor explains the causal nexus of its effects on s. For example, a political party can be
considered as contributing to the working of democracy without constructing this function as the cause of its
creation.
It is important to note that most functional explanations start off from the empirical evidence at hand: one
observes s and a, then one establishes the functional relationship between the two via abductive reasoning
from the features of T and E. As a projection of a future s, derived from T as a goal-orientated agent, under
the assumption that a's effect upon S is a functional prerequisite for the maintenance of it, one can equally
engage in predictive reasoning inferring the best possible explanation for potential outcomes. In case of a
role-differentiated organisation of parts observed, a prognosis of such a kind will become normative. It will
express the expectation that S, as a whole, will function in such a way as prescribed by its blueprint.
However, functional explanations only make sense under several conditions. If one states that general and
free elections in parliamentary systems have the ‘function’ of maintaining the circulation of political elites, then
one assumes a bottom-up nomination of candidates, and other functions of elections, e.g. representatively
giving shares to legislation to different groups of the population, are not excluded. Functional analyses are
based on assumptions of the already existing mid-range theories about social and, by extension, political sys-
tems broadly defined, but they are hardly able to generate mid-range theories by themselves. According to the
widespread usage of functional explanations, systems can be represented as institutions, religious behaviour
patterns, cultures, societies, etc., whereas a functionalist abduction may focus on different kinds of activity,
exchange, information, sanction, service, coercion, production and other forms of output from institutions. In
political science, functionalism emphasises the functions of political institutions, their interconnectedness and
the impact on the political process. This entry outlines the ideas at the origins of functionalism and describes
the main stages in its development (structural functionalism, neofunctionalism, equivalence functionalism),
before moving to the main criticisms of functionalism and concluding with its legacies found in political studies
today.

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Origins
The origins of functionalism can be found in much earlier works of classic social and political theorists. Mon-
tesquieu may pass for such an early proto-functionalist thinker. In his Spirit of the Laws (1748) he classified
the comparative studies of political systems, their legal orders as relatives – one may say functions – of their
physical, geographic, climatic, mental and cultural ‘nature', i.e. the structure of their external systems. The
respective legal principles activate the natural structures towards an outcome of political order, by which the
subjects are reminded of their duties and rights. The privileges of the nobility, for instance, are a function of its
freedom, whereas parliamentary power is one of the, as functionalists would relay, functions of constitutional
monarchy. At the same time, Montesquieu made it clear that important political functions can often be hid-
den from the common observer behind ostensibly incidental or useless symbols and ways of acting. As such,
Montesquieu drew distinction between effects and functions: the notion that functions are not necessarily the
effects of social action later became central to functional analysis.
An important predecessor of classical functionalism was Herbert Spencer who was characterised as the lead-
ing ‘social Darwinist’ and spelt out his views in Social Statics: or, The Conditions Essential to Human Hap-
piness Specified, and the First of Them Developed (1851). Spencer tried to explain the development of in-
dustrial society in an evolutionist way. According to him, the law underlying societal evolution proceeds from
the homogeneity of equal and independent parts to the heterogeneity of unequal and dependent ones. These
parts – institutions, groups, technologies, ideas, etc. – tend to grow in specification and, as a result, fulfil in-
creasingly specialised functions in society. The starting point of this process is population growth involving
functional prerequisites like advances in productivity, distribution or regulation. Social differentiation, function-
al specialisation and interdependence of parts offer the complex mechanics to the same social evolutionary
movement by means of feeding back one another.
One of the founders of modern sociology, Emile Durkheim, explicitly reflected on the ‘tool’ of ‘functional analy-
ses’ as a methodological programme, distinguishing it from the genetic causal explanation present in so-
cial science of the day. In his works, The Division of Labour in Society (1892) and Rules of the Sociological
Method (1895), Pace Montesquieu, Durkheim argued that to explain a social phenomenon one has to dis-
tinguish its generating cause from the function actually fulfilled by it. It is inadmissible to explain collective
phenomena in a utilitarian way because their respective functions can be originated from, or serve, different
purposes. At the same time, teleological-causal explanations are insufficient because a collective phenome-
non such as society does not constitute a consistently acting whole and more than just one purpose might be
served by one and the same action. Thereby Durkheim suggested that we ought to understand social phe-
nomena as emergents: these come into being as a result of an accumulation of aggregated individual actions,
or of unintended effects of purposeful actions. Thus, any social phenomenon emerges and tends to enhance
the importance of its function when individuals recognise the advantage gained from it and develop an inter-
est in optimising outcomes of similar actions in the future.
Overall, Durkheim was one of the first to conceptualise function as a self-reinforcing mechanism and a feed-
back system, suggesting both methodological approaches to untangling the mechanics of action from the
context in which it takes place. Durkheim demonstrates this through the division of labour, pace Spencer: the
increasing specialisation of occupations and social roles leads towards the growing dependence of actors
upon one another. As a result, human networks become closer knit and make the exchange of specialised
goods easier even outside of the tightly knit communities. Consequentially, organic solidarity, a social order
of morals sui generis, comes into being, divorcing individual trust in one another from the context of interac-
tions, regulated by socially policed regulations. In the course of the process of social differentiation, people
experience the secondary benefits of division of labour, such as the growth of economic productivity or dif-
ferentiation of the legal system. Finally, the division of labour results in new forms of production emerging at
the point in time t0 with an ever increasing specialisation at the subsequent point in time t1, consolidating and
feeding back on social progress with a growing functional complexity of societal system.
Building in part on Durkheim's observations on organic solidarity and in part reflecting the need for a detailed
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understanding of social practices, functionalist thinking dominated ethnographic and ethnological segments
of social science that ultimately became known as anthropology. From the Occidental ethnological point of
view, there was a strong temptation to interpret ‘unusual', ‘counterintuitive’ and outright ‘strange’ phenomena
by talking up the stability of the social order. Cultural systems played a central point of reference. Bronislaw
Malinowski (1944) and Alfred Radcliffe-Brown (1956), for instance, used this lens to explain the performance
of magic rites by the islanders of the Pacific. While Malinowski emphasised the physio-psychological functions
of need satisfaction and fear reductive function of magic rites, Radcliffe-Brown claimed that magic served to
ensure the survival of the group and to preserve the structure of the social system. In Structure and Function
in Primitive Society (1956: 394), Radcliffe-Brown maintained that ‘the concept of function applied to human
societies is based on an analogy between social life and organic life'. This paved the way for later efforts to
clarify the relationship between the elements of social and political systems by means of biological analogies.
For functionalists, many recurrent social or political activities, e.g. graduation ceremonies or electoral behav-
iours, function to maintain the stability that is required for the structural integrity of society and/or polity as a
system.
In his early English Villagers of the Thirteenth Century (1941) and in his classic The Human Group (1950)
George Homans presented an interesting proposition for ‘reconciling’ the different approaches by overcoming
the one-sidedness of both Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown. In reference to magic rites of extraeuropean so-
cieties, Homans opined that magic was initially performed in order to relieve stress and anxiety in dangerous
situations for the person performing (such as fishing at sea or child-bearing), to predispose a ghost to the
intent of the performer (such as ensuring a plentiful catch and guaranteed successful delivery of the child),
and to bring about the sense of normalcy, and hence confidence to the group (provided that the rites are
performed in the ‘right’ way by members). As such, magic rites are important group activities which strength-
en the bond and solidarity of the group, increasing the chances of group's, i.e. system's own survival while
overriding the effects of action for individuals. This process instils in its members a fear of punishment for
non-compliance through the rites that serve as a means of enforcing acquiescence with the existing norms.
Society therefore evolves from and beyond the individual members involved in such an activity that gener-
ates and consolidates conforming behaviour towards the norms in place; the violation of these norms would
have serious consequences for the group as a whole as well as grave repercussions for its members individ-
ually. By combining the psychological and the structural aspects of a functional explanation, Homans follows
Durkheim's proposition that functions are hybrid in nature and ought to be taken into account as such.
Thus, the most significant contribution made by the early functionalist approaches is in their offer of quasi-
theoretical conceptual schemata for conducting research. These were following an experimental design that
featured both the ‘relatedness’ and ‘connectedness’ of conditions, actors and outcomes of action, presuming
these are readily comparable. The two functions feature prominently in diverse social sciences operating the
functionalist approach and relate to the ‘system’ where the processes and their outcomes are nested. Howev-
er, early functionalism fails to convince the academic community as an analytic approach, setting few, if any,
independent standards for collection of empirical data, while at the same time making no claims to veracity or
offering causal explanations of social phenomena.
Structural Functionalism
Talcott Parsons’ The Social System (1951) is widely viewed as the culmination of classical functionalism in
the form of structural functionalism. Social systems, the point of reference for Parson's theory, have to solve a
limited number of general problems to stay in balance or indeed to maintain their existence. In the context of
modern society, ‘function’ refers to the solutions to such general problems. Some of the functions are exter-
nally directed: they provide for the adaptation of the system to its environment. Others are internally directed:
they are prerequisites for the integration of parts or for actors’ motivations. In his famous AGIL (adaptation,
goal attainment, integration, latency) scheme, Parsons specified the four main system-problems and related
them to the four subsystems, from which proceed the corresponding functions of problem solution. The func-
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tions are interrelated by processes of interchanging the special classes of ‘media’ that define their respective
outputs, as it were the material, psychic and social goods of energies in the metabolism of society. These
functions are geared towards system stability: ‘Since the structure of social systems consists in institutional-
ized normative culture, the “maintenance” of these normative patterns is a basic reference point for analysing
the equilibrium of the system. However, whether this maintenance actually occurs or not, and in what mea-
sure, is an entirely empirical question’ (Parsons et al., 1961: 37).
The conceptually nested series of (in the real world) interpenetrating but (analytically) distinct systems as-
sumes that each constitutes an ordered aggregate of some functionally organised entities. Each has a set
of specifiable boundaries such as system prerequisites and requisites and system-endemic mechanisms that
ensure either stasis, or dynamism for re-stabilisation of the system that is temporarily out of equilibrium. The
four system-problems are repeated on every subsystem level: these nest subsystems which are functionally
structured in the same way across the board. The social system as a whole is vaulted by the cultural system
as a total of legitimate values, norms and symbols; while polity is vaulted by and is a subsystem of the social
system. In Parsons’ view, the stability of a system at each level is a sign of its ‘consolidation', not of its inher-
ent conservatism, or lack of innovation indicating the preference to stability over change. Parsons writes,
The most essential condition of successful dynamic analysis is the continual and systematic refer-
ence of every problem to the state of the system as a whole … Functional significance in this context
is inherently teleological. A process or set of conditions either ‘contributes’ to the maintenance (or
development) of the system or it is ‘dysfunctional’ in that it detracts from the integration and effec-
tiveness of the system. It is thus the functional reference of all particular conditions and processes
to the state of the total system as a going concern which provides the logical equivalent of simulta-
neous equations in a fully developed system of analytical theory. (Parsons, 1949: 21)
One of the constituent parts of a system is adaptation (A) – i.e. system maintenance within the environment
– which is a function of the economy, including technology, labour and consumption, and the output of it flows
in the general form of (equivalence of) money. The attainment of goals (G) is guaranteed by the function of
the subsystem of polity which brings about the effects of control in the general form of power. Societal com-
munities contribute to this process of system integration (I) by providing for an optimal climate of morals, sol-
idarity and socialisation as well as by sanctioning the conformity of subsystems with values and norms (e.g.
by awarding prestige). Finally, latency (L), or pattern maintenance, typically arises from the fiduciary system.
The actors of this subsystem are sources of influence that ensure common interests, standards of profes-
sionalism and other forms of trust. The interchange between A and G, for instance, can be manifested by
the way that the law and political sanctions regulate the functioning markets, whereas the economic system
enables the functioning of the political system by providing revenues from, for example, taxes. Within the
subsystems, social roles – the intersections of structure and actor – are interlinking their components. They
represent the institutionalised expectations towards the occupants of social positions which are derived from
the given structure of social differentiation. Overall, the overlap of the subsystem-function dimensions across
the segments of the AGIL schemata ought to be accepted in order to match a special function with a given
part of the system.
For several decades, Parsons’ functionalist approach has been applied to various research contexts. Howev-
er, applying the AGIL model to empirical analyses involved some considerable compromises. Most critiques
of Parsons’ approach focussed on the inherent tendency towards an holistic view of society as an ‘actor’ with-
out any specification of the micro-foundations. This assumes the fiction of a system's tendency towards an
equilibrium, as well as the fiction of the common ‘goals’ of society, and their ‘teleological’ character, which is
hard to stomach for anyone lacking a belief in predisposed courses of social actions and their potential out-
comes. Equally, Parsons was reproached for having explained social change too simplistically by referring to
the interference from the environment or an internal accident, instead of taking into consideration the dynam-
ic features in the system's structure. Thus, Parsons’ functionalism is most useful for providing explanations
in social and political analysis in terms of ‘system maintenance', where ‘function’ suggests a programmatic

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orientation for outstanding empirical research of mostly post-factum character.
Parsons, and functionalists following his dictum have not been concerned with the ‘how, on what terms and
with what consequences’ for each ‘subsystem’ that the connection of their component parts and functions
bring. Rather, these scholars believe that functional analysis offers the context in which the answers to rela-
tional questions and the solutions to relational problems become ‘meaningful'.
This ‘open-ended approach to post-factum analyses’ of social phenomena was robustly criticised by Robert
K. Merton in Social Theory and Social Structure (1957). Rather than rejecting structural functionalism in total-
ity, he suggested revising it on many points. According to Merton, in a system, functions have consequences
which are intended or recognised; but there are also the ones that are neither intended nor recognised. There-
fore if functionalism is ‘expressed in the practice of interpreting data by establishing their consequences for
larger structures in which they are implicated', all consequences of all actions need to be taken into account
(Merton, 1957: 56).
Merton's critical innovation lay in the acknowledgement that not only observed consequences explain the
adaptation or adjustment (i.e. ‘functions') of any given system. Equally, he observed, consequences that
lessen the adaptation or adjustment of the system (which he referred to as ‘dysfunctions') play a role for
system maintenance. Thus, the ‘manifest’ functions are those objective consequences that are intended to
contribute to the adjustment or adaptation of the system and are recognised as such by participants, while
their correlate, ‘latent’ functions are neither intended nor recognised. These manifest functions arise as a re-
sult of cumulated effects from individual, intended action, typically a case of individual conformity to collective
rationality. On the other hand, latent functions arise from the type of collective effects that emerge beyond
the control by an individual, and when there is no matching of goals and consequences. Electoral outcomes
offer a useful example in the context: they are an effect of multiple individual intended (casting a ballot for a
distinct party) and unintended (abstaining from electoral participation) actions, while their manifest function is
a political representation of the diversity of citizens’ opinions, and the latent function could be government –
either by a single party, or by a governing coalition.
The distinction corresponds to the difference between ‘functional systems’ and ‘systems of interdependence’
suggested by the French sociologist Raymond Boudon in La logique du social (The Logic of Social Action,
1981). The first are goal-oriented systems of interaction that are regulated on the basis of reciprocal, spe-
cialised role expectations and are controlled by means of input–outputs assessments. Business organisa-
tions, universities, political parties, bureaucracies and so on, are of this kind. On the other hand, systems
of interdependence emerge wherever actors are interrelated, thereby losing (parts of) control over their ac-
tions, ultimately becoming involved in a complex structure that is non-transparent in its nature and its conse-
quences. If, for instance, at an election with three parties for selection, a clear ranking of votes is the result,
one usually would expect that the leader of the most successful party, A, was likely to become the next prime
minister. Yet in case of a proportional representation, together with an approved culture of forming a coali-
tion, he could come from the secondary party, B, as well, after the end of successful negotiations to come
along with party C, which has got the least number of votes – on condition that B's and C's votes add up to
more than 50%. In Merton's terms, the ‘manifest functions’ of parties is the selection of candidates and the
organisation and running of the elections around them, yet their ‘latent functions’ do not necessarily follow if
they are considered outside the ‘system of interdependence'. In electoral systems, the main feature of this
‘system of interdependence’ is that cabinet formation does not derive directly from the ranking of votes. Thus,
the ideal ‘function’ of democratic elections to provide for a freely elected government is but a latent function.
To understand this structure of emergence, it is necessary to find out the statistical as well as institutional and
procedural rules that are interdependently responsible for the composition of collective consequences out of
the individual effects of electoral action.
Recognising the difficulty to functionally analyse systems of interdependence, including that of ‘society', Mer-
ton has been somewhat sceptical of the fruitfulness a functionalist approach could have for empirical research

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as long as it did not set mid-range theories to its toe. He turned away from ‘big theory', instead pleading for
progress in developing less abstract, and less general, ‘theories of the middle range'. As a consequence, he
proposed to decompose the general concept of function, and to make a distinction between ‘function’ (in a
sense of adaptation or adjustment of a system), ‘dysfunction’ (as a consequence of an action destabilising
a system) and ‘non-functional consequences’ (irrelevant for the state of a system). For respective functional,
analysis supplied with higher concreteness and specification, he raised a number of criteria that once met
would allow for a more parsimonious approach for empirical studies and easier up-scaling for the purposes
of constructing a more encompassing mid-range theory, even if not a general theory per se. These criteria
included the following:
• The phenomena under consideration should have an institutional character and be standardised;
• Subjective moments of action should be taken into account, as well as the distinction between posi-
tive, negative and neutral consequences;
• The functional affected units should be specified, as well as the criteria of system maintenance;
• Functional alternatives should be specified with respect to their scope of application;
• Dysfunctions producing change should be identified;
• Comparative studies should be performed to better validate approaches of explanation;
• Features of actors, meanings, places and motivational and overt behaviour that are involved in the
pattern of action should be specified.
It is difficult to imagine that this demanding programme of assessing society holistically as a system of inter-
related parts would have been executed in a more or less coherent way as a whole. The usual restriction on
personal, material and temporal resources and on theoretical potentialities allowed only for selective imple-
mentation of Merton's approach in selected studies, which, however, have given inspiration to the segmen-
tal approaches in social and political studies on unanticipated consequences of purposeful action. His focus
on the organisation of social relationships implicating members of the society differently at various points in
time, and not at all times fully knowing what shapes their own thinking, has sustainably impacted the work of
his students, such as the American political scientists James S. Coleman and Seymour Martin Lipset. These
have become leading figures in political studies and helped legitimate the focus on the relational aspects of
individual and collective action in politics. Social sciences, however, should be most indebted to Merton for
his functional approach to the science of society overall, aptly summarised as ‘the functionally necessary de-
mand that theories or generalisations be evaluated in [terms of] their logical consistency and consonance with
facts’ (Merton, 1938: 326).
Equivalence Functionalism and Neofunctionalism

The work of Robert Merton was influential enough, yet not far enough to shift functionalism towards theories
of middle range, with some notable scholars having continued to work on a functionalist grand theory of their
own.
Jeffrey Alexander (1998) and other scholars made the next step in the further development of functionalism,
calling their approach neofunctionalism (1998). In accord with some of Merton's suggestions, the main as-
pects of their revision sought to preserve the main building blocks of Parsons’ ‘analytic model'. However, there
were no explications given neither on the methodological status of the concept ‘function', nor of a functional
explanation in Parsons’ work. This meant that the assertion about the tendency in the system towards ‘equi-
librium’ is hard to ascertain empirically. Alexander particularly sought to offset the inflexibility of the systems
theory approach by including ‘contingencies’ into individual action: the interrelations between cultural order,
as the frame of action, and the contingency of moments of actions in themselves, require methodological
tools from political studies, ethnomethodology, symbolic interactionism, etc. in order for the empirical analysis
of subsystems to be integrated with the functional assessment of the system. In so doing, Alexander critically
reviewed Parsons’ ‘idealistic view', that culture and values are nesting the social order, which in turn vaults
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the political order opining for an emphasis on the instrumental dimensions of social action, and as such fol-
lowing suggestions from the cognate mid-range, rational choice theories.
Following these criteria, Alexander (1998) analysed change in society rather than societal stability, breaking
with Parsons’ structural functionalism. His general contribution was that the established principles of social
actions are better able to resolve any acute problem in the process of multistage iterational interchange be-
tween conflictual actors and their practices that leads to the establishment of the new institutional structures.
This system-level, endogenous innovation can be usefully applied to justify the ongoing process of gradual
societal change without the fundamental revision of societal norms already in place. As a result of pressure
from this process, competing, contrasting interest groups form and stimulate one another, subsystems and
the system as a whole into action, i.e. change. Thus, it is functional to optimise as a result of internal differ-
ences so the numbers of alternatives are reduced step by step, and a generalisation of public discussion can
emerge as a new consensus. If, further on, under the pressure of ‘institutional entrepreneurs', it happens that
an established pattern becomes illegitimate, then an alternative wins out and is accepted as final by the ac-
tors. At the same time, the general value system is never questioned as such.
Similar concern for system stability in and of itself underpins the theory of autopoetic systems put forward
by Niklas Luhmann in Soziale Systeme: Grundriß einer allgemeinen Theorie (1984; Social Systems, 1995).
Luhmann claimed to have established a universal theory of social systems as well as proposed a new defini-
tion of ‘function’ that allowed for a larger scope of interpretations. In his approach, functions have both multi-
ple meanings for different actors, as already suggested by Durkheim, and also an ‘equivalent’ one: functions
serve as criteria for comparison of the actually identified functions with the virtual ones – i.e. some of the theo-
retically possible relationships in a system under consideration. The openness, indefiniteness and complexity
of this concept of function involve a comparative approach to functional explanations, distinguishing particular
system levels as well as system–environment differences. They are viewed as an expression of ‘unity and
difference', indicating contingent structures of the system. Underlying this approach sits Luhmann's general
commitment to forego the reference to ‘action’ and preference for ‘communication’ in his equivalence func-
tionalism to underline the interrelated and nested nature of system-immanent processes. Luhmann uses the
research question on the mechanisms of regulating the shortage of goods to illustrate his approach: at first
sight, it is easy to come to understand function as a combination of moral rules and economic mechanisms,
in order to compare its particular effects. Yet, the question of why shortages ought to be regulated could only
be dealt with in relation to the difference in system and environment (Luhmann, 1995: 404). The interface
between the two is therefore what explains the particular function that action plays for specific systems and in
specific contexts.
Criticisms of Functionalism
Functionalism as a tradition or a real ‘school’ culminated in the 1950s and 1960s and reflected a progressive
move from behaviourist explanations of political processes. However, from the beginning, the critics of func-
tionalism often put forward that the model of analysis advanced by its different incarnations suggests some-
thing about the societal and political phenomena which they study. Yet, the explanatory value is limited due
to the nature of the quasi-mechanical, if not outright homeostatic analogies that are employed for the expla-
nation of political processes in functionalist approaches. These analogies frequently use terms such as ‘pat-
tern maintenance', ‘adaptation to the environment', ‘goal attainment’ and ‘integration’ with little effort made to
specify the degree or measure these terms require to keep the system going before it finally fails.
It did not help that functionalism's aspiration for explanation was matched by its commitment to predict sys-
tems’ stability without the consequent verification of the object itself, i.e. defining what stability actually entails
in empirical terms. The substantive analogies offered by functional analyses often failed to convince scholars
interested in cause-and-effect relationships and served mainly as heuristic devices that were useful for tax-
onomic purposes, but rarely (if ever) in themselves as explanations. Functionalism delivered many ‘working
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hypotheses’ with an intention to offer an instrument for explanation, never an explanation by itself.
One of the central criticisms the functionalist approach was subject to was its overreliance on analogy with
the organic and specifically homeostatic physiology of political systems. More fundamentally, functionalism's
claim to becoming a grand theory without engagement with, or indeed developing any of the supporting mid-
range theories of its own, prevented its further development as a theory that was able to tackle increasing-
ly specialist questions and offer parsimonious explications of narrowly defined political problems of the real
world. The main criticisms that were launched against the ‘grand theorising', however, were too serious to
further permit its development in academia as a ‘school’ rather than as an ‘approach'.
Among the problems that weigh heavily on functionalism are the following:
• An inclination to holism, i.e. the view of societies as systems as well as their properties ought to be
viewed not as a collection of parts but as wholes, resulted in the neglect of the effects of action at the
micro- and meso-levels on the overall instability of systems. This required the focus on broad social
and political processes and analytical disregard for the varied effect of individuals, civic groups, par-
ties – in short, subsystems – on the persistence of polities and policies;
• An overemphasis on the equilibrium of systems, without explicating potential for change as a feature
of the structure itself. This resulted in functionalist studies analysing continuities rather than changes
and making them less appealing to the study of dynamics in the political system;
• A temptation to look at systems by analogy with organisms – i.e. institutions may in principle ‘function’
like organs of a living being, compounded with a tendency for teleological assumptions, even with
respect to systems whose structures were not created purposefully. Both these issues came into dis-
repute with the advance of constructivist methodologies, as well as anti- and post-positivist episte-
mologies which called for the focus on contingencies in the systems rather than on their immanent
certainties;
• Functionalism as a methodological approach that could be empirically tested and contribute to the
development of more specific, mid-range theories for political analyses has been significantly chal-
lenged by the growing need for policy-relevant explanations of social and political processes, rather
than systems as a whole. Functionalism's over-abstractedness was always pointed to lacking speci-
fication of origins, places and ranges of manifestation of functions the approach suggested to study;
• A lack of comparative studies for better validation of function detected as well as the identification
of functional equivalences has been somewhat revised since the scholarship of Gabriel Almond took
a foothold in political studies. Yet, rather than generalising the results of these studies into a grand
theory in the footsteps of functionalism, many of these have retained their place as theories of middle
range that explain some political processes but do not assert to offer comprehensive explanations of
political systems, or these being a part of social system.
Functionalism as either an analytic paradigm or a continuously developing research programme has had its
day, gradually losing its attractiveness. This was more due to the growing specialisation of social studies, than
to functionalism's own shortcomings. Since political studies from 1960s onwards have become established as
a science with a methodological preference for empirically testable, theories of middle range, the view of the
political system as a whole, made up of interdependent structures and mutually responsive processes that
tend to maintain relative stability and distinctiveness appeared too ‘grand’ to offer a research programme of
its own.
Relevance for Political Studies

For some time, functionalism played one of the most stimulating roles in the study of society, bridging the
disciplinary boundaries of social and political science. Building upon the work by Talcott Parsons, David Eas-
ton and Marion Levy particularly, Gabriel Almond contributed significantly to the popularisation of function-
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alism by using it in political development studies – in The Politics of Developing Areas (Almond and Cole-
man, 1960), and consolidating the approach in Comparative Politics: A Developmental Approach (Almond
and Powell, 1966). However, the ‘structural-functional approach’ in comparative political studies per se was
relatively short-lived, owing to its limited ability to deliver a rigorous scientific method for an empirical study of
some of the pressing problems of contemporary politics.
However, variants of (neo)functionalism have exercised impact in parts of comparative politics. Here, the con-
cept of function primarily refers to the instructional task, concern, responsibility or another aspect of purpose-
ful action done by, and respectively expected from actors, systems or strategies. Thus, ‘functions’ are under-
stood as intentional rather than emergent processes of collective effects of action. Furthermore, approaches
in political functionalism are often based on generalisations of empirical observations rather than on abduc-
tion from explicit theoretical or methodological principles. Common to these approaches is the conception that
political systems or processes (e.g. international affairs or European unification), can be better controlled by
crosscutting institutions (e.g. NGOs, experts or supra-regional networks of scientists) than by these closed
systems themselves (i.e. governments operating within the limits of their territorially defined sovereignty).
Processes of political decision chiefly run along the actual activities (‘functions') of these agents instead of
those done by formally legitimated authorities, who only validate the results. Therefore, certain needs or in-
terests of groups, who are the truly operating agents, have become the focal point of research, making use of
the ground-up, as well as analyses of interrelations.
In his 1966 paper, ‘Political Theory and Political Science', Gabriel Almond provides an example of a kind
of functional thinking in the ‘theoretical framework’ for comparative politics. After having subjected a great
number of states to comparative analysis, they generate a limited typology of functions, taken as inherent
processes of system maintenance in order to apply these to further cases. Then, the same procedure is ap-
plied with respect to the system units that are exercising functions, such as parliaments, executives, courts,
bureaucracies and so on. Due to their origin and direction, the functions are distinguished in the following
way: ‘system functions’ are settled in the domestic environment, including socialisation, recruitment and com-
munication. These are intervening conditions for the ‘process functions', consisting of interest articulation and
aggregation, policy making, policy implementation and adjustment. ‘Policy functions', as a result, operate as
the essential system outputs, subdivided into subsystem-specific ones, such as extraction, regulation and dis-
tribution. They react to the process functions, which form an interchangeable set of parameters for analysis
of similar dynamic feedback loops to apply to political systems of other states. In order to empirically test their
assumptions, functionalists operationalise concepts first to collect empirical evidence; these are then compar-
atively analysed in relation to the application of their functions in different real polities, i.e. systems; ultimate-
ly drawing conclusions about the implications of different functions in respect to policy development (e.g. in
comparative politics), as well as to the kind of relationships between the states (e.g. in international studies).
Earlier, Almond insisted that to assess the ‘functions',
[w]e mean to include not just the structures based on law, like parliaments, executives, bureaucra-
cies, and courts, or just the associational or formally organised units, like parties, interest groups,
and media of communication, but all of the structures in their political aspects, including undifferenti-
ated structures like kinship and lineage, status and caste groups as well as anomic phenomena like
riots, street demonstrations and the like. (Almond and Coleman, 1960: 8, emphasis added)
Beyond the studies on the interface of ‘society’ with ‘polity', there are two assumptions that underlie this appli-
cation of functionalism in multiple fields of political science. First, is that all societies share in the performance
of a number of crucial political functions and, second, that there exists a core of significant political tasks, anal-
ogously interrelated in all societies. The existence of core functions which are political per se allows analyses
of their interrelation across systems (i.e. polities that are subsystems of societies). This approach underpins
comparative analysis of political systems’ dynamics and stability. Because the input and output sides of func-
tions are interrelated, functionalists can study a significant component of the political process: this component
is ‘political culture’ that appears as a function on both sides of the distinct, system-endogenous process as

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cause and effect of change. For analytical purposes, it can be studied by sampling public opinion for atti-
tudes, beliefs, orientations, cognitions and such like, at two distinct time-points: as aggregated as a part of
the function of the political system and superimposed on political institutions ‘political culture’ is located on
the ‘input’ side of the political chart; at the same time, ‘political culture’ is a product of these same political
institutions (or ‘structures’ in the jargon of structural functionalism) and can be located at the ‘output’ side of
the political chart and is co-constituted with all other components of the system. In other words: as a result of
this approach, ‘functions’ are not defined as ex post facto interpretations of relations observed. Rather, they
are outcomes of institutions and agendas, which are a priori specified as indicators for data collection on the
basis of foreknowledge that is available to the researcher before sampling begins.
Crucially, in response to the group of deterministic theories of politics and structural functionalism, political
science has moved to historical institutionalism as one of the most productive approaches to study political
phenomena in the long-term perspective. In seeking explanations of distinctly national political outcomes and
in the assessment of political inequalities and of the institutional organisation of the polity, historical institu-
tionalism borrowed heavily from functionalism's view of the polity as a system of interacting parts. Although
historical institutionalists accept system complexity and, to a degree, the interdependence of its parts, they
do not view the social, psychological or cultural traits of individuals as the parameters centrally determining
the political system's operation. Rather, the institutional organisation of the polity is seen as the principal fac-
tor structuring the collective behaviour in society and generating opportunities for distinct outcomes for ac-
tors nested in the political system. Therefore, historical institutionalism puts the onus on the ‘structuralism’ of
structural functionalism over ‘functionalism’ which described political outcomes in terms of the system's own
response to the system internal adaptation needs. Historical institutionalists grant a great deal of attention to
the central concept of the school, ‘path dependency’ and ‘critical junctures’ where social and political systems
experience external shocks. This builds directly on the functionalism's commitment to explaining stability over
change in societies and polities.
Thus, many suggestions of classical functionalism entered the mainstream of social and political science,
such as the basic distinction between genetic-causal and functional actions, focussing ones’ attention on the
expected as well as on the unanticipated collective consequences of individual actions. Foremost, the atten-
tion to interrelatedness of the political background, be it institutions, actors or norms, and situational opportu-
nities to pursue or forego action have been extremely inspirational for contemporary political studies. Despite
the shortcomings that resulted from commitment to assessing rather than to analysing the relationships in
political systems, functionalism has allowed political studies to view political interaction as something more
than just simple and situational interpretations of actors’ and systems’ components. Being a ‘grand theory’ it
offered a comprehensive set of impulses to think of political system as a whole nested in social environment,
without precluding greater attention being paid by others to subsystems of politics, opening space for many
mid-range theories with a more specific focus.
References
Alexander, Jeffrey C. 1998. Neofunctionalism and After. London: Blackwell.
Almond, Gabriel A. 1966. ‘Political Theory and Political Science'. American Political Science Review 60 (4):
869–79.
Almond, Gabriel A. and James S. Coleman. 1960. The Politics of the Developing Areas. Princeton, NJ:
Almond, Gabriel, A. and Bingham Powell. 1966. Comparative Politics: A Developmental Approach. New York:
Little, Brown.
Boudon, Raymond. 1981. The Logic of Social Action: An Introduction to Sociological Analysis. Boston: Rout-
ledge & Kegan Paul.
Durkheim, Emile. 1938 (1895). The Rules of Sociological Method. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Durkheim, Emile. 1997 (1892). The Division of Labour in Society. New York: Free Press.
Homans, George C. 1941. English Villagers of the Thirteenth Century. New York: W.W. Norton.
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Homans, George C. 1950. The Human Group. New York: Harcourt College Publishers.
Luhmann, Niklas. 1995. Social Systems. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1944. A Scientific Theory of Culture and Other Essays. Chapel Hill, NC: University of
North Carolina Press.
Merton, Robert K. 1938. ‘Science and the Social Order'. Philosophy of Science 5 (3): 321–37.
Merton, Robert K. 1957. Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat. 1748. The Spirit of the Laws.
Parsons, Talcott. 1949. The Structure of Social Action. Volume 2: Weber. New York: Free Press.
Parsons, Talcott. 1951. The Social System. New York: Free Press.
Parsons, Talcott, Edward Shils, Kaspar D. Naegele and Jesse R. Pitts. 1961. Theories of Society: Founda-
tions of Modern Sociological Theory. New York: Free Press.
Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred R. 1956. Structure and Function in Primitive Society. Free Press Edition.
Spencer, Herbert. 1851. Social Statics: Or, the Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, and the
First of Them Developed. J. Chapman.
• functionalism
• legacy
• political systems
• political parties
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n8

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Feminist Political Science
Contributors: Marian Sawer

Chapter Title: "Feminist Political Science"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
Print pages: 96-113
SAGE SAGE Reference
Feminist Political Science

Marian Sawer
A Short History
The normative underpinnings of feminist political science date back to the French Revolution and Mary Woll-
stonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). This first major challenge to the exclusion of women
from political citizenship was followed by William Thompson's Appeal of One Half of the Human Race (1825),
a book he described as the ‘joint property’ of himself and the Owenite feminist Anna Wheeler. By the middle
of the 19th century John Stuart Mill, in collaboration with Harriet Taylor, was further developing the argument
for why women needed the vote. The Subjection of Women (1869) described the abuse of male power in the
family as evidence for the claim that women could not rely on men to represent their interests; for this they
needed the vote. Moreover, the law had allowed the family to be a ‘school of despotism', inculcating habits of
mind incompatible with free and equal citizenship.
While the normative arguments for women's political equality inspired the women's suffrage movements of
the late 19th and early 20th centuries, feminist political science only dates from the arrival of what is often
called the ‘second wave’ of the women's movement. Before this renewed mobilisation of women in the late
1960s, political science largely assumed that the absence of women from public life was a condition rather
than a problem. While women had achieved full political rights in most democracies, it was still expected
that their citizenship duties would be fulfilled mainly in the home. When Maurice Duverger undertook the first
cross-national survey-based research on women's political participation, under the auspices of the Interna-
tional Political Science Association, he noted that one of the difficulties was that political scientists asked to
provide information often regarded its purpose ‘as a secondary one, of no intrinsic importance’ (1955: 8).
From its beginnings in the 1970s, feminist political science introduced into the discipline the values, cognitive
frames and organisational philosophy being articulated by the women's movement. It was critical of what was
seen as the complicity of political science in keeping politics as a male domain (Bourque and Grossholtz,
1974: 225). Moreover, it challenged the way that political science had restricted the definition of politics to
formal political institutions and had taken male politics and male political behaviour as the norm. Because
political science had regarded women as a group as politically irrelevant it had not taken interest in the forms
taken by women's political activity, the sources of women's subordination or the gendered nature of power.
Basic Theories and Concepts

One of the distinguishing characteristics of feminist political science has been its normative commitment to
producing knowledge that will advance gender equality. In other words, there is a commitment not only to
sharpen the focus of the discipline by introducing a gender lens, but also to contribute to the goal of greater
social and political equality. This normative commitment is at odds with a behaviouralist emphasis on ‘val-
ue-free’ political science. Feminist political science emerged at a time when behaviouralism was largely de-
termining (at least in its North American hub) what was regarded as authoritative knowledge production in
political science. The explicit articulation of standpoint was regarded as exhibiting a lack of objectivity and
hence feminist political science was discounted as a contribution to knowledge.
In contrast, feminist standpoint theory argued for the epistemological advantages arising from a subordinate
if essential position in the social division of labour (Hartsock, 1987). Those engaged in the marginalised work
of caring have to negotiate the conflict between their own versions of reality and those of dominant groups,
providing new insights and knowledge. In terms of the research process, feminist political science has em-
phasised the need for reflexivity about power relations and the values the researcher brings to their research
– sometimes referred to as the ‘feminist research ethic'. Reflexivity may entail disclosure of embodiment and
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standpoint, including lived experience of discrimination and marginalisation but also of relatively advantaged
locations. The normative component and emphasis on reflexivity are unifying characteristics of feminist re-
search, which otherwise now varies widely in its research methods, often combining quantitative and qualita-
tive approaches. The one approach that has not been taken up is that of rational choice; the rational choice
assumption, borrowed from economics, of autonomous utility-maximising individuals has seemed incompati-
ble with gendered understandings of political life.
Moreover, it is important to recognise that not all ‘gender’ research should be characterised as feminist polit-
ical science: for example, sex-disaggregated research into electoral behaviour may lack any theoretical con-
nection to the ‘collective endeavour of feminist scholarship’ (Ackerly and True, 2013: 137). On the other hand,
such research may be theoretically informed and very aware of its ‘usefulness’ – for example the work of
Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris (2000) on the development of the ‘modern gender gap’ whereby women
were shifting leftwards of men in advanced industrial societies.
The Public/Private Divide

From the beginning, feminist political theory has challenged the traditional public/private divide that defined
the limits of public realm and the domain of political knowledge. Political science had inherited the public/
private divide of classical liberal theory that separated the realm of politics and public regulation from the pri-
vate realm of the family and civil society. The feminist challenge preceded the arrival of the second wave of
the women's movement, having been central to ‘feminist writing and political struggle’ for some two centuries
(Pateman, 1998: 281). Feminist theorists drew attention to the interdependence of the public and private and
the political nature of the power relations found in the private sphere. John Stuart Mill, for example, was out-
spoken in The Subjection of Women about the inequality of the marriage contract upheld by both statutory
and common law; its consequences were the abuse of male power in the form of domestic violence and mar-
ital rape. Marital inequality was also harmful as a preparation for democratic citizenship; children needed to
experience relationships of equality within the family if they were to relate as equals outside. Domestic tyran-
ny could prepare neither men nor women for democracy. This theme, of the need for egalitarian family rela-
tionships as the basis of the public virtues of citizenship had also been adumbrated by Mary Wollstonecraft
(1792).
The arrival of the second wave of the women's movement saw the sharpening of the challenge to the public/
private distinction under the widely used slogan ‘the personal is political'. Originally this was a title given to an
essay by Carol Hanisch that was published in Notes from the Second Year: Women's Liberation (1970). In the
essay, Hanisch contested the characterisation of women's liberation consciousness-raising groups as a form
of therapy and argued that on the contrary they were a form of political action. Women's liberation members
had been ‘belittled’ for bringing so-called ‘personal problems', like body issues or demands that men share
the housework and childcare, into the public arena. Rather, she said, ‘One of the first things we discover in
these groups is that personal problems are political problems. There are no personal solutions at this time.
There is only collective action for a collective solution’ (Hanisch, 1969/2006).
Feminist critique of the public/private distinction was associated with a critique of other gendered dichotomies
such as that between reason and emotion. Reason had been associated with the masculine public sphere,
while intimacy and emotion were associated with the private sphere in which women were located. Such dis-
tinctions obscured the role of emotion in political life while at the same time suggesting that women were
not suited for public roles. Moreover, the association of emotion with the private sphere was increasingly dis-
placed by the recognition of how emotional labour was being required in many areas of paid work, particularly
in female-dominated occupations such as flight attendants (Hochschild, 1983).
Pateman continued to engage with the complexities of the public/private divide in classical liberal theory,
where a public/private dichotomy, based on the state and civil society, had concealed the family within the
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latter. In her powerful revisioning of the story of the social contract and the genesis of the liberal state she
argued that hidden in the social contract was a sexual contract. While patriarchal power was overthrown in
the public realm and civil society was created, the fraternal contract upheld the power of men over women in
the private realm (Pateman, 1988).
While critical of the way in which the public/private dichotomy had shielded the structures of women's oppres-
sion from public scrutiny, feminists had differing views concerning values that might be threatened by state
interference with the private realm. For example, Jean Bethke Elshtain was wary of the ‘overpoliticization’ of
intimate relations and ‘the total collapse of public and private as central categories of explanation’ (Elshtain,
1981: 217). On the other hand, the late Heather Brook examined the many forms of the regulation of intimacy
to be found in the ‘conjugal body politic’ and the continuing role of marriage and marriage-like relations in
producing political subjects (Brook, 2002).
Nonetheless, making the family the object of political analysis was to have a global policy impact as we shall
see below in relation to domestic violence policy. Today violence against women is the issue most often cited
by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries as their top gender equality
issue (OECD, 2017: 85).
Feminist Institutionalism
Methodologically, extending the scope of political science to include the ‘private’ realm of emotions and inti-
mate relations has meant drawing on different disciplines and research methods. One approach from within
the discipline that has proved useful for this purpose is that of new institutionalism. Concepts derived from
new institutionalism such as path dependence, critical junctures and the importance of timing and sequence
were now given gendered constructions, as was the idea of institutional logics of appropriateness. The em-
phasis on the significance of informal rules and norms in shaping expectations and practices illuminated the
gendered logics at work in different kinds of political, governmental and judicial institutions, as well as the in-
stitutions of everyday life (Chappell and Mackay, 2017).
Institutional ‘stickiness’ and the resilience of hidden practices helped explain the subversion of institutional
change, despite the introduction of new formal rules (Curtin, 2019: 125).
This feminist engagement with new institutionalism gave rise to a new theoretical framework known as ‘fem-
inist institutionalism', which sought to identify how the interplay of formal and informal rules and the embed-
ded nature of gendered codes of behaviour affected the possibilities for institutional change. The concept of
‘nested newness’ helped explain why even where feminists had helped design new political institutions, over-
arching institutional and cultural legacies could reassert their own logic of appropriateness (Mackay, 2014).
Building on the emphasis on informal rules has been rich ethnographic observation of the rituals through
which politics is performed. Such observation has illuminated the experience of those who are political out-
siders in terms of gender or other forms of difference and what happens when they enter public spaces such
as parliaments (Puwar, 2004). Attention to the rituals and symbols through which politics and political repre-
sentation is performed also highlights its emotional dimension and its intertwining with other aspects of culture
and the social order (Rai and Spary, 2019: 14–15).
Gender-Responsive Budgeting
In terms of public policy, the contribution of feminist scholarship has been of two major kinds. First, since the
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1970s there has been strong development in the applied analysis of gender impact on policy and budget de-
cisions. This started from the premise that no policy or spending decision is likely to be gender-neutral in its
effects, given the very different location of women and men in the social division of labour and the skewed
distribution of paid and unpaid work. Ester Boserup's book Woman's Role in Economic Development (1970)
was a foundational work, leading aid agencies to start moving away from the assumption of gender neutrality
in development assistance. It compared the differing roles played by women in agriculture in different con-
tinents and how women's work in subsistence agriculture and household production was left out of official
statistics, leading it to be overlooked and undervalued. It showed that development policies designed to assist
the movement of men into cash crops in Africa could result in increased burdens on the women left behind in
the subsistence sector.
In many countries, public policy had also been based on untested assumptions of pooling of income in the
household. From the 1970s feminist political scientists contributed both basic and applied research on how
to embed gender-based analysis into public policy making and to create national accounts that were more
inclusive of non-market work and environmental values (Waring, 1988). From the time of the UN's First World
Conference on Women in 1975 the World Plan of Action promoted national machinery to ensure the gender
impact analysis of policy, and from the 1980s there was the adoption and diffusion of what became known as
‘gender-responsive budgeting'. This involved close analysis of the gender effects of budgetary decisions in
order to pre-empt decisions that would increase gender inequality, by overlooking the gender segregation of
the labour market or the relationship between paid and unpaid work.
From the 1990s the embedding of gender analysis into the machinery of government became known as ‘gen-
der mainstreaming’ and feminist scholars contributed valuable insights into the political opportunity structures,
women's movement strategies and evolving international and regional norms that contributed to successful
mainstreaming (for example, Chappell, 2002; Walby, 2005). Research into political opportunity structures in-
cluded the gendered opportunities and constraints posed by federalism and multilevel governance, meaning
that political architecture was now conceived as extending above, beyond and below the analytic frame of the
nation state (Haussman et al., 2010).
While in the 1970s and early 1980s there had been lively debates over whether it was possible to promote
a transformational agenda through patriarchal institutions, by the 1990s there was no longer much support
for the view that state institutions were governed by a unitary logic. Instead, there was increasing recognition
of the possibilities created by feminist institution-building within national and transnational institutions and the
role of ‘inside agitators’ or ‘femocrats’ (Eisenstein, 1996; Banaszak, 2010). The term ‘femocrat', invented as a
term of abuse for feminists who took up women's policy positions in Australian government, subsequently en-
tered into international usage in a more neutral sense, to refer to feminists in government, whether in women's
policy positions or elsewhere (Sawer, 2016). The rise of feminist international relations contributed, as we
shall see, to greater awareness of the leverage for domestic actors provided by norm building within transna-
tional institutions, while large-scale comparative research on women's policy agencies highlighted the factors
which made such agencies effective or ineffective in transmitting women's movement policy frames into gov-
ernment.
An important aspect of the political opportunity structure was that of discourse, and feminist scholars began
paying increased attention to discursive struggles and the effects of policy framing in closing off or opening
up policy options (Lombardo et al., 2009). For example, if domestic violence is framed in terms of family dys-
function or problematic individual behaviour it results in a very different policy response from if it is framed in
terms of gender inequality (Johnson, 2019: 199). Similarly, policy responses to breastfeeding are likely to be
very different if it is framed as a contribution to the economy and public health, or as a lifestyle choice.
Discursive framing has been analysed not only for its effects on policy choices, but also for its strategic role

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in social movement policy influence. A good example of a successful discursive strategy was the reframing of
the absence of women from public decision-making as a democratic deficit (Sawer, 2019). A good example of
unsuccessful policy framing was the women's movement demand in the 1970s for ‘free community-controlled
24-hour childcare'. Intended to exhibit sensitivity to the needs of low-paid shift workers who needed childcare
outside normal business hours, this slogan instead contributed to perceptions that those involved in women's
liberation were unnatural and wanted to get rid of their children.
Major Advances, Ongoing Debates, Critical Assessments

Key concepts that have informed much feminist political science and are the focus of attention here are
those of descriptive and substantive representation and the relationship between these. In the 1960s Hanna
Pitkin had distinguished systematically between forms of representation in terms of ‘standing for’ (descrip-
tive or symbolic representation) or ‘acting for’ (substantive representation') (Pitkin, 1967). While the justice
arguments for women to have equal political rights played an important part in the suffrage movement, they
were often coupled with expectations that women would make a difference to the masculine norms of politics.
When the demand for equal representation of women in public decision-making began bearing fruit in the
1990s there was sometimes disappointment that it did not bring about more change in political culture.
Pioneering work on the barriers to the legislative recruitment (descriptive representation) of women began ap-
pearing in the 1970s and a sophisticated supply-and-demand framework was developed by Pippa Norris and
Joni Lovenduski (1995). This was applied by Norris and Mona Lena Krook (2014) to the new institutional con-
text introduced by quotas, to examine the effects on both supply (willingness of women to run for office) and
demand (constraints and incentives for gatekeepers). Other work adopted a feminist institutionalist framework
to emphasise the interaction between formal and informal rules in institutions of recruitment and the gendered
mechanisms of continuity and change (Kenny, 2013).
The fall in the early 1990s in the average representation of women in national parliaments shook any assump-
tion of an inevitable if gradual increase in the participation of women in public decision-making. The advent
of democracy in post-communist states could not be guaranteed to advance the political equality of women
or even to maintain existing levels. Thanks to the successful discursive strategy already noted, the absence
of women from public decision-making became a major concern for the proliferating democracy assistance
programmes designed to assist transitional democracies.
The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) had already institutionalised its continuous monitoring of the represen-
tation of women in national parliaments and this became a key indicator in the assessment of the quality of
democracy. Its convenience meant it was also seized upon for the gender equality indices developed by in-
ternational standard-setting institutions such as the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the OECD.
While the representation of women's interests was sometimes cited as an additional indicator of the quality of
democracy (Lijphart, 1999: 314–18) this was conceptually complex and much more difficult to operationalise
than counting the number of women in parliament and the Cabinet.
Nonetheless, feminist political scientists had begun investigating carefully the relationship between the de-
scriptive presence of women in politics and substantive outcomes including the representation of women's
interests. Women's interests were initially conceptualised as arising from women's specific relationship to re-
production and the division of labour in private life. It was forcefully argued that these were political interests
despite arising from outside what had been deemed the political sphere (Sapiro, 1981). Some made the rather
different case that the presence of women and minorities in legislatures was needed to ensure that a diverse
range of life experience, including experience of group-based discrimination, was brought to bear on public is-
sues (for example, Phillips, 1995; Mansbridge, 1999). Iris Marion Young (2000) also stressed the importance
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of representing perspectives arising from the history of social group relations and structural oppression. She
suggested that those belonging to a social group might share a perspective arising from social location while
having differing ideas and interests; it was important for democracy to ensure the inclusion of such under-rep-
resented perspectives. Earlier, Young had written about how women convert from being a serial collective,
defined by structural constraints such as enforced heterosexuality or the sexual division of labour, to being a
social collective or group, defined by a shared project such as changing those constraints (Young, 1994).
Another approach was that of the French concept of parité, which suggested that the representation of women
in politics was important not for the representation of different interests or perspectives, but because the ab-
stract individual or republican universalism was universally either male or female. Hence, parity was required
to preserve the principle of universalism rather than to represent a multiplicity of interests, as quotas were
seen to do (Tremblay, 2018: 146–9).
Critical Mass
One explanation for the failure of newly elected women to change the nature of politics centred on the concept
of ‘critical mass'. Rosabeth Moss Kanter (1977) had published a very influential work exploring the effects
of relative proportions on group behaviour within corporations. She found that where there was only a token
presence of a group there was overwhelming pressure to overcome the distrust associated with being visi-
bly ‘different’ and to survive the additional scrutiny involved. Such pressures could lead to over-assimilation
to dominant norms and dissociation from other members of the minority group, in the desperate attempt to
be accepted. It could also affect both perceived and actual performance. Kanter suggested such pressures
diminished as minorities grew larger and that when they reached somewhere between 15 and 40% they were
able to exercise greater influence on the organisation. Kanter's work prompted wide discussion among fem-
inist activists. For example, in debates over why elected women were not ‘making a difference’ a proportion
of 30% was suggested, as the minimum required before such impact was likely to occur. This proportion was
labelled ‘critical mass’ – a term taken from nuclear physics and indicating the quantity that would trigger a
chain reaction.
Danish political scientist Drude Dahlerup was the first to explore the relevance of Kanter's work and the re-
lated concept of critical mass to the role of women in parliamentary politics. She concluded by querying the
relevance of the critical mass concept to the social sciences and suggesting that the willingness and ability
of members of minority groups to engage in critical acts was perhaps more important than the mechanical
effect of numbers (Dahlerup, 1988). She was also critical of what she called the ‘difference fallacy’ – the as-
sumption that a key measure was whether differences could be identified in the political priorities of women
and men. She pointed out that women's influence might have changed party agendas and hence the priorities
expressed by both men and women. Her criticisms have been taken up by others, who have emphasised the
significance of critical actors and enabling institutional contexts, regardless of relative numbers.
Nonetheless, the idea became popularised that when women move from being a small to a large minority in
parliament constraints would be lessened and they would find it easier to engage in acts of substantive repre-
sentation. This became an important argument for gender electoral quotas and was endorsed in international
jurisprudence. For example, in 1997 it was reflected in a General Recommendation on Article 7 of the UN
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women:
Research demonstrates that if women's participation reaches 30 to 35 percent (generally termed a

‘critical mass'), there is a real impact on political style and the content of decisions, and political life
is revitalized. (CEDAW, 1997: para 16)
Gender Electoral Quotas and Policy Diffusion

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A large quota of literature emerged to evaluate quota strategies and the factors needed to make them effec-
tive. This included the fit between quotas and electoral systems and the use of appropriate incentives and
sanctions (for example, within the public funding framework) to increase the number of women candidates
put forward by political parties. Caps on campaign expenditure and political donations could also help level
the playing field for women candidates. Another issue that gained increasing attention was whether ‘quota
women’ were less qualified or more dependent on male political leaders. The early leaders in the develop-
ment of this literature were Drude Dahlerup (2006) and Mona Lena Krook (2009) and both were also involved
in the setting up of the global database capturing the diffusion of legislative and other forms of quotas around
the world (see ‘Empirical Databases’ at the end of this chapter).
The rapid diffusion of electoral gender quotas (adopted by some 140 countries by 2018) helped inspire the
growing feminist literature on transnational norm diffusion. This had begun with observation of the similarly
rapid diffusion of the concept of gender mainstreaming, following the Fourth World Conference on Women
at Beijing in 1995 (Keck and Sikkink, 1998; True and Mintrom, 2001). An international movement embodied
in feminist officials and networks and drawing on feminist political science had been able to promote gender
mainstreaming as an important element in evidence-based policy or of the modernising of public administra-
tion.
Observation of such diffusion became an important part of feminist innovation in both international relations
(IR) and political science. In particular, this new literature emphasised the dynamic nature of norm diffusion
and the role of both transnational advocacy networks and local civil society actors in the process of norm evo-
lution. The role of transnational advocacy networks and feminist officials in institutionalising norms at interna-
tional and regional levels reinforced efforts by local actors. By moving away from the notion of fixed content
of norms, this new scholarship drew attention to how local actors adapted ‘the meaning of a norm to fit with
prior norms and identities’ (True, 2019: 138).
Feminist studies of policy diffusion threw light not only on the rapid spread of gender mainstreaming agendas
around the world, but also the rapid diffusion of other policy agendas including electoral gender quotas, vio-
lence against women policy and climate change strategies. Special attention was given by IR scholars to the
dissemination of the UN Security Council's Women, Peace and Security policy agenda, particularly UN Se-
curity Council Resolution 1325 with its emphasis on the participation of women in post-conflict peace-building
processes.
In addition to the burgeoning feminist literature on policy diffusion and strategies to increase the descriptive
representation of women in public decision-making, extensive empirical investigations were carried out into
whether or not women do make a difference to legislative agendas. There were findings that women parlia-
mentarians brought subjects onto the public agenda previously regarded as belonging to the private realm,
such as gender-based violence, and that their policy priorities often reflected the priorities arising out of the
everyday life of women, such as health and social policy (Wängnerud, 2009). Unsurprisingly, women par-
liamentarians have also been found to be more concerned about gender equality issues and representing
women than their male colleagues. On the other hand, policy differences among legislators usually owe more
to partisan than to gender identity and it is in the shaping of party policy programmes or participation in the
core executive that feminist policy interventions may be most important (Annesley and Gains, 2010).
Women's Interests
The issue of whether women legislators made a difference gave rise to a large literature on ‘substantive rep-
resentation', the type of representation that involves ‘acting for’ rather than just ‘standing for’ (Pitkin, 1967).
One difficult concept bound up with the concept of substantive representation was that of women's interests.
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Substantive representation was generally viewed in terms of representing women's interests although differ-
ing indicators of substantive representation were employed. Some operationalised it as congruence with gen-
der differences in public opinion (Campbell et al., 2009) while others used indicators such as responsiveness
to organised women's movements and their policy framing.
There were long debates over whether women's interests had been defined too much in essentialist terms,
relating to child-bearing and location in the social division of labour. Some saw these socially allocated caring
roles as giving rise to a distinctive ethic of care or maternal ethics, to be contrasted with the abstract rights and
duties of a justice-based ethics (Gilligan, 1982; Ruddick, 1989). This was part of the emphasis on standpoint
in feminist theory and the epistemological advantages stemming from marginalised locations in the social di-
vision of labour.
Many local women politicians have seen their caring roles as placing them at a disadvantage in political in-
stitutions geared to ‘privileged irresponsibility', but also as a source of desirable skills and values (Mackay,
2001: 202). Caring roles are commonly associated with a less adversarial and more consensus-seeking ap-
proach to politics. An ethic of care suggested that these values, usually associated with the private sphere
and with women, should be located at the heart of the public world of politics and be central to democratic
citizenship. However, while the ethic of care presented the possibility of revaluing women's work and moral
perspectives, it may also reinforce stereotyped gender roles and be a source of burdensome expectations of
moral superiority.
Rather than conceptualising women's interests as being pregiven and arising from distinctive caring roles,
some suggested they should be seen in more dynamic terms as constituted in a political process of claims-
making. As we shall see, Laurel Weldon (2002) argues that it is only when women come together in collectivi-
ties that common interests and claims become crystallised. She emphasised that the substantive representa-
tion of women needed to stem from group organisation and the development of collective perspectives rather
than from the isolated experience of individual legislators. Others were producing evidence of a related point:
that it was not the gender of legislators but openness to the women's movement and feminist consciousness
that was of more importance in substantive representation (Tremblay and Pelletier, 2000).
Another challenge was whether the concept of women's interests was able to encompass how such interests
intersected with other identities relating to race, class, disability, ethnicity or other attributes. The concept of
‘intersectionality’ was introduced by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) to bring into focus the distinctive experience
of African American women and the intersecting identities and privileges that complicate gendered power
relations. This presented an apparent complication for the gender mainstreaming strategies adopted by gov-
ernments. While attention had been paid to special issues faced by, for example, Indigenous or immigrant
women, the primary focus was to track overall gender gaps and direct attention to them. Women with dis-
abilities might well complain that findings of a general upward trend in labour force participation by women
overlooked the very different statistics for their own participation.
In a slightly different approach, Nancy Fraser highlighted the issue of class in her influential work distinguish-
ing between the politics of recognition and the politics of redistribution. The message was that claims for
recognition based on nationality, race, gender, sexuality or ethnicity (‘identity politics') should not ignore the
claims of class and the redistributive aspect of justice, particularly in the context of widening inequalities (Fras-
er, 1995). A concern for the recognition of ‘difference’ was no substitute for a concern with inequality.
The concept of intersectionality was quickly adopted by gender experts within national and transnational gov-
ernance institutions as well as gender scholars. From at least 1997 EU policies were ‘stretching’ the concept
of gender equality to include other inequalities. Scholars and gender practitioners started referring to gender
mainstreaming as policymaking from a ‘gender+’ perspective, to acknowledge that ‘other axes of inequality al-

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ways intersect with gender’ (Lombardo et al., 2017: 2). In Canada the gender-based analysis (GBA) required
in the federal bureaucracy was rebranded as ‘GBA+’ in 2011, to highlight the intersection of ‘gender and other
diverse identity factors'. While identity groups might be at least co-constituted by such policy recognition, in
an era of neoliberalism such recognition was not generally extended to the underclass.
A third challenge relating to the concept of women's interests emerged from a shift to the more flexible con-
cept of gender, encompassing a range of sexual identities as well as the relationship between men and
women. Judith Butler (2004) argued strongly for gender to be understood as performance rather than as the
stable binary identities required by heteronormativity. If gender and sexuality were understood as performa-
tive, then concepts of gender identity and related interests become more complex. The new concept of gen-
der as a spectrum raised questions over the mobilising of a collective identity as women, which had been the
basis of women's movements over time. It also drew attention to the way that strategies to increase the elec-
toral representation of women might not necessarily favour the representation of those with diverse sexual
identities. As Manon Tremblay pointed out, while proportional representation was generally viewed as favour-
ing the representation of women, it might be that given their concentration in inner-urban areas, LGBT people
were better served by single-member constituencies (Tremblay, 2019).
The Vectors of Substantive Representation

In addition to debates over the concept of women's interests came new debates over the primary vector for
the substantive representation of women. The international Research Network on Gender Politics and the
State (RNGS) undertook a large-scale comparative examination of the role of women's policy agencies in
providing women's movements with access to the policy process (McBride and Mazur, 2010). This research
project was conducted over a period of 15 years, combining quantitative and qualitative elements in its re-
search design and giving rise to a comprehensive dataset. The dataset covered the strength of women's
movements, their partnerships with women's policy agencies, the policy environment, issue frame fit and left-
wing party and union support. The role of women's policy agencies was measured in terms of mediation of
the policy frames and policy demands arising from society-based women's movements. The assumption was
that representation of women came about through government responsiveness to policy claims arising from
autonomous women's movements. The RNGS framework did not encompass frames generated by the col-
lective work of ‘feminist insiders', whether in the bureaucracy, political parties or parliaments.
Another important contribution was Laurel Weldon's ‘Beyond bodies: Institutional sources of representation
for women in democratic policymaking’ (2002). Weldon was building on her first large-scale comparative
study of violence against women policy which had found that women's policy agencies in consort with strong
women's movements provided a more effective voice for women in policymaking than did individual women
legislators. She sought to turn attention away from the role of individual legislators, and towards the role of
collectivities such as women's movement organisations acting in conjunction with women's policy agencies.
In doing this, she was casting a critical eye on the idea that the substantive representation of women primarily
came about through the presence of women in parliament.
Subsequently, Mala Htun and Laurel Weldon (2012) expanded the initial study of violence against women
policy to cover 40 years and 70 countries (including the Global South). They used panel data to show that
it was the strength of autonomous women's movements that led to comprehensive policy responses and to
the institutionalising of feminist ideas in global and regional norms. They measured the strength of women's
movements by reference to organisations, protest events and public opinion and also looked at how women's
policy agencies could add to the work of women's movements. Their dependent variable was the degree of
policy scope. They again found factors such as number of women in the legislature to be relatively insignifi-
cant compared with the strength of the independent women's movement and the leverage provided by inter-
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national and regional norms.
Research into the policy impact of autonomous women's movements and its relationship to women's agencies
in government took the exploration of the substantive representation of women well beyond the role of women
legislators. However, its inheritance from the social movement literature often meant an assumed dichotomy
between movements and institutions. This gave rise to a new set of questions and some critique of the onto-
logical privileging of autonomous women's movements over various forms of ‘insider advocacy’ (for example,
Banaszak, 2010). Insiders were not necessarily less radical in their thinking than those located in an external
social movement, just facing a different set of constraints.
Laure Bereni, for example, introduced the concept of ‘institutional sites of advocacy for women', arguing that
women's policy agencies, women's sections in political parties, gender equality bodies in parliaments and
gender research centres could all be viewed as fully-fledged components of the women's movement rather
than as its allies (Bereni and Revillard, 2012: 33–4).
Another approach to conceptualising the substantive representation of women which does not accord onto-
logical primacy to autonomous women's movements is that of ‘velvet triangles'. The concept of velvet trian-
gles, deriving from the ‘iron triangle’ literature on the relationship between parliament, bureaucracy and in-
terest groups, gives equal weight to insider and outsider strategies on the part of the women's movement.
It looks at the informal networks linking, for example, ‘femocrats’ in the European Commission, feminists in
the European Parliament, women's NGOs and gender researchers. The research question is whether such
informal networks and relationships of mutual support can counterbalance the more exclusive ‘iron triangles’
and corporatism found in many policy sectors (Woodward, 2003).
Parliaments as Representative Institutions

The development of feminist institutionalism, described above, also brought renewed attention to the role of
parliamentary institutions in promoting substantive representation, as contrasted with either the role of indi-
vidual legislators or the impact of autonomous women's movements. Feminist political scientists investigated
the gendered nature of institutional norms and expectations, such as those surrounding debate and interrup-
tion, as well as the formal rules and conventions of parliaments. This ‘institutional turn’ encompassed both
the study of parliament as a workplace and the role of specialised parliamentary bodies for the promotion of
gender equality.
Because parliaments were historically designed for men able to leave family responsibilities behind in the
‘private sphere', the entry of women has been accompanied by a long struggle to accommodate caring re-
sponsibilities. Feminist political scientists such as Lenita Freidenvall (2017) and Sonia Palmieri (2019) have
provided new conceptual understandings of parliament as a workplace, as well as undertaking applied work
for both national and regional parliaments and international standard-setting bodies such as the IPU. Parlia-
mentary terms are now more likely to be aligned with school terms, childcare is more likely to be provided
and babies no longer removed as ‘strangers’ from the part of the chamber reserved for elected members.
Nonetheless the complex issues of reconciling parliamentary work and family life are still far from resolved,
particularly for those who have traditionally been the primary carers. Moreover, in some ways, parliaments
are still less regulated than other workplaces to ensure women have equal opportunity to perform their roles;
issues such as sexual harassment, bullying and sexualised hate speech continue to affect even women prime
ministers (Summers, 2013).
Specialised parliamentary bodies for the promotion of gender equality have generally been established after
an influx of women into parliaments. They have received increasing recognition from practitioners as a signif-
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icant element in national machineries for the promotion of gender equality and from scholars as a vector for
the substantive representation of women. The Gender-Focused Parliamentary Institutions Research Network
(GenParlNet) was established in 2013 and has promoted cumulative knowledge and comparative analysis
of the workings and effectiveness of such bodies. Researchers have developed typologies of such bodies
together with indicators of feminist characteristics and of the quality of their contribution to substantive repre-
sentation (Celis et al., 2016).
In general, dedicated parliamentary bodies have been found to provide space and legitimacy for women-cen-
tred deliberation, to act as a feminist reference group and a gateway to the legislative process for women in
the community. If they are a parliamentary committee, they may have a formal remit to apply a gender lens to
legislative proposals, while a women's caucus in a parliamentary party may subject front benchers to collec-
tive pressure over the gender impact of proposals (Sawer and Turner, 2016). Parliamentary committees on
gender equality may perform different roles (executive or legislative scrutiny) in different institutional contexts
(Holli and Harder, 2016) while a women's caucus in a parliamentary party may both support critical actors in
promoting substantive representation and be a critical actor themselves (Allen and Childs, 2019).
Regional and Policy Differences

While normative commitment and reflexivity are identifying badges of feminist research, there are regional
differences in methods similar to those found in other parts of the discipline – for example, more emphasis on
political economy in Latin America, more emphasis on quantitative methods in North America, on discourse
(‘critical frame analysis') and meaning-making in Europe or new institutionalism in the ‘Anglosphere'. In addi-
tion to differences in methods, there are also regional differences in the focus of feminist political science – for
example, histories of state violence in Latin America have influenced feminist theorising of violence against
women and policy responses to it. The concept of ‘femicide’ or ‘feminicide’ has become central to regional
understandings of the issue, leading femicide to be a legally defined crime in almost 20 Latin American coun-
tries (Fregoso and Bejarano, 2010).
But, within regions as well, feminists have sometimes adopted very different and competing approaches to
specific policy issues. For example, the politics of prostitution law reform is a subject traditionally neglected by
political science, but given a new centrality by feminist research and activism. Some prominent feminist politi-
cal scientists have taken up the argument long advanced by women's movement organisations, that prostitu-
tion is of its nature exploitive of women, perpetuating men's right to access women's bodies in an inherently
unequal power relationship (Pateman, 1988; Raymond, 2004; Sullivan, 2007; Jeffreys, 2009). Today, this ar-
gument, that prostitution is incompatible with gender equality, has been strongly promoted by women's move-
ments and the women's wings of political parties in the Nordic countries as well as by the European Women's
Lobby and the Women's Rights (FEMM) Committee of the European Parliament. It has been translated into
a distinctive public policy solution intended to avoid the traditional scapegoating of prostitutes themselves.
Sweden led the way in 1999 with its legislation criminalising the purchasing of sex by the client rather than its
sale by the prostitute. The Swedish policy model was subsequently adopted in Norway and Iceland and then
in Canada, France, Ireland and Israel.
In contrast to those feminist political scientists arguing that prostitution is in and of itself exploitive of women,
other feminist political scientists have argued that prostitution among consenting adults can be seen as a form
of work. They have undertaken comparative research suggesting that decriminalisation or legalisation is the
way to protect the rights, working conditions and safety of workers in the sex industry or ‘sex workers’ (Out-
shoorn, 2004). They maintain that sex work can be a free choice made by women and should have the same
protection as other forms of employment; only forced prostitution should be illegal. In this policy model, imple-
mented at the national level in the Netherlands in 2000, prostitution is subject to regulation like other forms
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of work but is not illegal in itself. We shall call this the Dutch model, although different forms of legalisation
and decriminalisation have also taken place at the sub-national level in Australia and in New Zealand since
the end of the 1970s. In comparing the effectiveness of different types of prostitution law reform in promoting
the safety and rights of sex workers, the Australian evidence suggests that a key factor is the representation
of sex-worker advocacy organisations in the policy process, made possible by decriminalisation (Jeffrey and
Sullivan, 2009).
While both sides of the feminist prostitution debate seek to promote gender equality and to oppose trafficking
in women, their policy solutions are very different and their studies of prostitution law reform come to very
different conclusions. Either the Swedish or the Dutch models are shown to have ‘failed'; for example, legal-
isation is alternatively said to have significantly increased the safety of sex workers or to have led to an ex-
pansion of the sex industry and of sex trafficking. Feminist frame analysis has been applied to show either the
influence of international ‘neo-abolitionist’ networks in framing prostitution as violence against women (Ward
and Wylie, 2017) or the influence of sex-worker advocacy organisations and their allies in framing prostitution
as a legitimate employment choice.
Prostitution and pornography policy are one of the most polarising issues debated within feminist political sci-
ence today. While concepts of the state no longer divide radical feminists and reformists in the way they did
in the 1970s, with both sides wishing to use the state to introduce law reform, there are ongoing debates
over the strategy of gender mainstreaming. These debates are not only about the ‘technocratic’ nature of the
methodologies adopted but also about the relationship of gender mainstreaming to neoliberal policy agendas.
Gender mainstreaming is seen by its critics as promoting women's labour force participation (and the mar-
ketisation of services) at the expense of revaluing and supporting non-market caring work. Hence, gender
mainstreaming is seen as complicit in the abandoning of the transformational agenda originally so important
to feminist political science. On the other hand, gender mainstreaming tools such as gender-responsive bud-
geting are not necessarily looked on with favour by neoliberal policymakers – they reveal the disproportionate
impact of neoliberal policies both on women as a whole and on particular groups of women. Moreover, ne-
oliberal policy agendas also contribute to populist backlash, mobilising discontent with economic and cultural
change, including gender equality and diversity projects (Verloo, 2018).
While feminist political science has become highly professionalised since it first became a collective presence
within the discipline, it is still identifiable by its commitment to producing knowledge that will advance gender
equality. It has created an epistemic community around this normative ambition as well as the diverse con-
ceptual tools needed to adequately address the gendered dynamics of political institutions.
Empirical Databases
One of the richest sources of data on women's policy, women's policy agencies and the participation of
women in public decision-making is to be found in the country reports and NGO shadow reports by the
189 state parties to the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
(CEDAW). General Recommendation 23 of the CEDAW Committee on Article 7 of CEDAW encourages the
use of temporary special measures such as quotas to realise women's right to equal participation in political
and public life.
The IPU has published statistics on women's representation in national parliaments since 1985, covering the
period from 1945 onwards. The IPU has also published statistics on parliamentary bodies specialising in gen-
der equality from 2006.
The UN Division for the Advancement of Women (later merged into UN Women) monitored the establishment
of national machinery for the advancement of women that was part of the Plan of Action adopted at the First
World Conference on Women, held in Mexico City in 1975. Regular surveys collected data on the nature of
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such machinery, finding that 127 countries had adopted such machinery by 1985; 165 by 2004. UN Women
continues to collect such data, for example, see its 2016 regional consultation with national machineries from
across South East Asia.
International IDEA (Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance), the IPU and the University of Stock-
holm jointly sponsor the Gender Quotas Database, which tracks the introduction around the world of legislated
candidate quotas, party quotas and reserved seats from 2003.
The OECD Gender Equality Data Portal presents much data relevant to feminist political science under the
governance heading. This includes comparative data on the percentage of women parliamentarians and min-
isters, the mandates of parliamentary gender equality committees, legislative or other requirements for gen-
der impact assessment and gender-responsive budgeting at the central/federal level of government.
The Standing Group on Gender and Politics of the European Consortium for Political Research maintains a
‘Syllabus Bank’ of university courses on gender and politics to assist in the development of such courses.
The dataset from the RNGS project is available on the Harvard Dataverse under the heading: ‘Women's
Movements and Women's Policy Offices in Western Postindustrial Democracies, 1970–2001'.
The Feminism and Institutionalism International Network (FIIN) promotes the synthesis of insights from new
institutionalist theory and feminist scholarship on institutions. It has a website providing information on publi-
cations and events in this area.
The Gender-Focused Parliamentary Institutions Research Network (GenParlNet) also has a website with in-
formation on publications and events in this emerging research area.
In addition to the more formal databases, important Facebook groups have been established to facilitate the
sharing of news and resources on politics and gender – for example, the Electoral Gender Quotas group man-
aged by Mona Lena Krook since April 2011, and the Violence against Women in Politics group co-created by
Krook and Juliana Restrepo Sanín in February 2015.
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• feminism
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n9

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Marx and Marxism in Politics
Contributors: Dingping Guo

Chapter Title: "Marx and Marxism in Politics"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
Print pages: 114-132
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Marx and Marxism in Politics

Dingping Guo
Introduction
Marxism has been defined and studied as a political theory, political ideology and political movement. In po-
litical studies, Marxism refers to a specific school of social and political theory about human life, historical
development, capitalist crisis and communist revolution, which was developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich
Engels during the mid-to-late 19th century, and subsequently elaborated on by their disciples from various
backgrounds all over the world. Although there are inconsistencies and contradictions in Marx's theory during
the different periods of its development, and there are considerable debates and disputes over its nature and
structure, some basic consensus can be reached based on an analysis of Marx's works and the studies on
the subsequent evolution of Marxist theory. Marxism is not only one of the most important social and political
schools of thought, but also the guiding ideology in the communist revolution and the socialist construction of
many countries worldwide.
Capitalist Development and the Birth of Marxism

Karl Marx, one of the most famous and influential theorists of the modern historical age from whom the social-
ist or communist movements have derived their ideas, was not only a political thinker but also social philoso-
pher and economist whose research ranged widely over many fields. Marx has had a profound impact on the
thoughts and actions of people in many countries since the mid 19th century, and in the 21st century he is still
regarded as the greatest instructor by the political left, including the adherents of communist parties, and is
derided as a source of political and social chaos by the political right. The ideas and programs developed by
Marx and Engels have been generally called Marxism.
Born in Trier, German Rhineland, into a Jewish family on May 5, 1818, Karl Marx received a good education
and displayed great potential as an outstanding student. During his student days at the universities of Bonn
and Berlin, Marx studied law and the history of philosophy, took a strong interest in the works of Georg Wil-
helm Friedrich Hegel and joined a student/professor group called the ‘Young Hegelians'. Marx submitted his
doctoral dissertation at the University of Jena in 1840 and received a doctoral degree the following year. This
dissertation is entitled ‘The Difference between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature’ and
can be regarded as the starting point of his transition from idealism to materialism (Jessop, 1999: 98). After
his initial failure to establish an academic career, his liberal political views led him to find employment as an
editor of a radical newspaper in Cologne, Rheinische Zeitung. Because of his journalistic abilities and radical
views, Marx was well received in liberal circles and quickly promoted to editor of the newspaper. This radical
newspaper, under the guidance of Marx, had to face the problem of censorship by the authoritative Prussian
government, and was finally suppressed after the printing of Marx's article on the poverty of farmers in the
Mosel Valley.
In 1843, Marx married Jenny von Westphalen and emigrated to Paris with her in order to escape political
persecution. There he became acquainted with French socialist thinkers and began to witness firsthand the
living conditions of people in poverty by socializing himself with working-class people. More importantly, he
first encountered, and subsequently established his lifelong friendship with Friedrich Engels, the author of the
classic work, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844. As a result of his economic and philo-
sophical researches, Marx wrote Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, in which he showed great
concern for the dignity and freedom of the individual. In February 1844, together with the philosopher and
political writer, Arnold Ruge, Marx published the first, and only issue of a new journal, Deutsch-Französische
Jahrbücher [German-French Annals] in which he published articles on a broad range of matters such as phi-
losophy, politics and society. His radical ideas were not tolerated in France. After Marx published an article
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on capitalism in German-French Annals, he angered his partner Arnold Ruge and their journal was banned
in France and Germany. Based on his experiences of living among the working class and his comprehensive
researches on history, economics, politics and philosophy, Marx became an ardent communist. He proposed
his ideas about communism by criticizing the alienation of labor in a capitalist society. According to Marx, un-
der capitalism, the working class invests its creative labor, while the capitalist class appropriates the results of
this labor in exchange for wages. This means that the human world created by the proletariat does not belong
to them, but is owned instead by a class of non-laboring owners.
In January 1845, Marx was expelled from Paris by Premier François Guizot at the instance of the Prussian
government and moved to Brussels. During his stay in Brussels, Marx exchanged polemics with the
Hegelians, Feuerbach, Stirner and the ‘True Socialists', and finished two important works in collaboration with
Engels, The Holy Family and The German Ideology. In the The German Ideology, Marx and Engels provided
a historical and material basis for Marx's radical views and insisted that the nature of individuals depended on
the material conditions determining their own productions. In 1847, Marx started another polemical exchange
with the French anarchist thinker Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and wrote The Poverty of Philosophy, in which he
developed the fundamental propositions of his economic interpretation of history.
By early 1846, Marx established the Communist Correspondence Committee in order to connect all of Eu-
rope's socialist leaders. Next year, the League of the Just held a congress in London where the two groups
merged to form the Communist League. Marx and Engels attended the Second Congress of the Communist
League at which they were commissioned to write a manifesto for the League, which became Manifesto of the
Communist, inspired by Engels’ The Principles of Communism (1847). The Communist Manifesto, originally
written as the platform of the Communist League, has become one of the most radical and influential books
since it was first published in February 1848. It begins with the famous proposition: ‘The history of all hitherto
existing society is the history of class struggles', and contains a summary of Marxist theory (Carver, 1996:
1–30). For example, one of the major points is to abolish private property and implement public ownership
of the economy. The theory of the communists may be summed up in the single phrase: ‘abolition of private
property'. The second point is to bring the proletariat to power and annihilate the exploiting class, especially
the bourgeoisie, in politics. According to Marx and Engels, the first step in the revolution by the working class
is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class in order to win the battle for democracy. (This was why
Mao Zedong defined the nature of his new republic as the ‘people's democratic dictatorship', a hundred years
later.) The Communist Party as the avant-garde of the proletariat then comes to power after winning the strug-
gle against the old classes, the landowners and the bourgeoisie. The third is to envision a classless society in
‘which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all’ (Carver, 1996: 20). Upon
publication in 1848, The Communist Manifesto quickly became the credo of the poor and oppressed all over
the world and led to the greatest political upheavals of the 19th and 20th centuries and the establishment of
the communist governments that ruled half the globe for several decades. It is regarded as the most important
classic text for Marxist political theory.
After the Manifesto came to light, even the relatively tolerant Belgium government served Marx with an expul-
sion order and he returned to Paris. The revolutionary atmosphere in Germany in 1848 enabled him to return
to Cologne where he persuaded some liberal industrialists to back a new version of his old newspaper, the
Neue Rheinische Zeitung. It became extremely radical and took an anti-government stance under the edi-
torship of Marx and it was again suppressed by the authorities. In protest, Marx printed the last issue of the
Zeitung in red ink. He was arrested for press offences and incitement to armed insurrection, but after a long
and powerful speech delivered at his trial, Marx was acquitted by a jury in Cologne. Faced with expulsion from
Cologne and suppression of his newspaper, Marx visited Paris again as a representative of German democ-
racy before the Paris National Assembly, but similarly was served with an expulsion order from Paris.
Following his expulsion, in 1849 Marx moved to London where he lived with his large but devoted family until
his death. Although Marx was a correspondent to the New York Tribune from 1852 to 1861, for the most
part he was dependent for his livelihood on the generous financial support of Engels. His typical day was

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spent in the Reading Room of the British Library, where from 10am to 7pm (when opening hours allowed) he
wrote a number of volumes on different subjects. Sometimes he lacked money for the postage to send his
manuscripts to his publishers. Afflicted with multiple health problems and a contentious and uncompromising
temper, Marx was not a prepossessing figure during his final years. Although virtually unknown in England,
he enjoyed great popularity on the Continent, especially in liberal circles and among working people, and in
1864 was invited to participate in the formation of the International Working Men's Association. Also known
as the First International, the organization was founded at a meeting in St. Martin's Hall, London, and Marx
was invited to draw up the guiding principles in the ‘Inaugural Address'. In 1867, the first volume of Marx's
greatest work, Das Kapital [Capital], was published. The second, third and incomplete fourth volumes did not
appear until after Marx's death in 1883 (McDonald, 1962: 347).
In Capital, Marx analyzed the secret of capitalist production by focusing on the concept of surplus value and
formulated his revolutionary theory by revealing the injustice of the capitalist system. According to Marx, la-
bor is a commodity like any other commodity; therefore, following the labor theory of value, it must be valued
by the man-hours devoted to its ‘production', that is, to feeding, clothing and sheltering the worker in order
to maintain life at subsistence level. In the capitalist system, labor is bought just like any other commodity.
But, unlike any other commodity, labor is not consumed in a clearly determined period of time. A laborer is
bought for the price of sustaining him physically, prorated in hours or days or weeks. But he may produce the
equivalent of the price in economic value in 6 or 8 hours of work, whereas the factories of Marx's day kept
men going for 10, 12 or 14 hours a day. The difference between what the worker does and what he is paid is
surplus value, the source of all capitalist profits. In a capitalist society that is divided into the capitalist class
with the means of production, and the proletariat without the means of production, the injustice heaped upon
the workers is not the result of bad men, but of a particular system. Reform within the system, however well
intentioned, is doomed to failure. Only revolutionary overthrow of the whole capitalist system can lead to the
liberation of the working class.
Marx died and was buried in Highgate Cemetery, London, with a tombstone epitaph reading ‘Workers of all
lands, unite', the final slogan in The Communist Manifesto. In the years following his death, Engels edited
and translated his works, and in many ways continued their friendship until his own death in 1895. Since the
intellectual activity of Marx and Engels was intertwined based on their close friendship and great collabora-
tion, when most people today speak of Marxism they are speaking of the joint output of Marx and Engels
(McDonald, 1962: 345). Although Marx spent most of his life in reading and writing as a student and scholar,
he has had a strong influence not only on modern ideas, but also on political practices and social movements
in many countries around the world. Today, his works are reprinted and read widely, and his ideas discussed
and debated in the fields of philosophy, sociology and political science.
Marxism as a Political Theory

Marxism is the system of social and political theory about human life, historical development, the capitalist
crisis and the communist revolution developed by Marx and Engels, and elaborated on by such disciples as
Lenin and Mao. Although there are inconsistencies and contradictions in the Marxist development, the basic
doctrine of Marxism can be outlined as follows.
Theoretical Sources
Marx developed his eponymous theoretical system from many different sources, such as utopian socialist
thought in France and England, classic philosophy in Germany, political economics in England and the Greek
political and philosophical tradition (Xu, 2005: 277). Among these, three major sources are especially impor-
tant: German philosophy, French politics and English economics. In his early works, Marx showed great in-

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terest in law and philosophy; and his later works were more concerned with political economy and political
strategy.
The German philosophy on which Marx drew was primarily that of Hegel but included the Young Hegelians
and Ludwig Feuerbach's materialism. During his student days at the universities of Bonn and Berlin, Marx
studied history and philosophy, took a strong interest in the works of Hegel and joined a student/professor
group called Young Hegelians. Many of Marx's basic ideas, such as his critique of civil society and private
property, emerged when he was writing the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. He asserts that religion is
the ‘opium of the people’ and calls for an ‘uprising of the proletariat’ to realize the conceptions of philosophy,
a point also made in Theses on Feuerbach (1845). Marx had been strongly influenced by Hegel's Logic and
dialectical method, and his great work Capital is imbued with intellectual categories derived from Hegel. As
one scholar pointed out, ‘Hegelian dialectic is a permanent tool of Marxist thought’ (Jessop, 1999: 128).
French politics and socialist movements played an important role in shaping Marx's thoughts. Marx's father-in-
law, Baron von Westphalen and his teachers were all strongly influenced by the French Enlightenment. Marx
was also strongly influenced by the French Revolution and French thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
After he emigrated to Paris together with his wife in order to escape political persecution by the German au-
thorities, Marx became acquainted with French socialist thinkers and began to witness the living conditions
of people in poverty by socializing himself with working-class people. French socialism, as expressed and
explained in the works of Henri de Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier, enabled Marx to break with Hegel's tele-
ological approach to history, to develop a broad-ranging social economy, to understand the social and per-
sonal impact of modern industry and grasp the significance of socialism. After studying the development of
Bonapartism and commenting on the nature and significance of the Paris Commune, Marx completed several
political works (The Class Struggles in France, 1840–1850 and The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte),
and expounded his major political ideas about the State and revolution.
The third major source of Marx's theory is English (and Scottish) economics exemplified by writers such as
Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Thomas Malthus. It was during his years in Paris that Marx began his study
of English economics. From the early 1840s, he made an increasingly detailed study of the works of Eng-
lish economists. After moving to London, Marx undertook deep and systematic research on the development
of the capitalist mode of production in England. In writing the 1844 Manuscripts, Marx relied extensively on
the work of Adam Smith, especially his views on the division of labor, rent, subsistence wages and the three
stages of society. Once he became acquainted with Ricardo's work, On the Principles of Political Economy
and Taxation (1817), Marx abandoned the economic theory developed in the 1844 Manuscripts. His critique
of The Poverty of Philosophy was Ricardian in character. By absorbing the ideas in the works of classic po-
litical economists and analyzing the capitalist development in England, Marx established his own status as
political economist.
Although Marx drew on various sources, he did not merely combine them mechanically. A distinctive feature
of Marx's theory is his creative ability to synthesize. By studying German philosophy, French politics and Eng-
lish economics, Marx was able to develop his own philosophical, economic, social and political theory.
Historical Materialism and Social Development

Marx's unique contribution to historical philosophy is his historical materialism and theory of social develop-
ment. According to his explanations in The German Ideology (1846) and The Critique of Political Economy
(1859), the nature of individuals depends on the material conditions determining their productions. In the so-
cial production of their existence, people enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent
of their will. According to Marx in The Critique of Political Economy:
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[These] relations of production correspond to a definite stage of development of their material forces
of production. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic foundation
of society on which there arise legal and political superstructures and to which correspond definite
forms of social consciousness. (Preface)
As Marx and Engels put it in The German Ideology: ‘In direct contrast to Germany philosophy, which descends
from heaven to earth, here we ascend from earth to heaven’ (O'Malley, 1994: 125). Returning to The Critique
of Political Economy, we learn that:
[t]he mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intel-
lectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary,
their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of their development,
the material forces of production come eventually into conflict with the existing relations of produc-
tion. … From forms of development of the forces of production these relations turn into their fetters.
Then begins an era of social revolution. With the change of economic foundation the entire immense
superstructure … is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering such transformations the dis-
tinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of
production … and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic, or philosophical, in short, ideological trans-
formation. (Marx, 1859: Preface)
All ideological transformations ‘must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the existing
conflicts between the social forces of production and the relations of productions’ (ibid.). Therefore, the ‘legal
relations as well as the forms of state could neither be understood by themselves, nor explained by the so-
called general progress of the human mind; they are rooted in the material conditions of life (ibid.).
Since every society is divided into various groups, a strong minority tends to use their economic power in
order to exploit the mass of the population by appropriating the economic surplus for their own benefit. This
inherently conflicting situation gives rise to a class struggle that centers on the ownership and control of the
means of production. The social group that controls the means of production forms the ruling class, and the
group without the means of production constitutes the ruled class. All political institutions and cultural beliefs
are shaped by the ruling class so as to bolster the unequal distribution of resources:
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patri-
cian and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed,
stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight
that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common
ruin of the contending classes. (Marx and Engels, 1848: Section I)
Based on the conflict between the forces of production and the relations of production, the history of mankind
progresses through revolutions to the next higher stage. This theory of social development is usually called
historical materialism. In the Marxist view of history, the primitive agrarian society was followed by the slave
society of the ancient world, the feudal society, the capitalist society and finally by the communist society.
The progress is made by inevitable and ultimately uncontrollable material forces, rather than human thought
and initiative. This is sometimes summarized as so-called economic determinism or historical determinism. In
fact, while Marx emphasized the crucial role of material forces in social development, he also analyzed the
important and strong influences of political superstructure and human initiative on history. Political institutions
and political leadership play an important role in many cases of historical development. As Wang Huning ex-
plains, political superstructure is not completely passive and inert, and contrarily, it may exert some decisive
influences on economic foundations in some special cases, especially during the preliminary stage of the so-
cialist states (Wang, 2004: 60–1).

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Capitalist Crisis and Proletarian Revolution

In February 1848, Marx and Engels published the Manifesto of the Communist Party, generally regarded as
a public statement of the general theory and political ideology of Marxism, and a call for general cooperation
among different workers’ organizations. According to their analysis, capitalism as a revolutionary mode of pro-
duction was fundamentally changing the course of civilization. It introduced market relations into all spheres
of society and throughout the world:
[T]he markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising. … This market has given an immense de-
velopment to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land'.… The bourgeoisie cannot exist
without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of produc-
tion, and with them the whole relations of society. (Marx and Engels, 1848: Section I)
By continually modernizing the forces of production and promoting the division of labor, capitalism prepared
the material conditions necessary for social cooperation and planned management in economic life. Despite
the ever increasing social character of capitalist production or socialization of the forces of production, the
capitalist system was operated for private profit under private ownership. The search for private profit imposed
fetters on the further development of production. The capitalist relations of production came finally into con-
flict with its forces of production. While a huge sum of wealth was accumulated in the hands of capitalists, its
direct producers were impoverished. Lack of demand coexisting with unsold goods produced an ever wors-
ening economic crisis of overproduction. This dynamic of capitalism created conditions of its own overthrow.
Moreover, capitalism was creating the industrial proletariat as ‘its own gravediggers’ (Carver, 1996: 14) (Man-
ifesto). As capitalism destroyed pre-capitalist modes of production at home and abroad, other classes were
eliminated and the proletariat expanded. As a result, the whole capitalist society was increasingly divided into
two major classes: capitalist and proletarian. According to Marx:
With the development of industry the proletariat not only increased in number; it became concen-
trated in greater masses, its strength grew, and it felt that strength more. The various interests and
conditions of life within the ranks of the proletariat were more and more equalized, in proportion as
machinery obliterated all distinctions of labor, and nearly everywhere reduced wages to the same
low level. (Marx and Engels, 1848: Section I)
As individual workers, then groups of workers in a factory or trade, and eventually all workers in a nation-
state or even the world economy mobilized to resist capitalist exploitation, the proletariat would grow more
conscious of their shared class position and their common interest in the overthrow of capitalism. When their
economic struggles encountered the resistance of the State as well as individual capitalists and groups of
employers, the working class would develop a revolutionary consciousness and move from trade unionism to
political party. With the economic crisis deepening and the proletariat gaining in strength, the revolution would
be inevitable.
Since the revolution is an inevitable historical product as the result of the conflict between the forces of pro-
duction and the relations of production, and especially class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the prole-
tariat in capitalist society, neither Marx nor Engels paid attention to the means of revolution, especially political
leadership and political strategy which would be explained and expounded by their followers such as Lenin
and Mao Zedong. They also said little about what would happen after the revolution. It was believed that it
would be absurd to predict the future society in detail. Nonetheless, some major ideas about socialism and
communism can be found in the classic works of Marx and Engels.
Marx's Socialism and Communism

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When the revolution broke out, the proletariat seized the power of the State and transformed the means of
production in the first instance into State property. As Marx and Engels suggested, the revolutionary mea-
sures in the most advanced countries would include the abolition of private property, a heavy progressive or
graduated income tax, the abolition of all rights of inheritance, confiscation of the property of all emigrants
and rebels, centralization of credit in the hands of the State and centralization of the means of communication
and transport in the hands of the State (Carver, 1996: 19–20). By doing so, it puts an end to itself as the pro-
letariat, it puts an end to all class differences and class antagonisms, and it puts an end to the State as the
State. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the process
of production. The State is not ‘abolished', it withers away. But in a few places Marx and Engels referred to
the transitional ‘socialist’ stage as ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat'. As the avant-garde of the proletariat in
the revolution, the Communist Party is established and then lead the struggle against the old classes: the
landowner and the bourgeoisie. Therefore, the existence of classes is bound up with particular, historic phas-
es in the development of production; the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat
after all other antagonistic classes are annihilated; this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the
abolition of all classes and to a classless society. With regard to post-revolutionary politics, Marx cited the
experience of the Paris Commune and talked about the possibility of bridging the gap between the State and
civil society that had been opened up by capitalist democracy. As an instance of the abolition of the division
of labor in politics, Marx welcomed the Commune's proposal to have all officials, including judges, elected by
universal suffrage and revocable at any time; to pay officials the same wages as manual laborers; to replace
the standing army by the armed people; and to divest the police and clergy of their political influence. The
initiative of the Commune could yield a decentralized, federal political structure and an economy based on
cooperatives united by a common plan.
According to Marx's explanation and prediction, the fundamental features of communism include at least the
following elements. The first is to eliminate the private property and implement the public ownership in econ-
omy. The second is to limit free competition and carry out economic planning. The classic socialist believes
that the capitalist market competition may lead to economic disorder and increasing inequality. Only after all
economic activities are placed under the comprehensive economic plan can economic development be pro-
moted and economic crisis avoided. The third is to distribute the economic surplus based on labor and need.
In contrast with the capitalism in which capital plays the most important role in the process of distribution, the
communists insist that labor and need are the most important factor in distributing social wealth. Finally, the
State as a tool of rule by the ruling class would wither away and gradually be replaced by the administration
of public affairs.
As Marx described:
In a higher phase of communist society, after the subjection of individuals to the division of labour,
and thereby the antithesis between mental and physical labour, has disappeared; after labour has
become not merely a means to live but the foremost need in life; after the multifarious development
of individuals has grown along with their productive powers, and all the springs of cooperative wealth
flow more abundantly – only then can the limited horizon of bourgeois right be wholly transcended,
and society can inscribe on its banner: from each according to his abilities, to each according to his
needs! (Critique of the Gotha Programme, part I, in Carver, 1996: 214–15)
In place of the old bourgeoisie society, with its classes and class antagonisms, there shall be an association,
in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
Western Marxism after Marx

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The classic Marxist theory was expounded and elaborated based on the historical developments in Western
industrialized countries such as England, France and Germany. After economic, social and political changes
took place, many social theorists and political leaders tried to redefine and develop Marxism based on the
new situations.
During the period of economic depression and political repression in the 1880s, Marxism became dominant in
the German Social Democratic Party. Karl Kautsky ‘explained and defended the theories of surplus value, im-
miseration, class polarisation and capitalist crisis’ (Geary, 2003: 220). His works ‘defined Marxism for the gen-
eration after Marx and constituted the fundament of “orthodox Marxism”’ (Geary, 2003: 220). Another theorist,
Eduard Bernstein, ‘launched the revisionist attack on “orthodox Marxism”', and ‘refuted the theories of surplus
value, impoverishment, capital concentration and crisis’ (Geary, 2003: 228). According to Bernstein, ‘[w]ork-
ers were not becoming poorer; the numbers of peasants was not declining; a “new middle class” was growing
in size and importance; share ownership refuted the claim of capital concentration; and capitalism was devel-
oping mechanisms to reduce competition and remove recurrent economic crisis’ (Geary, 2003: 228). There-
fore, these revisionist Marxists such as Bernstein rejected the violent way of revolution against capitalism and
proclaimed the possibility of a peaceful, gradual and legal transition to socialism, brought about through the
adoption of the parliamentary road. During much of the 20th century, Marxism was thus divided into two dif-
ferent camps. Orthodox Marxism was adopted and developed by Lenin in Russia and Mao Zedong in China,
and transformed into socialism and communism. By contrast, the revisionists and reformists tended to accept
the European economic and political system, and practiced parliamentary politics and social democracy.
Meanwhile, a more complex and philosophical form of Marxism entitled ‘Western Marxism’ developed in
Western Europe from the early 20th century. As McLellan tells us:
Unlike the previous generation of Marxist theoreticians, most of the thinkers grouped under the rubric
of ‘Western’ Marxist were not important figures in political parties. They tended to be academics
rather than activists, writing in a period of declining working-class activity [due to capitalist democ-
ratic and economic developments] and therefore in comparative isolation from political practice. …
[T]he term ‘Western Marxism’ normally excludes orthodox communists of strict Marxist obedience …
and is confined to the … collection of thinkers that centred around the work of Lukács and Korsch in
central Europe, that of Gramsci in Italy, and perhaps above all, of the Frankfurt school in Germany.
Western Marxism is thus a philosophical meditation on the defeat of Marxism in the West.…While
some people might question whether these modes of thought were really compatible with anything
recognisable as Marxism, they undoubtedly extended the horizons of Marxist discussion beyond the
rather limited perspectives of the Second International and Leninist orthodoxy. Gramsci's concept of
hegemony and its consequences for political culture, the treatment of Freud by Marcuse, the drastic
critique of the Enlightenment in Horkheimer and Adorno – all these attempts to remedy weaknesses
or gaps in the classical Marxist tradition have produced a compelling, if sometimes rather convolut-
ed, literature on philosophy, politics and society. (McLellan, 2003b: 282–3)
The first important thinker of Western Marxism is the Hungarian philosopher Georg Lukács whose major
ideas were expressed in his work, entitled History and Class Consciousness (First published in 1923). Lukács
reevaluated the role of Hegel in the formation of Marx's thought and reinterpreted Marxist dialectics. Unlike
Engels who emphasized the dialectics of nature, Lukács focused more on the dialectics of human history. For
Lukács, the subject and object have become separated in the long history of human development. Only with
the rise of the proletariat in capitalist society, would subjective thought and objective action be finally unit-
ed. ‘This historical interaction of subject and object was for Lukács the basic form of the dialectic’ (McLellan,
2003b: 284). However, the class consciousness of the proletariat, its unification of the roles of subject and
object was blocked by the comprehensive process of ‘reification’ in capitalist society. According to Lukács, ‘as
the product of capitalism the proletariat must necessarily be subject to the modes of existence of its creator.
This mode of existence is inhumanity and reification’ (1971: 76). This process of reification has originated from
commodity fetishism in the age of modern capitalism and transformed the social relations between persons

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both subjectively and objectively into relations between commodities. The reified consciousness is ‘trapped in
the two extremes of crude empiricism and abstract utopianism’ (Lukács, 1971: 77) and led to the ideological
crisis of the proletariat. The economic crisis will certainly increase the possibility of revolution in capitalist so-
ciety, but ‘the fate of revolution (and with it the fate of mankind) will depend on the ideological maturity of the
proletariat, i.e. on its class consciousness’ (Lukács, 1971: 70).
Another influential figure in Western Marxism is Antonio Gramsci. He participated in revolutionary activities,
helped to found the Italian Communist Party in 1921 and became its leader for the two years before his arrest
and imprisonment in 1926. His basic ideas and theoretical innovations were contained in his Prison Note-
books (1971) which he compiled in prison during 1929–36. First, Gramsci analyzed the role and function of
intellectuals in society and made a distinction between the the traditional and the organic. While the traditional
intellectuals considered themselves to be autonomous of social class and have no substantial links with the
social and economic changes, the organic intellectuals maintained close relations with their social class and
considered themselves to be members. Second, after discussing the organic quality of the intellectuals and
their degree of connection with a fundamental social group, Gramsci fixed two major superstructural ‘levels':
‘civil society’ and ‘political society’ or ‘the State'. According to Gramsci, these two levels correspond on the
one hand to the function of ‘hegemony’ which the dominant group exercises throughout society and on the
other hand to that of ‘direct domination’ or command exercised through the State and ‘juridical’ government;
the intellectuals are the dominant group's ‘deputies’ exercising the subaltern functions of social hegemony
and political government (Gramsci, 1971: 12). Gramsci analyzed the civil society in detail and developed a
quite different theory about it from Marx. While, for Marx, the civil society usually meant private spheres and
economic relations, Gramsci tended to use it to refer to the superstructure, that is, all the organizations and
technical means that the ruling classes used to justify their ideology. Finally, based on the studies of civil so-
ciety, Gramsci drew a distinction between two different revolutionary strategies in the East and the West. In
less-developed societies, such as Russia, where there was no active civil society and the ruling class tended
to use State power to suppress public protest; the target of revolution was naturally the State and govern-
mental bureaucracy. Gramsci called this kind of attack ‘a war of movement or manoeuvre’ (Gramsci, 1971:
233). By contrast, in more-developed societies, where there was an advanced civil society and intellectuals
played an important role in supporting and legitimizing the ruling class, a ‘war of position’ was more effective
because a longer period of cultural assault on the ideological support of the ruling class was needed. Accord-
ing to Gramsci, in the most advanced States,
‘the superstructures of civil society are like the trench-systems of modern warfare. In war it would
sometimes happen that a fierce artillery attack seemed to have destroyed the enemy's entire defen-
sive system, whereas in fact it had only destroyed the outer perimeter; and at the moment of their
advance and attack the assailants would find themselves confronted by a line of defence which was
still effective’ (Gramsci, 1971: 235). This is because the civil society has become a very complex
structure. Gramsci's analysis of cultural hegemony and revolutionary strategy represents a new de-
velopment of revolutionary theory in the Western advanced societies.
Among the varieties of Western Marxism after Karl Marx, the Frankfurt School represented the latest and most
philosophical developments. It took its name from the Institute of Social Research founded in Frankfurt in
1923. ‘Originally concentrating on a more orthodox form of Marxism, the Institute changed its orientation with
the appointment of Max Horkheimer as its director in 1930’ (McLellan, 2003b: 289). He and his colleagues,
Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse, together with the most influential figure of the second generation of the
School, Jürgen Habermas, contributed greatly to its development from the 1930s to the late 20th century. The
results of their research were described as ‘critical theory', perhaps originating from Horkheimer's seminal ar-
ticle of 1937 entitled ‘Traditional and Critical Theory'. Critical theory was directed above all against positivism
and empiricism, a source of reification and an endorsement of the status quo in Western capitalism. The
works of the Frankfurt School were a blend of Marxist political economy, Hegelian philosophy and Freudian
psychology, which focused on the comprehensive critique of the Western advanced societies and contributed
greatly to the revival of Western Marxism. Moreover, thanks to the wide spread of Marcuse's works and his
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ideas about one-dimensional man, the Frankfurt School had a considerable impact on the New Left in the
1960s and some substantial influences on political research (Jay, 1996: 9).
Perry Anderson is one of the most famous Marxist political scientists and has contributed greatly to the study
of Western Marxism. He served as the editor of New Left Review for many years and published several books
on Western Marxism such as Considerations on Western Marxism (1976), In the Tracks of Historical Mate-
rialism (1983) and The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci (2017). More importantly, Anderson applied historical
materialism to his studies of historical sociology in his brilliant work, Lineages of the Absolutist State (First
published in 1974). According to Anderson, there are ‘two different planes of Marxist discourse': while Marxist
historians have paid little attention to theoretical questions about historical materialism, Marxist philosophers
have sought to solve the theoretical problems without engaging with the specific empirical issues posed by
historians. Anderson designed his work as a Marxist study of Absolutism and tried to explore a mediated
ground between the two by combining theoretical analysis and historical studies. Anderson argued that ‘[t]he
arrival of Absolutism was never a smooth evolutionary process for the dominant class itself: it was marked by
extremely sharp ruptures and conflicts within the feudal aristocracy’ (Anderson, 2013: 20). With the growth
of commodity relations, ‘reorganization of the feudal polity as a whole and the dilution of the original fief sys-
tem, landownership tended to become progressively less “conditional” as sovereignty became correspond-
ingly more “absolute”’ (Anderson, 2013: 20).
Many others have conducted their research based on their understanding of Marxism and social develop-
ment. For example, Barrington Moore Jr. studied the relation between political developments and social class-
es in Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World
(1966), and discussed the issues of authority, inequality and justice in Moral Aspects of Economic Growth
(First published in 1998). Immanuel Wallerstein, the master of world-systems theory, analyzed the capitalist
development and emergence of a world market, and argued that capitalism has brought about immiseration
in the Global South in his book, Historical Capitalism, with Capitalist Civilization (First published in 1983).
Michael Burawoy examined the legitimization mechanism in capitalist societies in Manufacturing Consent:
Changes in the Labor Process under Monopoly Capitalism (1979), and called for ‘bringing workers back in’
in The Politics of Production: Factory Regimes under Capitalism and Socialism (1985). Burawoy argues that
‘the industrial working class has made significant and self-conscious interventions in history.… [and] these
interventions were and continue to be shaped by the process of production’ (Burawoy, 1985: 5).
The October Revolution and Russian Marxism

Contrary to Marx's expectations, the socialist countries were not founded in the Western advanced countries
but in some underdeveloped countries such as Russia. After the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917, the
first socialist country was established in Russia under the strong leadership of V. I. Lenin. To lead the pro-
letarian revolution, Lenin contributed much to Marxist theory with his theory of the Party and his concept of
capitalistic imperialism.
By musing on the theoretical points in the works of Marxist writers and studying the political and economic
realities, Lenin developed his own theory about capitalism and imperialism in Imperialism: The Highest Stage
of Capitalism in 1916. According to his analysis, imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism in which cap-
italist free competition is displaced by capitalist monopoly. Specifically, this definition of imperialism includes
the following features:
(1) the concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created
monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life; (2) the merging of bank capital with industrial
capital, and the creation, on the basis of this ‘finance capital', of a financial oligarchy; (3) the export of
capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance; (4) the for-
mation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves,
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and (5) the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed
(Lenin, 2008: 239).
At the stage of imperialism, monopolies have stimulated the seizure of the most important sources of raw
materials and also produced fierce competition for resources and markets among the biggest capitalist pow-
ers. This intense struggle for economic territory, for the division and redivision of the world, will inevitably lead
to militarism and imperialist war. This war has not only revealed the nature of parasitic and decaying capi-
talism, but also created the opportunities for the proletarian revolution in some underdeveloped or colonial/
semi-colonial societies. Based on this assessment, the socialist revolution could happen and succeed at the
weak point of the global imperialist system.
Lenin insisted that the revolutionary a vanguard party play a crucial role in the socialist revolution because he
realized that the proletariat, easily deluded by bourgeoisie ideas for improving their working and living condi-
tions, would not overthrow the whole capitalist system. A revolutionary party must be established on a very
firm foundation of Marxist theory, comprised of professional and dedicated revolutionaries capable of exercis-
ing ideological leadership through political education. Its organization was to be based on the rigorous and
truly iron discipline and the principle of democratic centralism combining free discussion and efficient action.
The Party was to serve as the vanguard of the working class and act in the interests of the proletariat class
with the fullest and unreserved support from the entire mass of the working class.
In the process of building the first socialist country, Lenin had been searching for several models of socialism,
such as War Communism and the New Economic Policy, in the face of foreign invasion and domestic hard-
ship. In comparison with the comprehensive State direction and management of the economy in ‘War Com-
munism', the ‘New Economic Policy’ was the strategic retreat in which ‘the state withdrew from the ownership
and management of small and medium enterprises, retaining only the very large-scale strategically important
parts of industry and communications. Freedom for peasants and traders to market their goods was extended
as the state withdrew’ (Harding, 2003: 261).
However, after Joseph Stalin ascended to the leadership of the Soviet one-party State, he proceeded to an-
nounce radical plans for the rapid industrialization of the country and the collectivization of agriculture. When
Stalin announced the First Five Year Plan in 1928, it started the ‘second revolution’ of the 1930s, which
brought about the swift and total eradication of private enterprises. All resources were brought under the
control of the State, and a system of central planning dominated by the State Planning Committee was es-
tablished. During the 1930s, empowered by his cult of personality, Stalin established an increasingly brutal
authoritarian dictatorship through a series of purges that suppressed and destroyed all opposition. This sys-
tem combining central planning and personal dictatorship has been called Stalinism or Stalin-style socialism.
Although some mistakes were corrected and reforms implemented after the death of Stalin in 1953, the core
principles of the Leninist Party and Stalin-style socialism stubbornly resisted pressure for reform and has had
a huge impact on political and economic developments in many other Communist countries.
The Rise of China and Chinese Marxism

The October Revolution in Russia accelerated the spread of Marxism and the development of the Communist
Revolution in China. During the long period of the communist revolution and socialist construction, the Chi-
nese Communist Party (CCP) and its leaders applied Marxism and Leninism to the military struggle, eco-
nomic development and political construction of China. Communist leaders, with Mao Zedong as their best
representative, have developed many new ideas, concepts and theories, all of which embody Chinese Marx-
ism. Mao Zedong is the principal Chinese Marxist theorist, and communist statesman who contributed to the
founding of the CCP in 1921, the Communist Army in 1927 and The People's Republic of China (PRC) in
1949. In contrast with Karl Marx spending his most of life in reading and writing as an editor, reporter and
scholar, Mao had taken part in almost all military struggles, political conflicts and social movements during his
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time. He emerged as a supreme leader in 1935 in the CCP because his smart ideas and correct tactics were
adopted by most of the CCP leaders. He was chairman of the PRC from 1949-59 and chairman of the CCP
until his death in 1976.
Maoism as Sinicized Marxism

Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought in China, is composed of many ideologies, strategies and tac-
tics believed to be the creative result of applying Marxism-Leninism to China, a semi-feudal and semi-colonial
country without modern industrial development. Maoism developed along with the progress of the communist
revolution and socialist movement.
After a bloody split in April 1927, Chiang Kai-shek of the Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, dismantled the unit-
ed front with the Communist Party against the warlord government in Beijing and broke with his allies in the
Communist Party. In the following campaigns, many communist organizations were destroyed, and a large
number of communist leaders and members killed. Mao led several peasant uprisings in Hunan and Jiangxi
provinces and established the communist military bases during the early 1930s. Based on these experiences,
Mao realized the importance of the Chinese peasantry in the Chinese communist revolution. In October 1934,
Mao and the communists retreated from Jiangxi under strong military attack by Chiang's Nationalist Army and
started their epic Long March to the new base in Shanxi province. By making use of the second united front
with the Nationalist Party against the Japanese, Mao and his communist comrades had not only consolidated
their base and expanded their sphere of influence, but also formulated an ideology and methodology for Chi-
nese revolution which was officially described as Maoism in 1945. In a new civil war between the communists
and nationalists from 1946 to 1949, the nationalist government ruled by Chiang was defeated and retreated
to Taiwan. As a result, the Communist Party came to power and Mao declared the founding of the PRC in
Beijing on October 1, 1949. During the long period of military struggle against the Nationalist Party and the
Japanese, ‘one of the most original contributions to the theory and practice of contemporary Marxism was his
conception of guerrilla warfare’ (McLellan, 2003a: 270).
According to the logic of Marxist socialism, only after the capitalist commodity economy developed fully would
socialism succeed. After the communist revolution succeeded and the CCP came to power in 1949, Mao and
the communist leaders – dreaming that their countries would immediately leap forward into communism – de-
cided to implement and promote a socialist transformation of the Chinese economy and society, unfortunately
ignoring the basic facts about the country's underdevelopment. In order to build socialism and realize com-
munism as soon as possible, they conducted radical and drastic reforms in socialist practice in the light of
Marxist theory, especially Stalinist theory imported from the Soviet Union. The Party tried to eliminate private
ownership and establish public ownership, reduce free competition and develop a planned economy, limit the
role of capital in the distribution of resources and promote egalitarianism in order to eradicate exploitation
and suppression. To promote the socialist transformation and build a new socialist country, the Communist
Party must always keep power in the hand of the proletarian class, take the class struggle as basic line and
consolidate the central leadership. After eight years of the socialist transformation, in 1957, Mao declared
confidently:
We are now building socialism.… The petty bourgeoisie in agriculture and handicrafts and the bour-
geoisie in industry and commerce have both experienced changes.… [the] individual economy has
been transformed into collective economy, and the capitalist private ownership is being transformed
into socialist public ownership. (Mao, 1977: 403)
In search of its own socialist model, after Stalin was criticized at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union in February 1956, China, under Mao, adopted many radical policies and launched mass
movements one after another. The most important was the ‘Great Leap Forward’ (GLF, 1958–60) and the
‘Cultural Revolution’ (1966–76). During the period of the GLF, in rural areas of China, 750,000 higher-stage
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cooperatives were merged into 25,000 people's multifunction communes in order to bring private farmers into
peasant collectives in the pursuit of egalitarian ideals. A huge amount of manpower had been mobilized to
build the famous backyard steel furnaces and extensive irrigation works. China's leaders were eager to catch
up with Britain, and eventually with the United States, and at least for a brief moment were willing to believe
that utopian methods worked and would produce more tons of steel and food. The GLF caused a great deal
of waste by mobilizing great manpower and huge resources to produce low-quality, even useless, steel in
an unproductive way in the development of the socialist economy. What is more, owing to this policy placing
emphasis on the development of heavy industry rather than light industry, the meager development of heavy
industry came at a huge cost with little or no improvement in people's living standards. The GLF caused an
immense famine and an unusually high death rate – the consequence not only of declining harvests but of
excessive requisitioning of grain, based on false reports that far more grain had been produced than was ac-
tually the case. Many years later, official sources admitted that 8 million people had died of causes related to
the GLF; unofficial sources estimated the figure at about 30 million (Saich, 2004: 41).
During the period of the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution, Mao took the class struggle as fundamental.
He believed that the main goal of the Cultural Revolution was to save Chinese socialism from the threat of
‘revisionism’ by purging his lieutenants who, as in case of Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, attached greater im-
portance to economic efficiency than ideological purity. The Cultural Revolution placed emphasis on purifying
the superstructure rather than changing the economic conditions, because Maoists believed that purification
would give a push to economic development in which the bureaucrats would engage directly, and to which
the masses, imbued with revolutionary ideals, would exert themselves on behalf of collective undertakings.
Meanwhile, with the ideal of egalitarian, a leftist ‘wind’ swept through the country, resulting in the curtailing of
private landholding, a free market and other personal rights. However, the facts show that China ended up in
1976, at the end of the Cultural Revolution, with neither efficiency nor equity.
Although Maoism contains many different and sometimes contradictory elements during the different stages
of Chinese Revolution and socialist construction, several salient features can be found in his works and expe-
riences. The first important feature is his emphasis on the importance of peasant issues in Chinese revolution
and socialist construction. The Marxist-Leninist tradition treated peasants as incapable of revolutionary ini-
tiative and only marginally useful in backing urban proletarian revolution. Based on his life experiences and
his analysis of the rural situation in China, Mao came to recognize the potential power of China's hundreds
of millions of peasants and decided to establish his base in rural areas instead of big cities. The peasants
constituted the vast majority of China's population and most of them were hard-pressed and lived in extreme
poverty. According to Mao, they were very receptive to revolutionary agitation and could become a revolution-
ary force if fully mobilized and properly guided. Proceeding from this belief, Mao proposed to instill in them a
revolutionary consciousness and make their force alone suffice for the revolution. By so doing, Mao led the
Chinese revolution to succeed and gradually formed a special sentiment for the peasants. During the Cultural
Revolution, Mao sent many city workers, intellectuals and bureaucrats to rural areas and forced them to re-
ceive re-education through agricultural labor, working alongside the peasants, because Mao believed the big
cities were a corrupting influence for many.
In Mao's thinking, there were long-standing populist elements and continuous emphasis on the ‘mass line'.
The mass line means the emphasis on the interests and preferences of the common people and demands
that the government be responsive to them. It was first created in the revolutionary period, based on the idea
of class struggle. The idea of the disadvantaged classes overthrowing the privileged classes through inter-
class struggle naturally entailed the idea of mobilizing the oppressed masses to fight for their own interests
against those of the oppressing classes. Thus, the notion of class struggle led to Mao's stress on the impor-
tance of the masses and mass movements and to what Mao explicitly labeled as the ‘mass line’ in the Yan'an
period (late 1930s and early 1940s) and thus it is extolled as one of precious traditions in communist history.
Therefore, it is common to assert that the mass line is a style of leadership, which is, at its best, a democratic
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style of leadership, just as indicated in the slogans such as ‘Serve the People’ and ‘Everything depends on
the Masses, from the Masses, to the Masses'. Mao believed that even the vanguard Party needed to be recti-
fied and reformed through criticism from the people it led and that the masses of China should be encouraged
to become involved in even the highest affairs of the State. In the Cultural Revolution of 1966–76, the masses
had been mobilized so broadly and deeply that the country verged on the edge of anarchy.
In spite of political disorder and economic depression in China, Maoism developed into a worldwide move-
ment in the 1960s and thereafter. All Maoists expressed fidelity to the thought of Mao Zedong. But at a prac-
tical level, self-identified Maoist political formations differed considerably. In parts of Asia where conditions
were similar to those that prevailed in China before 1949, Maoism was largely a peasant movement, engaging
in guerilla warfare and establishing bases in rural areas, and if successful, surrounding the cities and seiz-
ing State power. Elsewhere in the Third World, especially in Latin America, facing very different conditions,
Maoists had to modify classical Maoist forms of revolutionary struggle. In the developed capitalist countries,
Maoism meant something very different. Western Maoism was particularly attractive to young people during
the 1960s, if only for its ostensible purity and populist nature. Although Maoism has been upheld as one of
the major guiding principles in the CCP and other left-wing parties, it has gradually lost its appeal in China
and other parts of the world since China adopted a new ‘reform and opening’ policy in 1978.
Contemporary Chinese Marxism

This is socialism with Chinese characteristics; contemporary Chinese Marxism, proposed by the communist
leaders with Deng Xiaoping at its core. After the death of Mao and the end of the Cultural Revolution, Deng
Xiaoping emerged as the new supreme leader and began to review and revise the basic line adopted by Mao.
He was dissatisfied with the poor performance that had been achieved in the preceding 30 years and made
the painful discovery that Chinese socialism had produced only meager results in comparison with the other
nations of capitalist East Asia. He believed that these were consequences of a rigid and dogmatic under-
standing of socialism; that is, taking classic socialist theory as the CCP's guideline without considering Chi-
na's special circumstances and blindly believing that socialism equals public ownership plus planned econo-
my. So Deng Xiaoping thought it imperative to give a new perspective on socialism and make a breakthrough
in socialist theory under the banner of ‘emancipating the mind’ and ‘seeking the truth from the facts’ (Deng,
1994: 140). The new theory of socialism with Chinese characteristics has been expounded and enriched by
Deng Xiaoping and other communist leaders during recent decades.
In 1978, at the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the CCP, the Party with Deng Xi-
aoping as its core leader, restored the principle of ‘seeking the truth from the facts', stopped using the slogan
‘politics taking command’ and shifted the major goals to socialist construction, focusing on economic develop-
ment and modernization. This made a good start on ‘reconsidering’ socialism and brought about the historic
decision on ‘reform and opening up’ – the Opening of China – which marked the beginning of China's era of
reform. At the time, China had a clear desire to increase productivity and raise living standards by reforming
its economic system. However, it didn't have a clear objective of what the new system would be like and thus
proceeded with the reform as though ‘crossing the river by touching the stones'. In 1982, at the 12th National
Congress of the CCP, Deng Xiaoping proposed the idea of constructing socialism with Chinese characteris-
tics by combining the basic principles of Marxism and China's special national conditions. By 1987, at the 13th
National Congress of the CCP, the Party had a new perspective on the progress of socialist development,
proposing that as China was still in the primary stage, the private economy should be encouraged.
At the beginning of 1992, Deng Xiaoping made a famous southern tour in which he talked a lot about the
nature of socialism, redefining it as ‘liberating productivity, developing productivity, eradicating exploitation,
getting rid of the polarization between rich and poor, and finally getting rich together’ (Deng, 1993: 373). He
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said: ‘The planned economy is not equal to capitalism, and there are plans in the capitalist countries. The
market economy is not equal to capitalism, and there are markets in the socialist countries.’ ‘The measure of
socialism or capitalism is not that there are more markets or more plans', ‘but whether it is helpful to develop
productivity, enhance the comprehensive national power, and improve the living standard for common people’
(Deng, 1993: 372–3). In October, at the 14th National Congress of the CCP, Jiang Zemin, the new supreme
leader as General Secretary of the CCP, attributed the fruits of ‘reform and opening up’ to the theory of social-
ism with Chinese characteristics proposed by Deng Xiaoping, and declared that the goal of economic struc-
tural reform would be to establish the socialist market economy (Jiang, 2006a, 210). In 1993, at the Third
Plenum of the Fourteenth Central Committee of the CCP, the leaders adopted ‘the Decision on Issues Con-
cerning the Establishing of a Socialist Market Economic System', which was the turning point on China's road
to marketization. Thus, the Chinese government and Communist Party formally admitted and adopted the
market economy, in which the market would play the fundamental role in allocating economic and social re-
sources. In contrast with the traditional socialist theory, which rejected the commodity economy and market
mechanism, the new theory insisted on the coexistence of socialism and the market economy because social-
ism has been redefined in grand schemes for developing productivity and creating wealth, and the market is
regarded as the mere means to organize and regulate economic relations. In 1997, at the Fifteenth National
Congress of the CCP, the leaders made an official decision to adopt Deng Xiaoping's theory as their guiding
principle along with Marxist-Leninist and Mao Zedong Thought (Maoism).
In the process of developing the socialist market economy, the private economy has been playing a more and
more important role and a new stratum of private entrepreneurs has become more powerful and influential.
At the Meeting Celebrating the 80th Anniversary of the Founding of the CCP, Jiang Zemin said that most of
these people, such as private entrepreneurs and technical personnel, have contributed to the development of
productive forces and other social undertakings through honest labor or lawful business operations, and they
are also working for building socialism with Chinese characteristics (Jiang, 2006b: 286). This officially opened
the door for private entrepreneurs to join the CCP. For the Communist Party, which insisted on the eradication
of exploitation and the exploiting class for such a long time, this decision to permit private entrepreneurs as
‘new blood’ was revolutionary. In 2002, at the 16th National Congress of the CCP, the CCP leaders endorsed
officially the important thought of the ‘Three Represents’ proposed by Jiang Zemin as their guiding principle
along with the Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping theory. The ‘Three Represents’
means that the CCP must represent the most advanced productivity, the most advanced culture and the most
comprehensive interests of Chinese people (Jiang, 2006b: 2). This marked the fundamental transformation of
the CCP from the party of the working class to a catch-all party.
Although China has achieved rapid growth and improved living standards for most of its residents, the de-
velopments in China are limited, imbalanced and at a low-level in terms of GDP per capita and technological
innovation, and also at high-cost. There are widening gaps between the urban and rural areas, between the
east and west and between the coastal and mountainous areas. Environmental degradation and the low effi-
ciency of resource consumption as a result of fast industrialization and urbanization have all contributed to a
bottleneck in sustainable development. After Hu Jintao came to power as supreme leader in 2002, the theory
of scientific development and harmonious society was proposed as the new development of Chinese-style
socialism. The concept of scientific development was first launched by Hu Jintao at the Third Plenum of the
16th Central Committee in 2003. It emphasized equitable, balanced and sustainable development. The build-
ing of harmonious society is aimed to enable all the people to share the social wealth brought by reform and
development, forge an ever closer relationship between the people and government and result in lasting sta-
bility and unity. Social harmony is an essential attribute of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Scientific
development and social harmony are integral to each other; neither is possible without the other. In 2007, at
the 17th National Congress of the CCP, the leaders decided to build the socialist harmonious society accord-
ing to the notion of scientific development.

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Since Xi Jinping rose to be the supreme leader as the General Secretary of the CCP in 2012, enormous and
massive political changes have taken place in China. In contrast with Deng Xiaoping's ideas about the limited
role of the Communist Party, General Secretary Xi has called for the overall leadership of the CCP in all areas.
On February 13, 2017, when delivering a speech at the study session attended by provincial and ministeri-
al leaders, Xi Jinping emphasized that ‘the Party exercises overall leadership over all areas of endeavor in
every party of the country’ (Xi, 2017: 20). In the political report delivered at the 19th National Congress of the
CCP, Xi Jinping insisted that ‘the defining feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics is the leadership of
the Communist Party of China; the greatest strength of the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics
is the leadership of the Communist Party of China; and the Party is the highest force for political leadership’
(Xi, 2017a: 20). In the revised Constitution of the PRC, endorsed by the National People's Congress in 2018,
the communist leadership has been included and reemphasized in an added article. This new definition of
socialism and the CCP's role represented the latest development in contemporary Chinese Marxism and will
contribute to the party-centered governance in China.
Conclusion
From the above reflections and discussions, we may conclude that Marxism has been developing along with
historical development. During different periods of historical development, Marxism can be understood from
very different perspectives. For example, the new perspectives on socialism during the reform era in China
represented the theoretical transition from the pure, classic and traditional socialism characterized by public
ownership, planned economy and class struggle, to socialism with Chinese characteristics emphasizing the
reform and opening up, the development of the market economy and the building of a prosperous and har-
monious society under the leadership of the CCP.
Taking a long and broad view, global conflict between Marxism and liberalism, communism and capitalism,
left and right has dominated world politics during the past two centuries. On the left there have been many
controversies and disputes over the interpretation of Marxism and its application. Generally speaking, Marx-
ism has been criticized and rejected when capitalist countries are prosperous and socialist countries decline
and collapse; on the contrary, Marxism has been adopted and embraced when capitalist countries face crisis
and socialist countries make progress.
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• politics
• marxism
• communism
• capitalism
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n10

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The New Institutionalism in Political Science
Contributors: B. Guy Peters & Jon Pierre

Chapter Title: "The New Institutionalism in Political Science"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
The New Institutionalism in Political Science

B. Guy Peters Jon Pierre
Institutionalism has been the foundation of political science. For many ancient political philosophers such as
Aristotle, the assumption was that constructing institutions was the way in which to control human behavior
and shape the outputs of governance. The same arguments for the importance of institutional structures per-
sisted in political philosophers and analysts such as Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu and numerous others. In
the past, to think about politics and government was to think about institutions, often in the context of the in-
stitutions of the State.
As political science began to differentiate itself from moral philosophy, another version of the ‘old institutional-
ism’ emerged. It was more empirical in its focus, and attempted to utilize formal institutions as the means for
understanding and explaining differences among political systems. This old institutionalism was highly formal
and legalistic, assuming that constitutions would be followed and were the primary, if not sole, basis for po-
litical action within a country. Further, this style of institutionalism was holist, assuming that all the institutions
within a political system worked together smoothly, and were designed to produce effective governance, al-
beit governance of different types.1
For some good reasons the old institutionalism lost favor with scholars, especially as the emphasis shifted
from structure to agency in political theory. The ‘behavioral revolution’ and later the development of rational
choice approaches, shifted attention away from institutions and toward the decisions made by individuals
within, and without, those institutions. But that emphasis on the individual also has been contested, and be-
came a principal motivation for developing the New Institutionalism. The argument, in brief, was that the em-
phasis on the atomistic individual gave insufficient attention to the mechanisms through which structures in-
fluenced the behavior of those individuals, both normatively and through incentives and disincentives, for be-
havior.
The New Institutionalism therefore reflects not only some roots in the distant past of political science but also
some contemporary debates. This approach, or perhaps set of approaches, does not reject many aspects of
contemporary political science but, rather, is arguing that the emphasis on individual behavior must be un-
derstood in a context that is composed of structures. The New Institutionalism does not look at institutions
as formal and immutable, but rather looks at the role of agency in creating and transforming the structures.
Although there is certainly a strong emphasis on structure, the strength of contemporary institutional theory is
that it emphasizes structure and agency, rather than emphasizing a stark dichotomy.
Therefore, a definition of institutions would be ‘structural features which shape social behavior, persist over
time and express shared values among members of the institution’ (Peters, 2019). Note, however, that the
structures need not be formalized, as in the case of networks and other social institutions. In addition, the ex-
tent of the sharing of values need not be complete, and institutions may have some subcultures and internal
divisions.
The various strands of contemporary institutionalism (see below) all have their own perspectives on institu-
tions, but there is a common thread among them that can be used as a definition of institutions. That is, insti-
tutions are structural features that shape social behavior and persist over time. These structures also express
the shared values of their members. Some aspects of this definition may be more evident than others, for
example, there is not always a tangible structure but more a structure of ideas, but this definition can encom-
pass all the versions.
Varieties of New Institutionalism

Although we have been discussing the New Institutionalism as an entity, perhaps the fundamental point about
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this body of political theory is that it does not appear to be an integrated approach, but rather a collection of
competitive, and complementary, approaches to institutions and their role in politics. As we will point out later
in this essay there are many points of commonality among these various versions of New Institutionalism, but
the differences often appear to outweigh the similarities. We will now proceed to discuss five versions of New
Institutionalism, asking a common set of questions of each, and then later attempting to answer the rather
difficult question of whether there really is a New Institutionalism.
Normative Institutionalism
James March and Johan Olsen (1984, 1989) issued the first call for the development of a New Institutionalism
in political science. They argued that political science at the time they were writing, and still today, was domi-
nated by a ‘logic of consequentiality', meaning that the assumption was that individuals calculated the conse-
quences for them of any political action, and behaved according to the results of that calculus. Further, they
were making those calculations as atomistic individuals, rather than as individuals embedded in a set of insti-
tutional structures that provided some guidance about behavior.
The guidance given to the individuals by membership in an institution was conceptualized by March and
Olsen as the ‘logic of appropriateness'. That is, individuals within institutions learn the myths, symbols, rou-
tines and ideas of the institution. Those members of the institution utilize those institutional values for guid-
ance, rather than relying upon their own ideas about the right thing to do or following their own self-interest.
Stated differently, the preferences for individuals are endogenous to the institution, rather than coming from
outside, and being personal. The principal exception may be that individuals may already be attracted to the
values of an institution and that motivates their decision to join the institution.
Within normative institutionalism an institution is a collection of norms, values, routines and symbols. These
may be arranged as a formal structure, or they may not, but the important thing is that the values tend to be
relatively consistent and that they are accepted by the members of the institution. Further, a normative insti-
tution must invest a good deal of energy in socializing new members and maintaining the commitment of its
current members. In this conception of an institution, the sanctions available to the leadership are also largely
normative, rather than material.
As well as needing to understand what an institution is, we also need to know how they are formed. It is rather
easy to identify major existing institutions, but the process of formation may be less identifiable. The sociolo-
gist Philip Selznick (1957) argued that the process of creating institutions – institutionalization – was ‘infusing
a structure with values greater than those required for the mechanical achievement of its tasks'.2 Any ordi-
nary organization may be able to achieve certain tasks, but an institution will have meaning for its members
and thereby tend to generate greater commitment from those members.
Change in normative institutionalism therefore must come about through changing the normative structure of
the institution. This normative change can happen in several ways. One is through leadership. If the lead-
ership of the institution recognizes that the existing value structure is no longer functional, it may attempt to
inculcate a new set of values or goals. This normative change may be significantly more difficult than change
within the other forms of institutionalism to be discussed below, especially since a successful institution will
have invested in creating the existing set of values.
An institution or organization may face the need to introduce value change if they are so successful that they
achieve their goals. In that case they must decide whether to set new goals or simply cease to exist. Or con-
versely, an institution may be forced into change when it becomes clear that the actions of its members do
not conform to the stated values of the institution. The institution would be confronted with the need to either
manage behaviors to fit the norms more closely, or to change the norms. Depending upon how well institu-
tionalized those norms have become, producing normative change may be difficult unless they are merely to
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conform to the informal working norms (see Azari and Smith, 2012).
Change in the normative institutionalism can also occur through changing the principal input into the institution
– the people who occupy roles within it. When major social and cultural change occurs outside their struc-
tures, institutions may have little option but to alter the ways in which they attempt to motivate the individuals
within their structures. For example, during the 1960s the US Army had to change the ways in which it dealt
with soldiers, being incapable of exercising the same strict discipline with troops who wanted things explained
to them rather than following orders without question.
In sum, normative institutionalism, as the name implies, assumes that institutions are formed around ideas
and values. Given that basic premise, the formation and maintenance of an institution can be seen as incul-
cating those ideas into the members of the institution, and change involves changing the normative structure
that guides the behavior of institutional members. Perhaps most fundamentally, normative institutionalism fo-
cuses on the logic of appropriateness within the institution as the guide for action for members, as opposed
to their own self-interest.
Rational Choice Institutionalism

Although March and Olsen might consider the term to be a misnomer, there is a strong strand of rational
choice institutionalism in political science (see Paine and Tyson, Chapter 11, this Handbook). As it is true for
all forms of rational choice theory, the assumption here is that individuals are utility maximizers and that they
will utilize any situation in order to maximize that utility. Participating in an institution will be no different from
any other situation. In contrast to the normative institutionalism, preferences in rational choice institutionalism
are assumed to be exogenous to the institution, and remain largely unaltered by the individuals participating
in an institution.
An institution in the rational choice approach is conceptualized as a set of incentives and disincentives for
individuals. Assuming that individuals have relatively similar preferences, the designer of the institution can
devise a set of incentives to produce the type of behavior desired. Institutions can also be conceptualized as
sets of rules (Ostrom, 1990) that mandate that individuals do, or not do, certain things. And institutions have
also been described as sets of decision points or veto points, that can delay or facilitate decisions, or that tend
to produce certain types of decisions (Tsebelis, 2002). And finally, institutions can be conceptualized as a set
of principal-agent relationships with the attendant problem of monitoring the possible shirking or sabotage of
the agents (Brehm and Gates, 1997; Pierre and Peters, 2018).
The literature on rational choice institutionalism sees institutions being formed in two dominant manners. One
is through design. The individual or group responsible for designing an institution, whether they be writing a
constitution or merely forming a small group, will attempt to design the incentives within the structure so that
certain behaviors and certain outcomes are more probable. These designers are dealing with people so they
cannot guarantee a specific outcome, but they often can be very effective. The framers of the constitution of
the United States wanted to create a government in which bold action would be difficult, and they succeeded,
perhaps too well.
The other means through which institutions are formed within rational choice institutionalism is more evolu-
tionary. Rather than being designed, institutions evolve because individuals involved with the emergent insti-
tution negotiate among themselves to produce a set of effective rules, or at least expected patterns of behav-
ior. Elinor Ostrom (1990) demonstrated how even self-interested individuals may be able to overcome collec-
tive action problems through devising rules that constrain their own individually rational actions. This insight
then can link the study of some of the normative elements usually associated with the normative institutional-
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ism with rational choice institutionalism.
The process of institutionalization of the institutional structures vary very much in line with the conception of
formation. If the design model of creating the institution is assumed then institutionalization is not much of
an issue. The individuals within the institution will make decisions according to their preferences as soon as
they understand the consequences of those choices for their utility. For the more evolutionary approach to
the formation of institutions, the process of institutionalization is that process of recognizing the need to over-
come collective action, or perhaps transaction cost, problems and devising a solution. And for that solution to
remain viable over any time some value must be attached to it in order to prevent defections.
Ostrom's work, as well as that of many other rational choice scholars, demonstrates that one of the most
important problems that institutions may be designed to overcome is the collective action problem, or the
disjuncture between individual and collective rationality (Olson, 1965). In the tragedy of the commons, for ex-
ample, the pursuit of individual gain leads to collective ruin. The difficulties of social choices with inconsistent
preferences is another rational choice problem which can be addressed through the development of institu-
tions (Riker, 1980). And finally, institutions can be very effective at minimizing transaction costs by creating
structures that do not require the renegotiation of deals among parties, perhaps an especially important role
for international organizations.
In the design mode of thinking about rational choice institutionalism change is relatively easy. All the designer
must do is to alter the incentives, or rules, and the institution should produce different outcomes. This as-
sumes, of course, that preferences are consistent and that the designer understands those preferences. In
the more evolutionary mode of thinking about institutions, change would be substantially more difficult, being
a process more like that in normative institutionalism. The incentives and rules would have to change more
through negotiation and agreement than through imposition.
In summary, it is easy to create a stereotype of rational choice institutionalism. It does make questionable as-
sumptions about the clarity of preferences of individuals and about their presumably rather simplistic respons-
es to incentives and disincentives. Despite that, this version of institutional theory does provide important in-
sights into the possibilities of generating desired outcomes through the manipulation of incentives. Further, as
the approach has evolved and integrated some concerns with norms associated with the institutions, it can
provide a more complete picture of the ways in which political institutions function.
Historical Institutionalism
Historical institutionalism is the third major approach to institutional theory in contemporary political science.
In some ways, this approach is almost a stereotype of the usual thinking about public institutions. That is, the
historical institutionalism's fundamental argument is that, once created, institutions persist unless there is a
strong force capable of changing them. Phrased somewhat differently, for critics of the public sector, public-
sector institutions are hyper-stable and tend to continue doing what they have always done unless forced to
do otherwise.
There is, however, more theoretical content to the historical institutionalism than the stereotypical critique of
the public sector. First, this approach to institutions is based on ideas, but unlike the normative institutionalism
the ideas are focused primarily on specific policies rather than on the general value orientation of the insti-
tution (Hall, 1986). The commitment to those policy ideas within the institution creates the path dependency
that describes the persistence of policies even after their utility may have passed.3
Second, the historical institutionalism does have a clearly developed notion, or actually several notions, of
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change, again in contrast to the stereotypical view. The original idea of change was punctuated equilibrium.
The idea here is that institutions will indeed continue in their initial paths until they are moved by some major
shock and after some time a new equilibrium will be established. That new equilibrium will persist until there is
another shock. The difficulty with this idea of change is that there is nothing in the theory that permits predic-
tion of the punctuation. It is easy to argue that the punctuation has occurred after the fact, but little to explain
when it will happen. We have argued elsewhere (Peters et al., 2005) that conflict among ideas is crucial for
explaining the why of change, but still does not explain the when.
The reliance upon radical change in historical institutionalism was also the target of major criticism of the
approach. Although major change does occur, most change in public policy and public institutions appears
to be incremental. Later conceptualization in historical institutionalism has identified four versions of gradual
change. All of these versions of change provide for the continuing adjustment of the pattern of functioning
within the institution, while maintaining the key aspects of the existing regimen. The analytic question which
remains, however, is how much incremental change would accumulate to a major punctuation in the life of
the institution?
There is not a strong conception of institutionalization within historical institutionalism. The idea of the ‘forma-
tive moment’ is not developed much beyond a simple description of the creation of the institution, meaning
that if the idea of structure does persist then it has been institutionalized, but if it does not then it has not.
The argument then is implicitly tautological. We could, however, link this version of institutionalism with the
normative institutionalism to argue that the acceptance of the idea as the basis of the institution is in essence
the infusing of values into the structure described by Selznick (1957).
What the historical institutionalism has been developing, however, has been a set of ideas explaining the per-
sistence of the institution that goes beyond simple inertia, although inertia can be a powerful explanation in
itself (Rose, 1990). Pierson (2000), for example, argues that institutions persist because they create positive
feedbacks and reinforcement for the actors involved – whether members of the institution or the clients. Sa-
rigil (2015) has argued that the persistence of institutions can be explained merely by habit; certain ways of
doing things become ingrained and are not questioned.
In summary, like both the normative institutionalism and discursive institutionalism, the historical institutional-
ism has a strong connection with ideas, and specifically with policy ideas. The institution can be seen as the
creation of some structure – whether programmatic or organizational – around the idea. The assumption is
that once that idea has become accepted or institutionalized it will continue to be significant in the life of the
structure until some forces produce change, no matter whether that change is gradual or extreme.
Empirical Institutionalism
A fourth version of the New Institutionalism has strong links with older ideas about institutions. What we refer
to here as empirical institutionalism is based on the rather obvious notion perhaps, that the formal structures
of government have consequences. What is different from the old institutionalism, however, is the more ex-
plicit attempts to build theory about the role of structure in shaping behavior. In addition, there has been some
attempt to include some of the insights from behavioral political science and even rational choice models to
understand the impact of structure on the performance and behavior of institutions.
Although it has attempted to include more contemporary theoretical approaches, empirical institutionalism
has addressed many of the classic institutional questions in political science. For example, Weaver and Rock-
man (1993; see also Pal and Weaver, 2003) asked the question of whether institutions matter, referring to the
differences between parliamentary and presidential forms of governance. To that familiar dichotomy we can
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add the emergence of various forms of semi-presidentialism (Elgie et al., 2011).
Empirical institutionalism has also addressed the nature of individual institutions within the public sector. For
example, beginning with Nelson Polsby's (1968) study of the US House of Representatives there has been a
strand of research that focuses on the institutionalization of legislative bodies (see Palanza et al., 2012). This
literature has argued that the extent to which a legislature is institutionalized will affect its capacity to legislate
effectively, and to function as an effective foil to the powers of the executive (but see Judge, 2003).
Yet another application of empirical institutionalism has addressed autonomous and quasi-autonomous orga-
nizations within the public sector. For example, a significant body of literature has addressed the autonomy
of central banks and the importance of that autonomy for monetary policy (Fernández-Albertos, 2015). In
addition, the administrative reforms associated with the New Public Management have created multiple au-
tonomous and quasi-autonomous agencies within public administration. This body of institutionalist literature
also raises important questions about accountability for these autonomous institutions (Vibert, 2007).
Finally, empirical institutional analysis has been used to address issues of political development. Beginning
with Samuel Huntington (1968), students of development have linked the development of the capacity of po-
litical institutions with the overall development of the political system. This research has paid special attention
to the development of the public bureaucracy, and its central role in creating more effective governance. In-
creasingly that work has focused on creating ‘islands of excellence’ (Roll, 2014) in administrative systems
that otherwise may be less than excellent, and then building out from those to attempt to improve government
performance more generally.
We could add studies of other institutions within the public sector to this catalog of the work of empirical in-
stitutionalists. The basic point of this approach would, however, remain much the same. The argument is that
the formal design of institutions matters for their performance, and for the performance of the public sector
more generally (Choudhry, 2008). This approach is more allied with the rational choice perspective than with
other contemporary approaches to institutionalism, if for no other reason than it assumes that it is indeed pos-
sible to alter the behavior of individuals, and the performance of institutions, simply through designing their
formal structures.
Discursive Institutionalism
A fifth approach to institutionalism in political science has been described as ‘discursive institutionalism’
(Schmidt, 2010, 2011). Previously scholars such as Colin Hay (1995, 2008) and Nicolas Jabko (2006) had
discussed some of the same ideas in terms of constructivism. Vivien Schmidt, however, created a stronger
conception of this logic in her discursive model. The basic logic of this approach is that institutions are defined
by ideas and the manner in which these ideas are communicated within the structure (see also Alasuutari,
2015). Unlike some, or indeed most, conceptions of institutionalism this version is not based on hierarchy or
formal structures but is based more on shared patterns of communication.4
While explanations based on interest have been dominant in political science, there is also a significant strand
of thought emphasizing the role of ideas (Béland, 2009) as independent sources of explanation. These two
forms of explanation may be artificially distinct – ideas may be used to justify interests, and interests may
grow out of ideas – they do represent alternative avenues for understanding the complexities of public action
and of the institutions involved in that action. In discursive institutionalism, ideas dominate the explanation of
institutional behavior, and constitute the foundations of institutions.
Although elaborated in somewhat different ways the fundamental logic of discursive institutionalism and nor-
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mative institutionalism are similar in several important ways. In both cases institutions are defined largely by
their ideas and norms. Further, creating the institution in both approaches depends heavily on inculcating a
set of values among the prospective members. In both cases the actors involved in an institution are mem-
bers because of the values and ideas that the institution represents. And in both, institutional change comes
through changing ideas and the associated norms, although the normative version tends to be somewhat
more strongly dependent upon top-down processes for producing the change.
Although there is the basic similarity of these two versions of institutionalism, there are also several crucial
differences. The most fundamental of these differences is that the normative institutionalism has strong roots
in organizational theory and tends to take organizations as the fundamental locus for institutional activity.5
In contrast the discursive approach to institutions does not assume established organizational structures but
rather that the institutions emerge from the interaction of the members and their discourses (Hope and Raud-
la, 2015). Following from the interactive nature of institutions in its approach, the norms within the discursive
institutionalism are more flexible and tend to be constructed through interactions, while those in the normative
approach are more defined by the existing patterns of norms, symbols, routines and myths within an institu-
tion.
Informal Institutions
The idea of informal institutions may appear to many readers to be an oxymoron. After all, institutions are
formal structures that persist over time, and often are too formalized and too rigid. But at the same time infor-
mal arrangements develop among political actors – individuals as well as other organizations and institutions
– that have characteristics of institutions without the need to become formalized. Especially if one adopts
the sociological perspective on institutions as being defined by ‘myths, symbols, routines', etc. (Meyer and
Rowan, 1977) then informal arrangements can easily be conceptualized as institutions. Informal institutions
can be as important as formal ones in defining social relationships and making governance function effective-
ly. Many of the ‘rules’ that shape behavior in the public sector are not formal but represent the accretion of
understandings among individuals across time.
While the study of formal institutions has bridged public administration, comparative politics and political the-
ory, informal institutions have been especially important for comparative politics. Informal institutions such as
clans (Murtazashvili, 2016), clientelism (Stokes et al., 2013), corruption (Rose and Peiffer, 2016), consocia-
tionalism (Lijphart, 1985; Jarrett, 2016) and patrimonialism have been very important for understanding and
explaining how governments work, especially in developing and transitional societies. But even in industri-
al democracies informality can be important, and occurs in seemingly formal aspects of governing such as
writing regulations within the public bureaucracy (Azari and Smith, 2012). And the emphasis on network gov-
ernance in many northern European countries (Keast et al., 2014) can also be seen as the functioning of
informal institutions linking the public and private sectors.
The presence of informal institutions – political, economic and social – can be seen as providing alternative
means of governing and reaching collective goals when the formal institutions of society are weak. Many of
the aspects of informality are condemned by international organizations, by scholars and by many citizens in
the countries affected, but they may still be essential for providing governance and supplementing weak for-
mal institutions. These institutions may be described as working in the ‘twilight’ (Lund, 2007) or in the ‘shad-
ows’ (Gore and Pratten, 2003; Peters, 2011) but they do function and they do provide some collective as well
as individual benefits (Bratton, 2007).

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What is an (Informal) Institution?

Potter Stewart, a justice on the US Supreme Court famously said that he could not define pornography but
he knew it when he saw it. Much the same appears to have been true in the study of informal institutions.
The term is used widely, but often without a clear definition, and often simply to denote something that is not
a formal institution. Especially in political science, the contrast is made between the formal institutions such
as legislatures and courts and the more amorphous patterns of behavior that complement, or oppose, the
behaviors expected from the formal structures. Although more amorphous, these patterns of behavior are in-
stitutionalized, with behavioral regularities, expectations and predictability.
Gretchen Helmke and Steven Levitsky (2004), in perhaps the most cited article on informal institutions and
governance, point out that the term has been applied to a ‘dizzying array’ of phenomena in the world of pol-
itics. They do go on, however, to attempt to provide a more precise definition of the concept. They define
informal institutions as ‘socially shared rules, usually unwritten, that are created, communicated and enforced
outside of officially sanctioned channels’ (2004: 727). It is important to note that this definition is not hugely
different from the definition of institutions in the normative institutionalism, with its emphasis on the ‘logic of
appropriateness’ for defining individual behavior. The major difference from formal institutions, they argue, is
the absence of official sanctions present in the formal structures, even though these patterns of behavior are
still legitimate for the participants.
The importance of interactions and informal modes of decision-making actually appears in Helmke and Lev-
itsky's own discussion of what they deem ‘complementary’ patterns of interaction between formal and infor-
mal institutions (2004: 728). They mention, for example, informal rules within bureaucracies for coordinat-
ing among organizations without having to revert to using formal, hierarchical mechanisms (see also Peters,
2015). The failure to achieve coordination may be seen as a sanction for organizations who cannot make
these informal mechanisms function, but we would argue that patterns of interaction may be better conceptu-
alized in terms of opportunities rather than as sanctions.
We may therefore be able to introduce some of the ideas of the opportunity structures literature (Kitschelt,
1989) to explain the emergence of informal institutions. While this literature has been concerned primarily
with social movements (see Della Porta, 2013) it can also be used to explain the likelihood of other types of
organizations and institutions forming. For example, Kitschelt's discussion of the impact of open and closed
input structures and weak and strong output structures could also be seen as making the formation of infor-
mal institutions more or less likely in particular settings.
Following from the above, we can think of at least two types of informal organizations – those based on sanc-
tions and those based on opportunities. Both of these variations of informal institutions will be able to shape
the behavior of individuals and other organizations, although one will be based more on carrots and the oth-
er on sticks (Bemelmans-Videc et al., 1998). And somewhat similarly to Helmke and Levitsky we can ask
whether the activities or goals of the informal institution are congruent with those of the formal institutions or
not. The interaction of these two variables produces the typology presented in Table 8.1.
Table 8.1 Types of informal institutions

Basis of institutions
Sanctions Opportunities
Congruent Shared enforcement Facilitating
Goals of institutions
Incongruent Alternative governance Competitive

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As with the analysis of Helmke and Levitsky this typology demonstrates that informal institutions need not
subvert the public sector, but rather in many instances they support the public sector and enable it to perform
better than it could otherwise. Thus, informality in governance is not necessarily either positive or negative.
Each circumstance must be judged differently depending on the circumstances. Indeed, some patterns that
are positive in some circumstances may be negative in others. For example, civil servants working informal-
ly to produce coordination in general would make positive contributions to governing, but if they collude to
pursue goals other than those of their organizations then the interactions must be seen as having negative
consequences.
The formality or informality of institutions may also vary with context, and over time. Take for example political
parties. Parties can have all the trappings of a formal institution in almost any definition. However, within the
context of an institution such as a legislature the party may function more as an informal institution. Internal
norms such as party unity may contribute to, or reduce, the capacity of the legislature to perform its tasks.
Some aspects of clientelism may also move between formality and informality, as when the distributive nature
of politics in clientelistic systems becomes more formalized.
Informal institutions constitute a very real part of political life. As well as being important on their own, they
are perhaps even more important as they interact with formal institutions and contribute to, or detract from,
the achievement of collective goals through the processes of governing. In some instances, informal institu-
tions can contribute to the achievement of governance goals, while in other situations they may pursue their
own goals that undermine governance. Also, while we tend to think about formal institutions as involved in
processes of governing through formal, legal means (Lepsius, 2013), informal institutions are more important
for public participation and political democracy (Lauth, 2000).
Is There One Institutionalism?

The discussion to this point has been cataloging a variety of approaches to institutions and institutionalism.
This catalog of approaches demonstrates the rich variety of ideas present in institutionalism, but it raises
another significant question about contemporary institutional theory. If institutionalism is to be an alternative
paradigm in political science, then this variety and the apparent internal contractions must somehow be rec-
onciled and some common understanding of institutions emerge.
We will argue that there are some common elements in contemporary institutional theory, although the next
section will point to some continuing challenges within this body of theory. The first and most fundamental
point is that structure matters. Although contemporary institutional theory is capable of integrating some as-
pects of agency, the underlying logic of the approach is that the structures within the political system – in-
cluding informal structures – do matter. Further, individual behavior is not atomistic, but is shaped at least in
part by membership in these structures. The shaping may occur because of ideas or because of incentives or
through rules, but there is still some reduction on the variability of behavior.
Following from the first point, another commonality within these theories is that they are concerned with cre-
ating some regularity of behavior for individuals. Left to themselves, individuals can be rather unpredictable,
and institutions are designed to reduce that unpredictability. Some level of predictability is necessary for gov-
ernments to function, whether in democratic or authoritarian regimes, and institutions create some control
over individuals. But the level of control that is necessary, and the level that is acceptable, will vary across
political systems. And the level of control that is desirable and acceptable will also differ across institutions
within the same political system.
A third defining feature of institutions is that they replicate behaviors over time, and create more predictability
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not just for individuals but also across time. Constitutions and law are major institutional constraints on rapid
change within a political system, and thus provide some confidence for citizens and for businesses. That said,
all institutions do change across time, responding to changing external conditions and the changing leader-
ship within the institution itself. That gradual change, characterized in several ways in historical institutional-
ism, may be endemic in institutions (Mahoney and Thelen, 2010).
Finally, all versions of institutionalism require some means of understanding the interaction between individ-
uals and the institution. There is some tendency in casual discussions of institutionalism to ignore the role of
individuals, but that would be to misunderstand the fundamental nature of institutions. They are human cre-
ations and can be changed by individuals, but at the same time they shape the behavior of the individuals
within them. This interaction between structure and agency is a crucial element in any understanding of the
complexity of institutional life and institutional theory.
In sum, there are some common elements in all versions of institutionalism in political science. But are these
common elements sufficient to define a potential paradigm for the discipline, or even some sub-fields within
the discipline? That is to some extent in the eye of the beholder. If that beholder does see that institutions
are a pervasive part of political and social life then perhaps there is a sufficient common core to say that an
integrated approach exists. But if one focuses only on the disparate approaches then there may well only be
a set of partial approaches to the role of structure in politics.
What Does Institutionalism Do for Political Science?

The above discussion has mentioned a number of impacts that institutionalism has had on the study of pol-
itics, but we should also identify those contributions more systematically, and especially note the ways in
which institutional approaches may address issues that approaches based on ‘methodological institutional-
ism’ (Udehn, 2001) may be less adept at addressing. Indeed, institutionalism can provide some solutions to
problems (theoretical as well as actual) that are posed by a focus on individual behavior.
The several discussions below address some of the main contributions of institutionalism to political science,
but the contributions are in fact more pervasive. Thinking about institutions, especially the bureaucracy, has
been very important in the study of public administration (Thoenig, 2003). In addition, institutional theory has
made a significant contribution to the study of international relations, both for formal international institutions
and for less formalized institutions such as regimes (Rittberger et al., 2012) (see Malone and Medhora, Chap-
ter 77, this Handbook). At the other end of a scale of extensiveness, institutional theory has also contributed
to urban and local governance studies (Papadopoulos, 1996). Only for those areas of the discipline that focus
entirely on the micro level of behavior is institutional theory not of great relevance.
Collective Action Problems and Social Choice

First, institutional analysis can be a means of addressing the familiar collective action problems arising from
the disjuncture of individual and collective rationality (Olson, 1965).
This literature, perhaps most famously through Garrett Hardin's 1968 essay ‘Tragedy of the Commons', has
identified a number of situations in which the pursuit of individual utility can produce outcomes that are social-
ly harmful (R. Hardin, 1985).
The problem then becomes finding ways of curtailing the pursuit of individual maximization. This can, of
course, be done by law and other authoritative institutions, but the more interesting solutions may arise from
the development of institutions that do not depend so strongly on imposition.

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Elinor Ostrom's work (1990) on the development of institutional answers to collective action problems is al-
most certainly the most famous. She demonstrated that individuals do have the capacity to develop rules and
norms among themselves that can curtail the pursuit of individual self-interest. Although the rules developed
to solve these problems are created through interactions among those who are self-interested, they are still
enforceable and do still constrain the actions of individuals. These rules operate at the constitutional, policy
and operational levels, and through the interactions of the levels, generate effective governance.
Individual rationality and preferences create other types of problems for governing as well. For example, dif-
ferent preference ordering of individuals may make reaching collective decisions difficult, as in the famous
Arrow impossibility theorem (Arrow, 1951). In these situations, institutional rules can be created to constrain
the pursuit of interests in voting and enable otherwise unstable voting patterns to create some stability (Riker,
1980). But we must be cognizant of the possible perverse effects of institutional rules that can contribute to
gridlock and indecision, as in the case of American presidentialism.
The above discussion of institutions has emphasized formal structures and rules, but informal institutions (see
above) can perform some of the same tasks. By generating social norms, and understandings among the
members of an institution, the informal institutions can supplement the formal, and produce more effective
compliance. That said, however, informal institutions may have values that conflict with the formal and pro-
duce internal conflict and undermine the success of the institution. Thus, designing formal institutional struc-
tures must be married with an understanding of the norms of the participants, and some effort made to pro-
duce consistent values if there is to be consistent behavior.
Policy Choices
Institutional theory also provides mechanisms for understanding the policy choices made by governments.
Public policy emerges from processes within institutions, and among institutions, and these structures help
to understand better what choices emerge from those processes. While that understanding of the linkage
between institutions and policies often has been more implicit than explicit, there is an emerging body of liter-
ature linking institutional design issues to policy design (Peters, forthcoming).
The simplest version of the linkages between institutions and policy has been provided by the historical insti-
tutionalists (see Capano, Chapter 64, this Handbook). The argument is rather simply that institutions lock in
the policy designs made at the time of the formation of the institution, and those policies will persist unless
acted upon by some significant political force, and perhaps some conflict (Peters et al., 2005). Leaving aside
the path dependency central to this argument, there is an assumption that these policy choices are shaped
by the ideas held by the institution and its members, an assumption that is similar to that of the normative
institutionalism.
The empirical and the rational choice versions of institutionalism both assume greater importance for struc-
tures than for ideas in shaping policy. While the other versions of institutionalism may provide better explana-
tions for the content of policy, these two approaches may provide better explanations for the capacity to make
policy at all, and the level of innovation contained within the policy. For example, George Tsebelis's (1990)
concept of veto points within institutions provides a useful means of assessing how decisions could be made,
as does Fritz Scharpf's (1997) conceptualization of games within institutions and their impacts on decisions.
Comparative Politics
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, institutional theory is essential to the study of comparative politics and
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governance. As already noted comparative politics had its roots in the study of institutions, and despite some
movement away from a focus on institutions, understanding how different political systems function requires
an understanding of their institutions. That understanding may be more analytic than that of the traditional
institutionalists, but it is nonetheless central to any comparative analysis.
First, institutions help to explain the stability of political systems, at both a meso and a macro level. As was
true for the study of collective action problems mentioned above, institutional rules within legislatures and
among the array of institutions help to generate equilibrium (Gualini, 2001) when that might otherwise be dif-
ficult to attain. And at a more macro level of comparison, the development of institutional structures such as
consociationalism (Lijphart, 1996) and elite pacts (Durant and Weintraub, 2014) can help create greater sta-
bility and comity than would be possible otherwise.
Institutions also help explain how decisions are made in governments. As mentioned for the study of public
policy, the structure of veto points, or clearance points as discussed in the study of implementation, can
predict the relative levels of success in decision-making. And the literatures on electoral laws (Shugart and
Taagepera, 2017) and coalition rules (Martin and Vanberg, 2011) demonstrate how institutions can alter the
manner in which governments are formed and function after being formed. And institutions also structure the
flow of information within governments, which in turn shapes decisions.
Challenges to Institutionalism
To this point, we have been singing hymns of praise to institutionalism but we should also consider some of
the challenges that are faced by institutional theory. One of the principal challenges is integrating the various
versions of institutional theory, a question discussed above. In addition, some of the challenges we will dis-
cuss are familiar critiques of institutionalism, but others are also possible avenues for advancing the power of
the approach as a potential organizing frame for political science. Both of these types of questions about in-
stitutionalism, however, should be considered as we assess the capacity of this general approach to function
as a potential paradigm for political science.
Change
The conventional critique of institutional theory is that it is incapable of dealing adequately with change. The
virtue of institutions is in part that they provide stability and predictability, but that virtue is also a vice if we
consider the need to respond to changing environmental and political circumstances. This critique is in part
valid, but also may be overstated. Each of the approaches to institutions discussed above does contain some
idea about how an institution can change. Some of those ideas about change are better developed and more
convincing than are others, but institutional theory has not ignored the issue of change.
Perhaps the most challenging aspect of change in institutional theory is the capacity to create designed, pur-
posive change. Many of the approaches to change are more descriptive than they are seen as means of pro-
ducing intentional change. For example, the four versions of institutional change developed within historical
institutionalism describe types of change which can be observed in institutions, but much less is said about
how the institutional designer might be able to produce those changes. Likewise, change in normative insti-
tutionalism tends to occur through the emergence of value differences among members of the institution, or
between the institution and the surrounding society.
The above having been said, rational choice institutionalism and discursive institutionalism do have some
ideas about more purposive change. In rational choice institutionalism change occurs rather easily, with the
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designer being capable of altering rules and other incentives (and disincentives) and thus being able to pro-
duce changes in behavior. Change in discursive institutionalism is perhaps less designed, but it is still as-
sumed to be more characteristic of institutions than in other versions of the theory. The continuing discourse
among members of the institution is assumed to produce continuing change within that institution.
The theoretical conceptions of change in institutions tend to correspond better to observations of the real
world than does an insistence that institutions are stable and immutable, or that institutional theory is insen-
sitive to change. Even institutions that persist for long periods of time are not really unchanged but adapt
to their environments, or are changed by more formal means. The ‘unwritten’ constitution of the UK may be
praised for its adaptability, but other constitutions also change and manage to keep up with changing political
demands and values, or they are replaced.
Institutionalization
Another challenge to institutional theory is not unrelated to the study of institutional change. Most institutional
theory discusses institutions in dichotomous terms – they exist or they do not. In reality, however, institutions
may actually be more or less in existence.6 The process of institutionalization, and its reverse of deinstitution-
alization (Oliver, 1992), represent the movement back and forth between more inchoate, or more mechanical,
states into that of being an institution. For example, Max Weber's work on institutions (see Lepsius, 2017)
emphasized the need to think of institutions as emerging and decaying, and Eisenstadt's (1959) work on bu-
reaucratization and debureaucratization had much the same emphasis.
Selznick's conceptualization of institutionalization, being the infusing of values into a structure, provides a
good starting point for considering the development of institutionalization. This view, shared by the normative
institutionalism in political science, emphasizes that an institution must be more than a mere formal structure
in which the members simply follow the formal rules. The structure must have some meaning for the partic-
ipants. This is the difference between working in a university and working in a fast-food restaurant Selznick
(1949).
When discussing governance problems of developing countries, Samuel Huntington (1968) conceptualized
institutionalization more in terms of building capacity within government structures. Thus, in this approach
from empirical institutionalism, to the extent that the institutions were adaptable, autonomous, coherent and
sufficiently complex they could be said to be institutionalized. The same logic has been applied to examining
the development of other organizations and institutions, such as the Executive Office of the President in the
United States (Ragsdale and Theis, 1997).
Given the importance of institutionalization and deinstitutionalization for understanding the waxing and waning
of institutions, the absence of theorizing about the process is significant. One of the few examples of con-
ceptualizing these processes, by Christine Oliver (1992), argues that deinstitutionalization occurs for political,
social and functional reasons. Although this conceptual scheme is directed at deinstitutionalization, it can be
run backwards to help explain process of institutionalization.
Measurement
Thinking about institutionalization and deinstitutionalization does raise another challenge to institutional the-
ory – measurement. If we say that a structure becomes more or less institutionalized over time, how can we
measure that? An in-depth analysis by an individual scholar may convince him or her of those changes, but

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how can the differences be conveyed to others in ways that are replicable? Oliver's work on deinstitutional-
ization provides some inklings about measurement, and Ragsdale and Theis (1997) provide measures for the
ideas that Huntington advanced about institutionalization, but for the most part we lack the means of assess-
ing the extent to which any structure is really an institution.
And other questions raised in institutional theory also may require greater attention to measurement. For ex-
ample, in the discussions of change in historical institutionalism we discuss changes such as ‘drift’ and ‘con-
version’ without any clear mechanisms for measuring those changes. If those categories of change are to be
more useful for understanding policy, they will require some means of assessing the extent of the drift, as well
as the extent to which the policies and practices that existed previously do still exist. And rational choice ver-
sions of institutionalism that focus on compliance with rules may want to have some assessment, quantitative
or qualitative, of the degree of compliance. This list could be extended, but the basic point is that advancing
institutional theory will require some greater attention to measurement.
Processes within Institutions

A fourth challenge to institutional theory comes from the absence of theorizing about processes within insti-
tutions, an issue somewhat related to the study of change within institutions. Institutional theory is very good
at describing and explaining structures, but contains little to describe or explain what happens within those
structures. We know, for example, that rules or values may be important for shaping the behavior of individ-
uals within a structure, but not how those rules or values produce outcomes. Veto points may, for example,
make decisions more difficult within institutions, but there is still relatively little said about the processes that
do actually produce decisions.
The above said, several of the approaches to institutionalism do have something to say about the policy
process. For example, the empirical institutionalism has attempted to understand the consequences of dif-
ferent institutional choices for the policies being produced, especially between parliamentary and presidential
systems (Weaver and Rockman, 1993). While not explicitly dealing with internal processes, the argument
is based on the consequences of ‘separated’ versus integrated systems, and the consequent differences in
the manner in which policy choices are made. In addition, the discursive institutionalism implies a process of
dialogue within the institution that produces decisions. The actual content of that process is not clearly articu-
lated, but there is some sense that institutional processes do matter for the choices made by institutions.
Individuals and Institutions

Yet another challenge to institutional theory involves the linkage between individuals and the institutional
structure. For some versions of institutionalism, notably the normative and the discursive versions, this linkage
is crucial. But in all versions there is a question of how do individuals shape the institutions of which they
are members, and how do the institutions shape the individuals who function within their confines. Given the
argument above about the need to link structure and agency within institutional theory, these linkages will de-
pend on a variety of causal mechanisms embedded in the institutions or in society (Beach, 2013).
Robert Grafstein (1992) noted that institutionalism had an important paradox residing at its center. Institutions
were assumed to constrain the behavior of individuals, but individuals created those institutions. Of course
the institutions in question could have been created decades or centuries earlier by different individuals, but
they are still human creations that can be changed by other humans. But we do design institutions to place
limits on individual behaviors, whether that behavior is of a president or prime minister constrained by a con-

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stitution, or a criminal constrained by legal institutions.
As well as this paradox of constraint on behavior implied by institutionalism, it is important to examine the
capacity of institutions to mold the ideas and values of individuals. In particular, normative institutionalism
assumes that an institution will be capable of persuading, or even forcing, individuals to accept a ‘logic of ap-
propriateness’ that will guide their behaviors.7 But these discussions of institutionalism do not provide a clear
analysis of the mechanics through which values are inculcated into the members of the institution.
Explanation or Only Context?

Finally, we should ask a fundamental question about the utility of institutional theory as a paradigm for political
science. Do institutions, and does institutional theory, really provide an explanation for political phenomena,
or do they only provide the context for the operation of other mechanisms that are more proximate explana-
tions for behaviors? And if we are not able to explain behavior at an individual level, can we use institutions to
explain the outcomes of policymaking or other major events in the public sector or, again, are we only capable
of providing context for those outcomes?
The discussion above concerning comparative politics and policymaking does appear to argue that institu-
tional rules can produce outcomes. But the outcomes being explained are often in terms of the speed of deci-
sion-making or the size of a coalition, rather than the substance of the policies selected or the parties involved
in the coalition. Those characteristics of the outcomes are important, but not as important perhaps as the
actual substance of the policy and political choices being made. Again, does institutionalism only explain the
context of the actual decisions being made? The normative institutionalism comes the closest to this level of
explanation, given that the values contained within the institution should influence policy choices.
One can make both positive and negative arguments about the explanatory capacity of institutional theory.
On the one hand establishing the link between institutional, contextual factors and outcomes does advance
the understanding of causality in itself (see Pollitt, 2013). On the other hand, however, institutions and insti-
tutional theory do not provide an explanation of the dynamics involved in making decisions without invoking
some other form of explanation. The question then may become what level of explanation is required to say
that the requirements for an explanation have been fulfilled?
Summary and Conclusions

Institutionalism is one of the oldest approaches to political science. It has, however, changed significantly
over the centuries during which scholars and ordinary citizens have discussed the institutions of government
and their role in governing. The ‘New Institutionalism’ discussed here contains a number of alternative con-
ceptions of institutions, but all differ from older versions of institutionalism in their explicit concern for building
theory about institutions, and in their linkages to other forms of theorizing in the social sciences.
Despite the advances made by the New Institutionalism, there are a number of problems remaining within
this approach. The most fundamental of which is that rather than being an integrated approach, it remains
a collection of alternative visions about the nature of institutionalism. Despite some common elements, the
approaches also have fundamentally different perspectives on what an institution is and how it functions.
Contemporary institutional theory also faces a number of other challenges. But despite those problems it
does manage to provide important insights into the way in which the public sector functions. By attempting to

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integrate understandings of individual behavior with an understanding of structure, the New Institutionalism
does provide a viable bridge across the structure–agency divide in political science theory, and does provide
insights into how governments actually function.
Notes
1 This is in contrast to contemporary students of institutions, who argue that institutions often are formed at
different times and for different purposes, and do not necessarily work together well. See Skowronek (1982).
2 The normative institutionalism in political science is based heavily on the work of sociologists such as Meyer
and Rowan (1977) and Selznick (1957). For other perspectives on institutionalism in sociology see Peters
(2019, chapter 7).
3 The idea of path dependency comes from economics, where it was used to describe the lock-in of some
products even though technically superior products may exist (Arthur, 1989). The costs of moving away from
the sub-optimal solution are too great so the older system persists.
4 There is an obvious connection with the Habermasian ideas of communications and discourse within this
approach (Habermas, 1984).
5 The original state of the normative approach by March and Olsen (1984) discussed institutionalism as the
‘organizational basis of political life'.
6 In this sense, institutions may be analogous to variables in fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis
(QCA). They may be in the set of institutions in part, but not entirely.
7 The normative institutionalism tends to focus on softer means of creating commitment to the institution, but
the fundamental point is that the logic may be created through more means, for example, creating esprit de
corps in military institutions.
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• new institutionalism
• institutions
• institutionalism
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n11

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How to Understand Normative Political Theory
Contributors: Furio Cerutti

Chapter Title: "How to Understand Normative Political Theory"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
How to Understand Normative Political Theory

Furio Cerutti
What is this chapter about? The answer might not be as self-evident as many are inclined to think. Also, if we
wish to rethink the relevant notions rather than conforming to the mainstream, it is convenient to make clear
which language conventions we are going to follow.
By norm let us understand a sentence that indicates in an imperative mode (‘ought') how to behave in certain
fields of action and that is linked to a general rule (‘principle'). Normativity is the effective presence of norms in
a certain field (e.g. morality, politics, aesthetics) of human activity, accompanied by reasons or justifications for
their validity. Normativity (‘ought') is opposed to facticity (‘is') and ‘normative’ is different from ‘evaluative', in
the sense that acknowledging a value does not translate immediately into an imperative to realize it. Whether
‘normative’ and ‘prescriptive’ are the same or not shall here remain open.1 We can look at instances of nor-
mativity either from a sociologically descriptive (as observers) or properly normative (as participants) vantage
point, the latter being prevalent but not exclusive in this chapter. Trickier is lastly to define what we mean by
normativism: in my understanding the belief that an entire sphere of human activity can be and ought to be
regulated by a norm system descending from a supreme principle of action such as justice or utility or God's
will. Plato (in Republic and Laws from Book IV on), Kant and Rawls are in various fashions champions of this
normativism. Having clarified the key notions of this chapter, let us do the same in the First Section with the
very notion of normative political theory, though in a way fairly different from the usual one.
1. A Field Redefined: What is Normative Political Theory?

In conventional academic language, normative political theory consists of the thoughts an array of important
philosophers – from Plato to John Rawls – have formulated with regard to the best possible shape to give
to politics and the polity under the dominance of supreme principles; the Romans spoke of a reasoning de
optima republica (about the best possible commonwealth), in German philosophy it is Sollen vs Sein (which
very roughly corresponds to ‘ought’ vs ‘is'). I will not follow this traditional path for the substantial reasons that
shall be illustrated, but also because my primary interest goes to the role and the forms of normativity in real
politics rather than the development of models, which may be of interest to the philosophers’ guild alone.
After clarifying some basic notions in Section one, we remind ourselves that normativity exists in politics and
in political thought also outside the majestic and pyramidal architectures of Platonic normativism – a plural-
istic, less pretentious normativity that is however leaving its mark. In the second Section, we will look at the
maxims, principles and theories or semi-theories that were or are effectively at work in political reality. This
is to show how, really, influential norms, along with their conceptual background, are born from political and
legal developments rather than from the history of philosophy. In the same spirit, in the third Section we then
turn to two substantive issues that have greatly stimulated the production of norms (war) or are now starting
to do so (global and lethal challenges) – a bottom-up path, from facts to norms, as it were. In Section four we
will address two well-known questions informing meta-normative debates: the relationship between politics
and ethics and the much debated role of ‘ideal theory'.
Needless to say, in all this we will go back whenever necessary to past thinkers, but by no means identify nor-
mative political theory with its own history, which can (and must) be studied by using the appropriate tools.2
Why not? First, the history of a theory is not exhaustive of the substance of what the theory is about; a con-
ceptual exploration of its very substance is needed, though accompanied by the historical awareness of for-
mer explorations and vocabularies. Second, one thing is the historical sequence of the normative models
philosophers wanted the polity to conform to, quite another one the effective influence of norm systems on
the behaviour of political actors. Plato's Republic did not shape Greek policy in the 4th century bce, nor Kant's
political writings Prussia's policies in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Nor can it be said that those works

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credibly mirrored the beliefs held by relevant political actors. Normative political philosophy can, in a word,
have a very thin relationship to real politics as practised by politicians, movements, parties, institutions, al-
liances – a relationship that can border on irrelevance.3
2. A Parade of Normative Formulas Affecting Politics in the History of Western

Politics and Political Thought
In Western political culture three major sources of normativity can be identified: the Judeo-Christian tradition,
the Roman heritage, and modernity with its competing (realism-idealism) positions. We shall examine a selec-
tion of those principles or maxims that arguably had more influence in giving both formulation and justification
to the course of action that actors intended to follow. We shall also try to sketch the more general implications,
i.e. the implicit normative theories contained in those formulations. We are all aware of the fact that political
actors do not usually act merely in application of the principles they claim to respect; nor do they, on the oth-
er hand, use lofty principles exclusively in order to surreptitiously justify their own self-interest, although they
often do. They mostly act neither as fully principled players nor as cynical manipulators, but out of a mix of
those extreme attitudes that cannot be once for all expressed in a formula.
2a. The Judeo-Christian tradition

The main Judeo-Christian normative statements are-
• Let us barely mention the Golden Rule (‘and as you wish that men would do to you, do so to them',
Luke 6:31), which highlights the nature of commutative/retributive justice as the pillar of civil coexis-
tence, as well as the Ten Commandments.
• ‘Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's’ (Mark 12:17): whatever the inter-
pretation given to this statement made by Jesus, here lies the foundation of the exclusively Western/
Christian distinction of civil and religious spheres and the legitimation of the political organization as
different from the religious one.
• The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew, 5–7), with its unprecedented praise for self-restraint (‘turn the
other cheek') and love of the enemies as well as promises of heavenly reward to the meek, the poor
in spirit, the pure in heart and the peacemakers. This revolutionary manifesto inspired the normative
system of radical Christianity (Bogomils, Cathars, Anabaptists) and remains an important document
of Liebesakosmismus (as Max Weber dubbed the estrangement from the world in the name of love).
• ‘Remota … iustitia quid sunt regna nisi magna latrocinia?’ (‘once justice is removed, what are king-
doms if not large larcenies?’ – City of God, Augustine of Hippo, 426 ce, 4,4). This is the original and
powerful formulation of the (not only Christian) challenge to political power, which is asked to prove
its legitimacy beyond mere facticity by proving its adherence to justice.
2b. Political Identity and Principles of Law in Greece and Rome

1. In a conversation with the Persian king, Xerxes, the self-image of Greeks – more precise-
ly of Spartans –is defined by Demaratos, the former Spartan king, as relying on liberty
and the dependence on a sole ruler, the law or nomos. This centrality of the abstract and
impersonal norm is pitched against the personal servitude characterizing barbarian states
(Herodotus, 440 bce, VII,104). To a large extent this definition of political identity was ab-
sorbed into Roman culture as well.
2. ‘Salus rei publicae suprema lex esto’ (‘the safety/welfare of the commonwealth should be

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the supreme law’ – De legibus, Cicero, 43 bce, III,3,VIII): this motto was later endorsed
by Machiavelli, Hobbes, Spinoza and Locke as well as a swath of diverse political actors.
a. 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori' (‘It is sweet and proper to die
for the fatherland'). This verse from Horace's Odes, III,2,13 (Horace,
23 bce), epitomized apologetically for centuries the existential link be-
tween (male) individual life and the state, which can legitimately ask
a man to sacrifice his life. This sentence lost eventually any justifica-
tion on the killing fields of the Great War, where it was dubbed ‘the
old lie’ by the fallen English poet Wilfred Owen.
3. During the same long evolution of the Roman polity, an entire set of abstract principles –
legal norms along with their justification and interpretation – was created with lasting ef-
fect. We refer to them in the formulation they found in the compilation made in the 6th
century ce in the Corpus juris civilis (body of civil law) at the order of the Byzantine Em-
peror Justinian I (Justinian Code). Particularly after the rebirth of Romanist legal studies
in Bologna (11–12th century), Roman law deeply influenced the legal culture of Europe,
the common law countries such as England not excluded (cf. Stein, 1999).
Now, the opening statement of one of the main parts of the Justinian Code reads: ‘iuris praecepta sunt haec:
honeste vivere, alterum non laedere, suum cuique tribuere’ (‘the precepts of law are these: to live honestly,
to injure no one, to give to each his own’ – Institutiones 535 ce, 1,1,3). These are social and civil as well as
political principles; the second of them represents the core value of civil coexistence, the premise of peace
and conflict prevention as pillars of the polity. The third one was seen for two millennia (sporadically even in
China) as the overall definition of justice, both distributive and commutative; undetermined and flexible as it
is, it has been applied to justify all and everything, inscripted as it was (Jedem das Seine) in the entrance gate
to the Nazi extermination camp in Buchenwald. Not even lofty principles are, in their lack of contextualization,
sheltered from perversion.
Two further principles or rather meta-principles must be at least mentioned: ‘nemo in causa sua iudex’ (‘no-
one should be a judge in his own case’ – Codex, 535 ce, 3,5,1) and ‘pacta sunt servanda (‘agreements must
be kept’ – attributed to Ulpian d. 228 ce).
2c. Political Realism and Idealism in Modernity

By political modernity in Europe we understand the era marked by the vanishing of the medieval universal
powers, the Roman Church and the Holy Roman Empire; the rise of absolutist monarchies (later to become
nation states); and the establishment of the international Westphalian system. In this era (1648–1914) nor-
mativity, once detached from any religious roots, was reshaped in a bipolar – realist as well as idealist – way,
both claiming to be inspired by reason or rationality.
We look first at a founding topos of realism:4
• ‘If men were entirely good this principle [not to keep faith when this turns to one's own disadvantage]
would not hold, but because they are bad, and will not keep faith with you, you too are not bound
to observe it with them'. (Machiavelli, 1513: chapter XVIII). In this very ‘Machiavellian’ passage from
Machiavelli the legitimacy of a non-moral behaviour in politics finds its foundation in a pessimist an-
thropology.
• Apart from realism, another well-known precept ‘right or wrong, my country (or party)’ represents the
essence of the xenophobic nationalism that has wreaked havoc in the entire world in the 20th centu-

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ry and beyond. On the opposite pole, idealism, Kant's categorical imperative has been the flagship in
all (deontological) attempts to bring politics back again under the sceptre of morality, as he forcefully
argued for, especially in the Appendix to Perpetual Peace (Kant, 1795). Also, the specifically political
principle of publicity formulated in the same work (‘all actions relating to the right of other human be-
ings are wrong if their maxim is incompatible with publicity') has also shaped the normative tradition
of Kantian liberalism.
• Another brand of liberalism, prevailing in countries of Anglo-Saxon culture (remember John Stuart
Mill), is connected to the basic principle of utilitarianism, which is also a normative philosophy, though
consequentialist rather than deontological in its posture.5 This principle tells actors to seek the great-
est good (or pleasure) for the greatest number of human beings.
• Marx mocked abstract universal ‘goddesses’ such as justice or liberty, but briefly reflected on the
normative principles possibly guiding the time after the abolition of capitalism: ‘to each according to
the amount of work he contributes’ was seen as the basis for the initial phase of communist society,
which would then, in its full-blown configuration, shift to ‘from each according to his ability, to each
according to his needs’ (Marx, 1875: §1). These two formulas became popular, which shows how
mass participation in politics could be motivated by relying on a rational utopia.
• Max Weber's point, made in Politics as a Vocation (1919), that a true vocation to politics can be
found only in those politicians whose political ethics includes both intimate conviction in upholding
one's own beliefs (Gesinnungsethik) and a sense of responsibility for the consequences of action
(Verantwortungsethik) has later become a topos, indicating the necessary balance between the di-
vergent normative approaches emerging in political life – against adventurism and fanaticism on the
one hand and mere opportunistic behaviour on the other.
Niccolò Machiavelli
Of the relevant political theorists, Machiavelli (1469–1527) has been, like Thucydides and Ci-
cero, one of the few who could look back to a career as a high-ranking official and diplomat –
for Machiavelli, under the short-lived republican regime that ruled Florence after the Medici's
expulsion in 1494 and their comeback in 1512. Between his demise from government (he was
even tortured as a possible conspirator) he wrote The Prince, the Discourses on the First Ten
Books of [Roman historian] Titus Livy, The Art of War, the Florentine Histories as well as the comedy
Mandragola (Mandrake).
Machiavelli conceives of politics as an empirical field, whose rules and patterns can be understood
from the study of history. Necessity, fortune and virtue (the ability to master one's own destiny) are its
determinants. As the realm in which human beings pursue their individual and collective self-interest,
politics is different from morality, most evidently in the case of a new princedom like the Italy Machi-
avelli wants to be freed from foreign rule and unified. Under less exceptional conditions domestic polit-
ical conflicts are conducive to freedom and were wisely mirrored in the institutional structure of ancient
Rome. Vilified by many, Machiavelli was of great interest for the Founding Fathers of the United States
of America, Hegel and Gramsci.

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Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) never left his native Königsberg in East Prussia (after World War II re-
named Kaliningrad, Soviet Union/Russian Federation), where he was a professor at the local universi-
ty (now Балтийский федеральный университет имени Иммануила Канта/the Immanuel Kant Baltic
Federal University). His fundamental works are Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Critique of Practical
Reason (1788) and Critique of Judgment (1790). Perpetual Peace (1795) and Metaphysics of Morals
(1797) are his main contributions to political philosophy; relevant also are On the Old Saw: That May
be Right in Theory But It Won't Work in Practice (1793) and An Answer to the Question: What Is En-
lightenment? (1784).
Kant explores the principles that Reason dictates independently from any experience (i.e. in a tran-
scendental way) with regard to political life. They take the form of principles of law, which can reshape
politics only if morality rules over it instead of being subdued to criteria of expediency. Peace among
nations can be achieved as a perpetual, not temporary good, only by eliminating the causes of war in
the domestic regime and international relations. This leads to republicanism (freedom and equality of
all citizens under the law) and federalism (a league of states rather than a world republic); they are to
be complemented by cosmopolitan law, which gives anybody the right to visit foreign territories.
This survey of relevant normative positions could be enriched with other recent examples: from Deng Xiaop-
ing's dictum (‘It doesn't matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice', pronounced in
1962), which was later to legitimize the opening up of Chinese communism against ideological purity, thus
redirecting Chinese and world history, to John Rawls’ second principle of justice (‘Social and economic in-
equalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) to the greatest expected benefit of the least advan-
taged and (b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity')
(Rawls, 1999a: 72), which sociologically can be seen, in the aftermath of the New Deal (it was written in the
1950–60s), as a justification of redistributive policies and the welfare state.
Karl Marx
Karl Marx (1818–83) studied law and philosophy in Germany and went into exile to London after
the failure of the 1848–49 revolutions. He published the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848,
co-authored with Friedrich Engels), A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859) and the
first volume of Capital (1867), his economic and philosophical masterwork. After his death the second
and third volumes as well as Theories of Surplus Value and Critique of the Gotha Programme were
published; in the 20th century the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, The German Ide-
ology (written with Engels in 1845–46) and the Grundrisse, containing the preparatory studies for Cap-

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ital, also became accessible.
Marx explored the whole capitalist mode of production as the most revolutionary in history due to its
ability to exploit wage labour (labour theory of value), but saw it undermined by its own dynamics of
concentration and competition. Its collapse, accelerated by the struggles of the working class, will free
the way to a society without the socially relevant division of labour and, in its final, communist stage,
favourable to the full realization of the individual. In his late years Marx mentioned the possibility of
a peaceful transition to a classless society by means of democratic elections in countries with stable
representative institutions; he did not focus exclusively on the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat'.
Two comments on this parade:
First, as mentioned above, it is hardly possible to gauge the operative presence of these prescriptions in the
actors’ behaviour across the centuries. There is no scholarly ascertained methodology that is capable to as-
sess how far the pretence of normative principles to influence the actors’ line of action is successful or vain.
Only in the case of principles enshrined in a country's or empire's legal order can their effectiveness be as-
sessed by looking at courts’ decisions. Otherwise normative theories, particularly in democratic polities, can
at most let their recommendations trickle down into the scholarly conversation, then the public debate in the
media and finally some corner of legislation. In a more extended time span, however, normative theories can
play a greater role not so much in shaping the actors’ actual behaviour, but rather conferring or denying le-
gitimacy to it. Prussian, German and European leaders in the 19–20th centuries did not act as Kant required
them to do, but his ideas had influence on the minds of some elites and citizens, thus setting limits to what
they regarded as a legitimate course of action.
Second, what strikes our eyes while taking note of the prescriptions for action issued in the history of Western
politics is their multiplicity and variety, not to say disparateness, which is not just the consequence of the large
number of actors and interests addressed. In the decisions taken and the justifications offered by the very
same actor – state or party – in the last two centuries, the principles mentioned were present in a mix that has
rapidly changed (after elections, wars and revolutions) and often contained conflicting aspects. This reminds
us that political life relies on complex patterns of motivations and justifications, in which the lack of systematic
consistency between rules does not mean by itself an insurmountable obstacle to effective action. One has to
grasp this complexity if one wants to introduce normative viewpoints into policy and have a chance of gaining
influence; a one-size-fits-all system of norms may satisfy no other than some philosopher's taste for perfect
architectures.
3. Normativity at Work: Two Cases

Should we make happiness or virtue or the common good or justice the true goal of politics? This is the fun-
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damental question most normative theories have seen as defining their own business. Inspiring though this
existential question may be, it is doubtful that the actual behaviour of states, leaders and parties, by which the
freedom or happiness of societies and individuals is largely determined, has ever been shaped – at least in
a relevant amount – by the answers given by philosophers to that question. Not so with other, less supreme
but still crucial indications regarding two cases that are very much overshadowing our communal life: war,
and newly, the endangering of civilized human life on the planet. Two cases in which political life has been
confronted with the advice of philosophy and ethics.
First Case: Just War

Normative questions arising from war are as old as the answers found in the Iliad or the Bhagavadgita and
have transcultural character. The reflection on how to set an end to the ‘scourge of war’ (UN Charter, Pream-
ble) establishing Kant's perpetual peace or how to restrain it to a less unbearable measure is fundamental for
political philosophy, because politics contains violence as one of its constitutive elements, and can even be
seen as an activity regulating violence along with its cousin, fear – so did Hobbes, Weber, Franz Neumann
and Niklas Luhmann. On the other hand politics is an attempt to regulate human affairs in a peaceful way, be it
by argumentative deliberation or negotiating and compromising, and the outbreak of civil or international war
is always a defeat of politics, though it remains part of it. The alternative is then between keeping one's own
hands allegedly clean, by refusing any involvement in a posture of radical pacifism, or preparing conceptual
tools such as the just war doctrine, capable to tell us how to save what can be saved from unlimited violence
(the laws of war or ius in bello), and under which restraining conditions the resort to arms can be justified or
even necessary (ius ad bellum) for the preservation of basic civilizational values, as in the case of the war of
1939–45 against fascist dictatorships.6
The alternative we have just mentioned can be aptly illustrated by going back to the origin of the just war doc-
trine in the work of Augustine of Hippo, particularly in his De civitate Dei (The City of God). Previous theolo-
gians had focused on the message of unconditional love contained in the Gospels and rejected the legitimacy
for a Christian to be a soldier (Dyson, 2006: chapter 4). Augustine reversed this position by referring to other
passages in the Gospels and justified war when necessary to re-establish order and stability in the earthly life
of human beings –as some of the ‘just’ wars fought by Rome were, he acknowledged. Behind this reversion
of Christian pacifism was his negative anthropology: after the original sin humans cannot be saved from vice,
especially the libido dominandi (lust of mastery), which is at the origin of war, and only those touched by the
grace of God can attain entrance into the City of God. Theological explanations apart, Augustine shares his
sober view of man with political realism, in particular with chapter XVIII of Machiavelli's The Prince (1513).
Under these premises just war, waged by a lawful authority (a state based on justice, as seen above), can
bring enough peace as necessary to the continuation of human life, but this is nothing more than a remedy to
even worse developments of human wickedness, not the true peace enjoyable only in the civitas Dei.
The detailed just war doctrine, first sketched by Cicero in On Duties, I,11–13 (Cicero, 44 bce), was then de-
veloped by Aquinas and later by Francisco de Vitoria, Alberico Gentili and Hugo Grotius, and came to be
entangled with the fledgling international law (Emmerich de Vattel). In the 19th and 20th centuries, domes-
tic (military) and international (treaties, conventions) legislation gave legal shape and some effectiveness to
provisions of ius in bello elaborated across the centuries, such as the protection of non-combatants and pris-
oners of war and the proportionality in the amount of violence used. The right to go to war (ius ad bellum),
once a matter of endless dispute as it was based on specific motivations, was recognized as pertaining to
all legitimate states (compétence de guerre) in the framework of the multipolar system established with the
Treaties of Westphalia (1648). It has been, since 1945, excluded for all countries by the UN Charter, while
military operations are allowed only in self-defence or, if permitted by the Security Council, to help other UN
members repel an invader. Outside legal literature the book that shortly after the Vietnam War revived the
philosophical discussion on just war (Walzer, 1977) has been in recent years followed by attempts to rethink

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this notion in the light of novelties such as ethnic, religious, terrorist, drone and cyber wars, most of which
escape the interstate scenario that was defining of the just war tradition. Further, the necessity of a ius post
bellum, regulating the problems arising at the end of an armed conflict, has been advanced.
Let us recapitulate: the normative attitude towards war has been around for more than 2,000 years, adapting
to the big changes in warfare as well as in the political ground structure behind it. It has been endeavoured
to extend the grasp of this attitude to nuclear war, with little success however, as we will see in the next sec-
tion. Whatever its foundation (Augustine's theology, Aquinas’ notion of natural law, the idea of humanity in
the European Enlightenment), the just war theory has always sought ways to make war less unbearable, not
to eliminate it, in the persuasion that conflict and violence can and ought to be restrained, but for the time
being cannot be expelled from the life of communities. This attitude has been classified as rationalist or re-
formist in the trilogy outlined by the English School of International Relations (Martin Wight and Hedley Bull),
its counterparts in the trilogy being Kant's revolutionary project to eliminate war altogether, as well as the re-
alist acceptance of it, exemplified by Thomas Hobbes, as a ground element of (interstate) politics.
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) lived as a tutor in English patrician families and after the Restora-
tion on a royal pension; he went into exile in Paris during the Civil War. While developing a phi-
losophy of materialism and science, in political philosophy he wrote De Cive (1641), Leviathan
(1651) and Behemoth or the Long Parliament (1668).
Writing in a time of domestic upheaval and European wars, Hobbes looked into the contractarian origin
of the state (or commonwealth, in his language) in order to find chances of peace. The polity is not an
organic product of human nature, as Aristotle and the Aristotelians wanted to have it; it rather arises
from the generalized will – motivated by fear – to get out of the state of nature, which is life-threaten-
ing for everybody. This happens by conferring all our rights upon an artificial creation, the sovereign
or Leviathan, whose absolute power is the only guarantee against the Behemoth of rebellion and civil
war. States, however, are not compelled to follow the same path as individuals are, thus remaining in
a potential state of war with each other (a condition later called international anarchy).
Not to be overlooked is the built-in ambivalence of just war theory: it stems primarily from the intention to
define and reduce the occasions in which war is justified (this is the true meaning of ‘just'), but it can lose its
critical potential and slip into a catalogue of possible justifications for actors willing to wage war.
Of the many normative attempts to give politics a different orientation (rather than to allegedly reshape it al-
together) the just war doctrine, along with international and more recently humanitarian law, has been one
of the most successful in practical terms. ‘War remains hell', to quote Union General William T. Sherman's
dictum after the American civil war, but it is not misplaced to assume that fewer civilians have been killed,
fewer prisoners mistreated and fewer monuments destroyed thanks to the century-long work of philosophers,

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theologians and jurists. By no means however can the power of argument and norm-setting be overstated,
as the tremendous disproportion between ius in bello precepts and the unlawful killing or hardship inflicted
upon soldiers and civilians in the 20th century proves. Lastly, it is difficult to say how many of the evils that
were not committed were so thanks to the respect for the norms (‘for the right reason', to use the language
of the theory of justice) or the fear of reprisal or punishment in case they were not observed. Principled and
instrumental (to one's own self-interest) behaviour may go sometimes hand in hand, indistinguishably, and
lead to good though impure ends.
Second Case: Future Generations and a Politics for the Future

In the second case we are looking at normative questions and theories arising from a state of the world that
is coming up under our watch – often an absent-minded watch – but is far from self-evident, thus making a
description necessary – readers may share it or not. Since 1945 or more exactly 1955 (as both East and West
acquired the capacity to bring about mutual assured destruction) the worldwide balance of (nuclear) terror
constitutes the most inner cell of international relations. All the rest – geopolitical and geoeconomic develop-
ments, regime change, international terrorism – is of minor relevance for philosophy and civilization compared
with the dormant but very real possibility of the self-destruction of humankind (more exactly, of the civilization-
al pillars – agriculture, trade, communication, basic legal order – of its survival). This possibility is present also
in the deterrence regime that some regard as stable enough as to avoid that things turn to the worst. Arms
control and partial disarmament accords have not changed this regime, though they have contributed to keep
in check nuclear proliferation, which is but an epiphenomenon of the existence of nuclear arms. The fact that
the Third (nuclear) World War has been to date avoided is no guarantee for future generations to be spared
as well.
This is not the whole story. Since the 1980s a new universal threat has entered the field of political nego-
tiations: man-made global warming due to the sky-rocketing emissions of greenhouse gases from human
activities since the Industrial Revolution. This is the main component in a process of climate change whose
speed is unprecedented, widely overpassing the chance of our civilization to weather it. If unchecked, cli-
mate change is likely to unsettle the life conditions of future generations by multiplying mass migrations and
unleashing wars for the control of rapidly diminishing resources such as territory, water and food. The Paris
Climate Agreement of 2015, even before the United States of America's withdrawal, does not make legally
binding emissions cuts capable of keeping the temperature increase under 2°C by the end of the century.
Let us call these two threats global and lethal, in the narrow definition of anthropogenic physical threats that
put in danger the life conditions of all present and, even more, future generations and that can be seriously
addressed only by the joint effort of nearly all economic and political actors. It has turned out that politics as
usual or politics #1 (the activity allocating scarce but divisible material or relational resources among conflict-
ing actors by means of legitimate power) is incapable of taking on these threats and transforming them into
productive challenges for the political system. This seems rather to be the business of the fledgling politics
#2: the activity aimed at saving and managing our global commons, first of all the atmosphere, on behalf of
present and primarily future generations. This new type of politics is not a project or a prophecy, but a reality
struggling to emerge, and has inspired documents such as the Kyoto Protocol (1997) and the Paris Agree-
ment or some disarmament agreements, regardless of their effectiveness in solving those problems; it is des-
tined to coexist in an adversarial tension with politics #1, but by no means to replace it. What is at stake, is the
chance to add politics as shaped by the will to protect generations of the far future, to the politics defined by
the decisions made by contemporaries on behalf of their present preferences (at best with a thought to their
children and grandchildren). The rationale for this shift is not a somersault of generosity, but the debt we have
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contracted with posterity by spoiling the life conditions they will be born into as well as our now undeniable
knowledge of this causal link.
Should we repay this debt, or – out of metaphor – act in our institutions with the goal to downsize our spoiling
activities (emissions mitigation) and to help those already affected come to terms with the worsened condi-
tions (adaptation)? Do we have obligations towards people who do not yet exist and to whom we have no
emotional relationship? Or, using a different moral rather than political vocabulary largely shaped by femi-
nism, do we have motivations for caring for them?
This is – in variation – the fundamental normative question arising from the description of the state of the
world sketched above. One can falsify and replace the description and/or reject any notion of politics not lim-
ited to the present and the self-interest of its dwellers. If these steps are not taken, answering that question
appears to be the key task for political philosophy today, especially in its normative side, if philosophy's ambi-
tion to peer in penetrating terms into humankind's path is to be taken seriously.
This view is miles away from mainstream normative theory in as much as it:
1. makes the assessment of the state of the world (a cognitive move) the premise for identi-
fying the normative questions we are confronted with in our life as citizens, instead of
seeing the context-free and timeless construction of an ideal republic as the proper philo-
sophical mission, and
2. does not deem the development of norms from a supreme principle such as justice to be
the essential modus cogitandi of political philosophy, as it rather prefers to extract and
reconfigure norms from substantive (rather than formal or procedural) questions such as
the survival of human civilization, the defence of fundamental rights and liberal democra-
cy, and the dilemmas raised by technological advances (e.g. biotechnology, Artificial In-
telligence) affecting the integrity of human beings.
We do not have room here for arguing a full-blown political answer to lethal challenges, but let us have a
sketch of it. The reason for pursuing politics #2 along the inevitable, but now constrained continuation of pol-
itics #1 lies primarily in the reconfiguration of the substantial aim of politics – building institutions that prevent
disaster, regulate conflict and provide protection – under the new conditions defined by those challenges.
Being ready to reform our present economy and way of life in a low-carbon direction or to restructure our
(collective) security in a nuclear-free sense are costly undertakings for the present generations, but we have
good reasons for taking upon ourselves those costs for the sake of future generations that are both close to
and far away from us. These reasons aim at protecting the community of humans that is now endangered to
an unheard degree by man-made devices, compensating our posterity for the damages already inflicted upon
them, extending into the future the obligations of solidarity, barring which no polity can keep together (this
could be called time universalism, a still little-known cousin of the space universalism or cosmopolitanism that
is restricted to our fellow humans of the present). By the way, future states of affairs, concerning non-lethal
issues and sufficiently known to us from physics or economics, also play into normative debates and deci-
sion-making: this is in Western countries the case with the future (reform or collapse?) of pension systems,
which are crucial for keeping liberal democracy accepted by broad masses.
In this set of reasons political and civilizational or ethical aspects converge: we should, say, bring down green-
house-gas emissions not only to enhance the chances of peace and well-being for future polities, but also to
allow future parents to raise their children in an environment not unbearably worse than ours (more in Cerut-
ti, 2007: 146–51). At the core of our normative preoccupations for posterity lies the meta-political question:
how far are we able and willing to recognize men and women of the future as fellow humans, to respect their
interests and rights? Far from being purely ethical, this question contains a set of moral, psychological, po-

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litical and legal aspects. We can reformulate this question in concrete political terms: why should the basic
values of liberal–democratic societies (liberty, equality, justice, solidarity – the latter in a normative rather than
Durkheimian sense) be available only to our contemporaries, but not to the people living, say, in three cen-
turies?
An important aspect is the evolution of the notion of humankind, which, once only philosophical, theological
or literary, has now attained something of a political profile, at least potentially: it means the community of all
those who can be hit by nuclear war or disastrous climate change and have a common interest (if not yet a
common will) in taking institutional steps against those threats. Being kept together by non-voluntary bonds
such as existential threats is indeed an identifier of the political community as different from the social or cul-
tural one – as Hobbes, Rousseau and Weber knew; a community in which norms are not just theorised, but
implemented by (not necessarily legal) sanctions and incentives as well. If humankind is now recognized as a
quasi-political community, including future beings as far as their life conditions clearly (as in the case of lethal
threats) depend on our actions and omissions, then our attitude towards future generations implies political
aspects such as the duty to protect them and to respect their vital interests by adequate institutional arrange-
ments.
On a different path, mention should be made of the attempts to define our obligations towards posterity in
terms of justice, as Rawls did with a limited scope (‘just savings') in §44 of A Theory of Justice (1999a), or
to expand them by assuming – differently from Rawls himself – that the people that in the original position
decide on the principles of a well-ordered society are not contemporary among themselves (Cerutti, 2007,
141–3). No doubt a wide gap exists between the primarily political path described in this chapter and Rawls’
deontological approach, which frames the problem of future generations in a timeless and context-free the-
ory developing from a supreme principle. Now, the utility of this approach in orienting our actions remains
doubtful, even more since its supporters do not raise the preliminary question of understanding: how does
politics work; how can we modify in our sense its workings?;7 nonetheless, its contribution to the conceptual
clarification of notions and the discussion of alternatives can hardly be renounced. Accepting a plurality of
approaches and experimenting with them is instructive, as long as eclecticism is avoided.
4. Normative Positions in Politics

In the preceding sections, we have seen in Section two a variety of normative assertions resulting from the
most diverse sources and attitudes, while in Section three we have examined two sets of substantive issues
(war and the attitude towards future generations), whose normative aspects we have tried to work out. It
is now time to make some conceptual alternative underlying those issues explicit, in particular two that are
sometimes overlapping:
• α. politics and ethics, or political and moral normativity, and

• β. the pros and cons of ideal theory.
4α. Politics and Ethics

From Niccolò Machiavelli on, modern political theory has been oscillating between recognizing politics’ au-
tonomy from morality (the Florentine Segretario, Hobbes and Hegel, these two in very different versions) and
trying to bring the former back under the sceptre of moral law as dictated by reason (Kant). The world how-
ever has changed a lot, and so has politics, as exemplified above with the twin notions of politics #1 and #2.
This makes the old hard-realist position, for which ethics and more broadly universal norms have nothing to
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do with politics, look obsolete and obtuse. Even before politics #2 brought the attention to future generations
to the fore, developments such as the universal institutionalization of legal human rights (from the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights to the International Criminal Court) or the necessity for politics to legislate in
matters of bioethics and biotechnology have made the borders between politics and morality more flexible.
Some of these developments were stimulated by the fierce contrast between the dehumanized policies pur-
sued by 20th-century totalitarianisms and the moral and political resistance of their opponents and victims.
On a more theoretical level the complexity of politics–morality relations is indicated by their sharing of some
essential categories, for example liberty and equality, which require, however, a fine-grained differentiation
between their political and moral usage. A well-known example is the positive conception of political liberty or
‘liberty to', to put it with Isaiah Berlin, and its links to the moral notions of autonomy and self-realization.
While we cannot enter a detailed examination of this relationship, it may be useful to do away with the wide-
spread prejudices or idola fori that often surround the concepts we are talking about. First comes the conven-
tional view that sees politics as the crude realm of unconstrained self-interest and poorly regulated pursuance
of material or relational (e.g. prestige) goods; a realm that needs to be complemented or supplanted by ethics
in order to give room to human values and dignity. This is not true not even for politics #1, in which the need
to regulate conflict and to legitimize power (see below) creates mental and legal institutions of universalistic
nature such as the legal system, the Constitution, fundamental rights and the rule of law (not only in modern
post-absolutist politics; remember what Demaratos tried to make clear to Xerxes). In politics #2 the reasons
for acting against lethal threats on behalf of future generations are political as well as philosophical (the will
to preserve civilization from its man-made destruction) and moral (the respect for humankind, the protection
of and empathy with future parents and children). Political normativity needs to clarify its relationship to the
moral one,8 not to be swept away or disciplined by superior deontological or utilitarian teachings.
Another face of the same prejudice sees all emergence of principles or universalistic norms in political life
as the intervention of ‘moral standards’ (as argued by Stemplowska and Swift, 2012) superseding the daily
and undignified business of politics. Two remarks can be made in this respect. First, unlike in common lan-
guage, in a scientific discussion the word ‘moral’ cannot be watered down to mean whatever goes just one
step beyond the pragmatic wisdom used by actors in their daily affairs. Nor can it easily be transferred from
its proper dimension, the individual as a person acting towards other such actors, to the realm of the relations
between groups and institutions. Second, it is the very political context that in discrete evolutionary stages
distils principles and duties (embodied in the institutions just mentioned), whose observance becomes over
time the basic condition for membership in the polity or the international community. These principles, often
related to philosophical doctrines, can become as fundamental for individuals as to justify hardships and the
loss of one's own life suffered in their name, far away from the exclusively self-centred attitude attributed to
people acting politically. Also, attributing ‘ethical’ motivations to political goals enhances perhaps the rhetori-
cal effect, but does not bring them any inch closer to realization, as the evolution of climate policy shows.
Acting politically remains however, different from acting morally, also because it is dedicated not only to the-
orizing and proclaiming collective goals, but to their attainment as well. In politics the very definition of goals
is subject to something like a cost–benefit analysis, in the sense that ideally valuable goals may be dropped
because the human and political (in terms of consensus) costs are too high. Besides, in the pursuance of
political goals the timing plays a role that is irrelevant to morality, since along with their content goals sought
or attained, are valuable or not depending on the time they require till they are attained – the coalitions sup-
porting them may in the meantime dissolve or change preferences. What is more, assuming responsibility for
the effects and sub-effects, even if undesired, of our course of action – and factoring them in while choos-
ing goals and strategies – is essential to our acting politically. Transferring into politics the simple imperative
‘obey the law’ (or the principles established by ideal theory, see below) in analogy to what we are doing in
normative morality denies Weber's ethics of responsibility and may result in righteousness or fanaticism. In
politics normativity weighs in as a (often hidden) premise, setting goals (e.g. more equality; peace in freedom)
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and limits (no corruption; no violence); dismissing its authentic role, as Foucauldianism or historicism tend to
do, misses the cement of the polity and cannot explain its existence.
Another difference is that moral law can define and justify obligations (‘how’ to act), but not design motivations
(‘why’ to act in a certain way). It is part of politics as well as political theory to identify the collective actors, the
interests, the kind of discourse and the long-term coalitions that can underpin projects and strategies.
Lastly, moral normativity addresses individual actors in their interiority, while political normativity deals with
collective actors in their behaviour. There is no more irritating sign of the equivocations generated by morali-
ty's pretence to rule over political theory than the examples brought by its followers and mostly featuring the
acting of fictional individuals in fictional situations rather than groups and institutions, as these are shaped by
history and anthropology.
More attention should be given in this context to Jürgen Habermas’ reflection on the relationship between fac-
ticity and normativity. For his discourse theory of law, law's legitimacy in allocating liberties to individuals is not
conferred upon it by morality, but results from the normative principle that regards only those norms as valid
to which all persons possibly affected could agree as participants in rational discourses (Habermas, 1996).
This version of deontological normativity is alternative to Rawls’ (cf. Habermas, 1995 and Rawls, 1995).
4β. Normativity and Ideal Theory

The relationship of politics and ethics has many points of contact with the issue of ideal and non-ideal theory,
which is in the theory of justice the leading path to normative construction. We will not highlight these points,
leaving it to the reader's perception, but we must point out that thinking in terms of ideal theory is not as such
tantamount to thinking politics in terms of morality. Especially in Political Liberalism of 1993, Rawls insists on
his ideal theory of a just society being a political theory.
Now, what exactly is ideal theory? For Rawls, ideal theory ‘develops the conception of perfectly just basic
structure and the corresponding duties and obligations of persons under the fixed constraints of human life
and favourable circumstances’ (Rawls, 1999a: 216). Non-ideal theory deals with the principles that are to be
adopted ‘under less happy conditions’ and in the case of non-compliance to the norms issued by ideal theory,
which assumes instead strict compliance with the principles of justice.
This stance seems to be inspired by common sense, but let us heed Hegel's warning: common sense can be
the worst of all metaphysicists (der ärgste Metaphysiker). In this case, it is the assumption that life, political
life in a democracy in particular, will be better if we redesign it thinking that people have in mind high values
that are rationally established and can build institutions perfectly adequate to them, except that the latter are
to be reconciled with people not always compliant with the models, or with circumstances that are not exactly
favourable to their implementation. We know, however, that those perfect people never existed in history or
were a tiny minority of saints, losers or fanatics, the latter sometimes with blood on their hands. We also know
that models of justice or liberty or solidarity are effective only inasmuch as they are born from conflicts and
movements in a particular country or area at a particular time, hence they are very much marked by history
and anthropology; their importance does not stem from being the specification or re-adaptation of a system-
atic ideal honed by philosophers. Also, to become politically effective, the values we pursue, the concrete
models of better institutions we may have in mind must be to a certain extent able to come to terms with the
less ideal and rather self-centered interests of the groups that are to support the realization of the model. In-
novative policy shifts can be performed not by a company of the stainless, but rather by coalitions in which
angels are ready to walk for a while hand in hand with less noble creatures, if not with devils.

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The idea that political philosophy deals with perfect institutions that all citizens can be loyal to, while non-com-
pliance with those institutions is a matter for non-ideal theory as a sort of B-theory goes against the modern
view that politics is first of all about conflicts, in which by no means the parties are a priori on the right or the
wrong side, because a perfectly just solution rarely exists, while the first and foremost problem is to develop
institutions and policies that prevent conflicts from degenerating into war and disruption. The notion of ideal
theory does not lack a certain naïveté paired with the philosopher's presumption: on the one hand, the belief
that possessing the perfect model is prior and conditional to redesigning reality ignores how the reality of polit-
ical and social life comes about, in a way very distant from conceptual engineering. A suspicion of arrogance
is, on the other hand, undeniable in the pretence that, if we want to find criteria capable of reordering to the
best problem-laden areas of human life, we have to operate by philosophical deduction from principles – thus
ignoring other types of knowledge, such as the reflection on history and human nature. This unhappy com-
plex is what often makes the self-described ‘normative political philosophy’ appear futile and in its runaway
fictional speculations intellectually unexciting, especially whenever it does not even attempt at preserving in
the theory the fullness of the stuff it pretends to ideally regulate. What is missing in this mental attitude is the
sense of the obstacle one should keep alive and bring to bear in the very moment in which one is looking for
formulas capable of conceptualizing politics and society, instead of relegating the obstacles in the non-ideal
theory closet.9 This is also the problem with the positive attitude of ideal theories towards utopia, which a
priori dismisses theory's chance to cognitively penetrate reality and give policy-making some orientation.
Another trouble with ideal theory is that its very idea fails to recognize politics as the sphere in which ideas
matter, but only do so if they can find cultural, social and political forces endorsing them and translating them
into strategies and decision-making. The great ideas that have moved the world had each a bearer or pro-
tagonist, whom theorists identified as the principal agent for their ideas: the monarchy for absolutism, the
bourgeoisie for constitutionalism and liberalism, the working class and sections of the middle class for Euro-
pean socialism and the New Deal, and peasants and intellectuals in the liberation movements of the ‘Third
World'. The attempt at locating this agent is lacking in the recent, pale appearances of ideal theory; the need
to provide, along with speculative formulas, a Zeitdiagnose (diagnosis of the times) as their complement is
disregarded and possibly felt as non-philosophical. Yet all this is not to deny the heuristic value of ideal theory
whenever it contributes to define concepts and clarify conceptual alternatives ingrained in social and political
life.10 Besides, on reading Rawls in comparison with his followers, a huge difference in the density and the
usefulness of the theoretical argument becomes palpable.
All of this can also be looked at from an evolutionary point of view. European modernity has already experi-
enced a powerful endeavour to rethink the polity in the light of a morality shaped by the idea of Reason. This
happened in the Enlightenment up to its philosophical culmination in Kant's thought, but had hardly any influ-
ence on real politics, which continued to be better understood and managed on a realist path. Even the timid,
and for a long while ineffective, efforts to build a collective security system were due to the reaction to the
unprecedented bloodletting of 1914–18, rather than to the teachings of the idealist tradition, though the latter
helped formulate legal proposals for a new international order (League of Nations). After this evolution, some-
thing different from an updated and greatly refined rerunning of Kant's normativism, such as Rawls’ work in
the substance is, was to expect, in the sense of a normative theory capable of integrating into its method the
awareness of the real behaviour of actors and the role of the historical context.11 Also, for assessing justice
in real politics one needs to compare cases of relative justice rather than to build a whole theory of perfect
justice – to put it with Amartya Sen (2009: 16), who jokingly adds that knowing that the Mona Lisa (La Giocon-
da) is the most perfect picture in the world does not help when the choice is between a Dali and a Picasso.
Lastly, after the fall of grand narratives such as Marxism or positivistic progressivism, there is little reason for
resurrecting grand speculations de optima republica, or to make the achievement of an ‘end state’ (of justice,
happiness or what else) the research objective of political philosophy. Philosophy has in our time all reasons
to lower its pretensions.
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A short but overdue clarification: anthropology has been introduced here as philosophical rather than cultural
anthropology. This has to do with the scepticism about designing an ideal polity peopled with ‘free and ratio-
nal persons’ (Rawls, 1999a: 10), while later proceeding to look at the actions of not-so-rational persons (e.g.
war) under the lenses of non-ideal theory. Better chances of both understanding and transforming politics be-
long to the approaches that assume from the very beginning a complex and ambivalent structure of political
actors (including the gender differentiation) and take due note of the secular changes that have, for example,
marked their cognitive equipment and perception apparatus in the shift towards a globalized and highly inter-
connected world.
At the end of this journey through political normativity and its theoretical underpinnings the reader may ask:
what is all this fuss about? Is politics not a power game going on everyday and driven by interest, struggle
and compromise, with little need of normative beacons? This is a refreshing down-to-earth view, which how-
ever forgets about an essential feature of power, institution and policy: legitimacy. Apart from being ‘immoral’
or sometimes inhuman, power that cannot show its credentials of legitimacy is increasingly unstable and at
the end of the day powerless. A polity can prove its legitimacy only as far as its members deem it to some
extent capable to fulfil their notions of good governance as resulting from the normative models they have in
mind, but also to provide the essential goods (security, legality, minimal well-being) that citizens expect from
institutions.12 In political philosophy the category of legitimacy is the connecting link between the conceptual
reconstruction of how polities work and the categories giving them normative guidance (liberty, equality, jus-
tice and solidarity, in this author's account).
As is the case with this whole essay, this version of legitimacy has been designed so that its conceptual fea-
tures remain as close as possible to the workings of real politics and its actors. This has happened in the
persuasion that normative political theory is more useful and productive when handled less as an inner-philo-
sophical issue and rather as a necessary piece of any effort to conceptually grasp the core of politics.
Notes
1 On normativity in general, see Robertson (2009).
2 See the relevant entries in Klosko (2011) and Gaus-D'Agostino (2013) as well as in the online Stanford En-
cyclopaedia of Philosophy (https://plato.stanford.edu).
3 Rawls was aware of this gap, see ‘Remarks on Political Philosophy', which constitute the introduction to
Rawls (2007: 1–20).
4 For the present debate on political realism see Rossi and Sleat (2014), including its attention to realism in
international relations.
5 In moral philosophy normative theories (determining what is right) are either deontological (actions are good
or evil in themselves, depending on a supreme principle and regardless of the consequences) or consequen-
tialist (they are good or evil depending on whether their effects enhance or harm the utility or happiness or
pleasure of people). Still different are teleological theories, defining what is good and indicating how to best
configure one's own life in order to achieve this telos or aim. Kant, Jeremy Bentham and Aristotle are repre-
sentative of the three theory types. Hegel and the communitarians of our time (Charles Taylor, Michael Walz-
er, Michael Sandel and others, all critical of deontological liberalism) can be seen as very specific versions of
teleologism.
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6 This aspect has been particularly discussed by Rawls in his rethinking of the just war notion in the light of
the law of peoples, see Rawls (1999b: in particular 99–103), in which the legitimacy of both fire-bombing and
nuclear bombing on Japanese cities in 1945 is questioned.
7 It is no mere ‘guidance problem', as Valentini (2009) seems to believe.
8 The distinction of moral and political normativity has been once again formulated by Williams (2005). On
‘institutionalism vs moralism’ see Sangiovanni (2008).
9 ‘Climate ethics’ is an impressive instance of the futility of ideal theory whenever it addresses top-down a
concrete political problem, as I have argued in Cerutti (2016). For a productive example of the theory of jus-
tice applied to a policy problem see Pogge (2008).
10 This is true also for Nozick (1974), the libertarian answer to Rawls.
11 Idealism and normativism are not exactly the same thing, but reasons of space prevent me from discussing
their relationship.
12 More on legitimacy in Cerutti (2017: chapter 2).
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• normative political theory

• politics
• law
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n12

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Political Anthropology and Its Legacy
Contributors: Yves Schemeil

Chapter Title: "Political Anthropology and Its Legacy"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Political Anthropology and Its Legacy

Yves Schemeil
The goals, methods, and content of political anthropology (PA) vary across time and place. In some academic
traditions it is conceived as ‘cultural anthropology', which raises concerns about what ‘cultural’ really means.
Other streams of research call it ‘ethnology', to claim that it cannot be reduced to ethnography (the mere col-
lection of data and artifacts). Generalizing from observation is the main ambition of political anthropologists –
with a risk: discarding local and historical evidence to opt for a global comparative perspective.
PA does not track politics as is usually conceived, i.e. pertaining to the public sphere, but looks for it every-
where else. It focuses on the political underpinnings of social structures such as kinship and the family, a
street gang, a banquet, etc. It looks for non-professional politics wherever and whenever it can be observed –
be it in the remote past, far away from Europe where it was invented, or in modern structures and institutions
driven by politics without politicians.1 This could be done even when institutions remain stealthy, quasi-invis-
ible to political scientists. It is also useful when more visible objects of political science (PS) (power interac-
tions, social influence, and institutional regulation) are investigated.
What does PA bring to PS? First, it embeds the political into a holistic set of social interactions as a ‘total
social fact', instead of studying it in isolation. Second, it focuses on the local language of power and influ-
ence (using concepts as expressed in autochthonous idioms). Third, it brings tools like the use of standard-
ized field notebooks, the collection of artifacts, the drafting of sociometric graphs, participatory observation,
etc. Fourth, it offers an alternative genealogy of the founding fathers that is not limited to philosophers (like
Plato or Rawls), but is extended to famous political anthropologists (from Evans-Pritchard to Geertz). Fifth,
it addresses in its own way the two big methodological problems that any social scientist must face: how to
generalize from the singular (or abstract and theorize from the factual), and how to compare heterogeneous
cases to find true universality without losing specificity. Sixth, it has ‘a corrosive power’ (Balandier, 1970: viii)
over established theories, which often take for granted the distinction between the West and the Rest (Gled-
hill, 2009) or ‘complex’ versus ‘simple’ polities. Seventh, it takes attention away from utilitarianism and rational
decisions to focus on political will and humanistic vision (Szakolczai, 2018: 20).
A Long Genealogy
Visiting ‘strange’ countries (at a time when the notion of ‘foreign’ was still vague) is documented very early
in history, and very far away in space. In ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, palace walls were painted or en-
graved with images describing past explorations of unknown territories and peoples. Explorers, such as Ibn
Battuta in the Arab world and Zheng He in China, reported faithfully and somewhat neutrally what they saw
and heard, to such an extent that they earned the nickname of ‘logographers'. What is nonetheless striking in
all these accounts is the attempt to restitute with precision a reality that would otherwise remain non-accessi-
ble to contemporaries. And here is the first principle on which PA is grounded: it is a standardized observation
of the variety of the political customs and institutions.
The second principle matters even more to the building of scientific knowledge of other cultures: systematic
comparisons between every peoples must be made. Herodotus did not visit only ‘civilized’ Greeks and their
neighbors; 16th-century Japanese writers triangulated analyses of their compatriots, the Chinese, and the
Westerners.
One thing was still missing, though, until the British foundation of an academic discipline taught in universities:
PA should look for the non-visible political institutions in countries without script, history textbooks or consti-
tutions, let alone parliaments, elections, and parties – and no identified political heads. Hence, PA must look
for politics in spaces where it is not recognized as a professionalized activity.

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The British and the French conquered or traded with a number of non-official polities. Since their administra-
tors had to understand the context in which they lived, seminal works on colonized areas were much needed.
Evans-Pritchard and Fortes’ African political systems, Evans-Pritchard's The Nuer (1948), as well as Leach's
Political systems of Highland Burma (1954) did a lot to excavate power relations from the mud of networks of
sociability from which power, influence, and manipulation were apparently absent. The ethnographic records
of Malinowski or Boas also contributed to building functionalist and structural theories of politics in societies
were power was hidden. Malinowski himself assumed that PA should look for ‘equivalents', ‘substitutes', or
‘alternatives’ to our political structures and functions (Malinowski, 1960: 120,123,137; Boas, 2006).
The problem faced by the founding fathers was the lack of precedent. How could they make visible a ‘system’
of political relations that was not engraved into the marble of fundamental laws and made manifest in a
‘regime'? One way to proceed was to look for social hierarchies. British political anthropologists simply re-
placed compliance with deference; they found equivalents of legal punishment in social ostracism; they lo-
cated real power in ‘big men', sorcerers, and shamans or distinguished characters – like Evans-Pritchard's
‘leopard-skin chief’ of the Nuer (Evans-Pritchard, 1940: 172–73), or Leach's ‘thigh-eating chief’ of the Kachin
(Leach, 1954: 121–22). They established kinship reciprocity and collective responsibility as substitutes for
legal enforcement. When siblings must collectively assume guilt there is no need for courts, police forces,
and jails. However, ‘segmentarity’ rules out state building (until now) or weakens colonial rule (in the 1930s).
Because blood segments aggregate only as lineage branches, no political institution can emerge in societies
that are nonetheless endowed with a sense of identity. What people get instead is a network of networks –
another relevant concern in Internet-governed polities of today.
Some anthropologists like Leach and Turner observed spatial and temporal variations of hierarchies.2 The
former studied the oscillation of power in highland Burma – an unstable configuration of power called gumsa
located between shan feudal relations and the gumlao-organized anarchy of equalitarian factions. The latter
showed that ‘liminality’ was at the roots of any organized society in Africa (from East to West) and elsewhere,
since transition from adolescence to adulthood as well as the passage from rank and file people to leadership
positions required zones of undetermined status in which people could find out that it would be pointless to
do to others things they would not like to experience themselves.
Leach grounded social relations in space, and Turner anchored them in time. Both scholars insisted on infor-
mal relations, invisible structure, and flexible if not unstable behavior. Both noted that political communities
existed outside Europe. Leach showed that the Kachin could understand each other's twisted interpretation
of common great narratives (as often stated by respondents, ‘if I were one of them I would think and act as
they do').3 Hence irrationality, inconsistency, instability, interactivity, and informality could well spread further
across time and space than assumed in northern universities where the concept of institutionalization pre-
vailed.
The ultimate challenge to PA, as conceived, came from the treatment of conflict in informal political systems.
Because the form and level of ‘political contention’ vary, social cohesion depends on varieties of feud regula-
tion. However, if this is but a ‘variant’ of any form of peacekeeping, then politics is ‘relegated to accessory sta-
tus’ as Easton once argued. On the contrary, PS considers regulation as paramount since it works on whole
‘systems’ as the most inclusive set of interactions in any society. According to Easton the founding fathers of
PA could only see politics as the result of the use of force plus a non-centralized organized authority – the only
difference between ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ political systems being this absence of centralization – whereas
political scientists could paradoxically do without force, organization, and centralization. Anthropologists went
too far in the other direction and equated the kinship structure with a political regime (Easton, 1959: 211–12,
219–20, 214–16).
War was another sort of conflict that mattered to anthropologists in the founding years of the discipline, since
it is a rare example of this ‘use of force’ associated with politics (see David and Rapin, Chapter 83, this Hand-
book). In war, strong fighters and smart strategists are needed, all sorts of weapons are used, and people are
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killed or enslaved. Even though there are no formalized borders, boundaries do exist between territories, and
trespassing them is conducive to conflicts like anywhere else. To address such threat deterrence may some-
times suffice – as among Amazonians whose potential fighters simply extend their web of social relations to
show rivals how difficult and illegitimate it would be to attack them (Descola, 1996).
In both types of conflicts, some activities are more political than others, those that deal with collaboration and
dispute-settlement among groups competing for power, and those which lead to binding decisions allocating
or granting things of value to people (Easton, 1959: 226). Another cleavage, consanguinity versus contigu-
ity, is debatable because it is either too evolutionist or excessively focused on kinship (Lewellen, 2003: 3).
What is not debatable is the existence of power struggles and coercion everywhere. Only the containment
of violence varies (it can be achieved by parliaments, a group of elders, secret societies – as the hundred
membered Dogon families called ‘ginna' – or age-groups and bands of young men). Since there must ex-
ist a system of arbitration everywhere, which requires in turn deliberation among selected people who make
binding decisions, then the major political difference between societies is not the degree of specialization of
the arbiters but the permanence or lack of permanence of their political role. This is the end of the typologies
duplicating the canonic oppositions between stateless and stately societies, kinship and kingship, etc.
Difficulties in finding standards of classification made it worthless. Contrary to most British anthropologists,
Their French peers quickly got rid of taxonomies. Due to a durable Durkheimian imprint on ethnology (see
Poggi, Chapter 3, this Handbook), they switched from political structures to political processes – how to cre-
ate a national or communitarian ethics, how to alternate moments of collective enthusiasm or heroism with
sheer routine, etc. Temporary coalescence replaces permanent structures.
Continuity is striking from Mauss and Griaule to Lévi-Strauss and Godelier, or even Hellenists interpreting the
meaning of the ‘beautiful death’ (Vernant, 1991). Despite the absence of central institutions and heads, ‘effer-
vescence’ is nonetheless possible through particular moments of the social cycle (religious festivals, public
banquets, coming of age ceremonies, celebrations of past events or heroes, etc.). They bring the necessary
social glue to anarchical contexts. In other words, neither kinship nor territory may suffice to give people a
political identity. A polity exists when it becomes visible to its members, as in complex societies with indepen-
dence days, national celebrations, state visits, and even world championships.
Also relevant for politics, a new insistence on valuable knowledge outside Western science paved the way
for a more balanced vision of the relationships between European thought and local cosmogonies. When it
emerged, anthropology was a sort of sociology applied to different objects (illiterate, ahistorical, and stateless
societies). The Chicago School and its heritage in current urban ethnography blurred this implicit division of
labor, and turned certitudes upside down. Authors such as Isaac Thomas, Park, and Wirth, not to mention
latecomers like Foote Whyte (2004) and Alice Goffman (2009) spotted people who live in towns although not
as other urbanites did – immigrants, hobos and other homeless people, bohemian artists, corner boys and
members of street gangs, inhabitants of racial ghettos and city districts, etc.
Decolonization brought two additional ingredients to the new PA: a necessity to know the authentic other, and
the impossibility of carrying on studying groups living in isolation in recently freed societies. These two con-
tradictory goals gave birth, respectively, to comparative politics centered on political cultures; and to the rural
ethnography of Western societies with a focus on how village life could survive the nationalization of politics,
the centralization of polities, and the urbanization of human settlements. If they did, resilience should be at-
tributed to a specific factor, non-political as well as non-institutionalized: culture, again, was a good candidate
for the status of an explanatory variable; and so were interactions and alliances, as in the southern commu-
nity about which Wylie devoted his PhD thesis, where people used to see their relations with others as being
split between those with whom they had good relationships, and those from whom they have been estranged
at some point – or, translated into a political idiom, between members of the same party, hence customers of
the same café and shops, and all the others (Wylie, 1957).

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In recent years, the field of PA has expanded dramatically. Corporations, sectarian brotherhoods, safety or
security teams, industrial towns, international organizations, etc. are now part of the legitimate perimeter of
anthropology because they have to solve the problems of social hierarchy, common rules, and collective ac-
tion. Likewise, processes and protocols like religious conversions, state visits, or caricatures have entered
the field of ethnology. Therefore relations between actors have tended to substitute social and political agents
themselves.
Such versatility shows that politics was about coordination, conflict, and constraints even when political in-
stitutions were lacking.4 What eventually maintained the unity of PA was a continuous concern for cultures
–i.e. shared values, moral beliefs, religious creeds, acceptable behavior, and confidence in central institutions
– plus social networks (of siblings, friends, generations, or allies). But such a selection of concepts certainly
evolved along time.
The Classics and Their Critics

From structuralism and functionalism, to culturalism, then interactionism, we have four funerals and a wed-
ding.
The birth of PA was characterized by a focus on structure as the main explanatory variable of both universality
and specificity among human societies. The basic assumption was therefore ‘structuralist': everything was
arranged according to an inner structure because it had to fulfill a much needed function – hence, this ap-
proach was also ‘functionalist'. Structures and functions were allegedly visible in complex societies but not so
much in isolated ones where they would gain visibility only when anthropologists could observe rules, then
link them to a probable underlying organizational chart saying who can marry whom, dine with whom, hunt or
till land with whom, build houses with whom, and communicate with ancestors through whom. Reproduction,
nutrition, housing, and religion were assumed to be full of rules that reflected structures and responded to a
physical and social necessity.
Such structural functionalism (see Agarin, Chapter 5, this Handbook) can either derive from law (most found-
ing fathers were trained in legal studies [Thomassen, 2008: 265]); biology (basic needs being allegedly ‘natur-
al’ or material); or linguistics (social relations depend on communication skills and symbolization is language).
The British opted mostly for biology, and the French for linguistics. Both were then superseded by American
culturalism and interactionism.
Culturalism (i.e. ‘privileging cultural factors over more political variables such as social stratification, ideologi-
cal and partisan cleavages, political attitudes, institutional constraints, and strategic choice', Schemeil, 2011:
511) was once a promising avenue towards greater recognition of PA's achievements, as a way of ‘providing
contrary evidence that may test and question the overambitious claims of theories’ (Daloz, 2018: 179). Cul-
turalism now suffers from decreasing legitimacy. On the one hand, political culture is viewed as an outdated
way to analyze the political underpinnings of the more global relationships between citizens, either in demo-
cratic or illiberal polities. While ideology seems more relevant as a way of studying partisanship and political
alignments, culture itself tends to be considered as an ideological construct – not to mention ‘civilizations’ and
their alleged ‘clash'. On the other hand, culturalism presupposes the absence of significant change in beliefs
and behaviors – societies remaining identical from one century to the next, which would also give them an
identity.
In short, and for most critics, culturalism relies on essentialism and eternity. However, there is much more
to say about the use of culture in explanatory models. Studying cultural aspects of an asocial reality is like
drafting the dictionary of a foreign language: not all idioms are in use or even known to the speakers of that
language, but they offer a repertory of alternatives and options to make themselves plain with enough nuance
to be distinguished from their interlocutors. Picking out this or that idiomatic expression depends on tactical
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goals – like defending one's self-interest or hiding it behind a commitment to the general interest. Since cul-
ture is mostly made of signs, symbols, and icons, what happens when people meet is a mutual activation of
the symbols they have learned to understand in order to communicate peacefully – hence the privilege once
given to static culture should inevitably prefigure a coming attention to symbolic interaction.
This is exactly how interactionism became the winner of the contest between all these streams of research.
This is because there is a close connection between PA as an approach and interactionism as a method.
Since mainstream anthropologists avoid excessive interference with the people they study, they analyze inter-
actions between them – be they material or symbolic. Once displaced from isolated societies to communities
living with many neighbors in a modern environment, like a department store or a public transportation termi-
nal, any form of anthropology is even more clearly an example of interactionism. When done with a special
focus on politics, the interactionist component is converted into a crystallized set of beliefs and behaviors, like
partisanship, electoral campaigns, or fights against foreign enemies in which myriads of social interactions
are aggregated and dichotomized (between, pro and con, we and they, etc.). However, frontal oppositions
may eventually hide the many different meanings of siding with some people against other people. At that
point classical PA must be supplemented with new trends such as socio-anthropology and archeopolitics.
Culturalism also declined because it gave way to cognitivism – since people see what they are trained to
perceive (i.e. things as they are framed by their culture), their potential knowledge is bounded and limited.
Whereas cognitivism anchors PA into culture or nature (the brain), socio-anthropology and archeopolitics an-
chor it within the other social sciences: sociology and psychology on the one hand, history and PS on the
other hand.
Basic Concepts
Political Culture
In the absence of any boundary, identity document, or military mobilization, two ways are left to make a soci-
ety visible to foreigners as a distinct whole: diplomacy to keep others at bay, and political culture, a conception
of the self as belonging to a polity (see Berg-Schlosser, Chapter 37, this Handbook). It is of note that, first,
political culture cannot be conflated as ‘civic’ (contra Almond and Verba); second, it is no shortcut for ‘civiliza-
tion’ (contra Huntington); third, it is not uniform.
Uniformity of mores does not guarantee that a ‘culture’ will be recognized by outsiders. People have hyphen-
ated identities. Subcultures can diverge. What insiders expect from a shared culture is not unanimous agree-
ment, only a better understanding of their peers’ arguments and what makes sense, without endorsing the
rationale for their decisions. Culture makes interactions easier; it also spares time and effort in anticipating the
conduct of others because some things at least can be ‘taken for granted', and are ‘commonsensical', hence
difficult to deny openly (like laicité in France, parliamentary democracy in Great Britain, Islam in Saudi Arabia,
or Marxism in the former Soviet Union).
Political culture may also be viewed as a cake of which each piece has a specific flavor. According to PA
there is some evidence that the separation of the political from other dimensions of life is a Western phenom-
enon. But there is also some certitude that even when embedded in the social, most political practices and
beliefs differ from the Global North to the Global South, and even from country to country. For instance, to
attract supporters, political leaders in Nigeria opt for ‘conspicuous display’ while in Scandinavia ‘conspicuous
modesty’ is of the essence (Daloz, 2018: 187; Bayart, 2009). In spite of this, representatives all benefit from
a delegation of power, which has the same meaning in both cultures, and is therefore universal.5 Moreover,
if there are as many registers of meaning as there are cultures, it is very unlikely that in a globalized world

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people could ignore what the others mean by ‘representation'. Hence, a 2011 Cairo demonstrator would have
been perfectly aware of the difference between gurus, patrons, and lobbyists.6 But she could have combined
these three registers according to her self-interest, the current context, and her mood.
Myths and Rituals

Whereas myths are either written or not, they are much respected ‘texts’ meant to guide people in their daily
life, which give some meaning to their deeds and opinions. Rituals are social processes that translate state-
ments into practices, and make ordinary people commit themselves to the collective vision of their identity and
ethics. According to Lévi-Strauss, myths are what unconsciously structure behavior, while rituals are events
in which behavior can be observed. Myths point out consistency; rituals express contradictions (Gluckman,
1963). In a way, going to the polls after a highly divisive electoral campaign is also a means of displaying
national unity: elections are but civilized substitutes for civil wars.
In the absence of texts, anthropologists have focused on indigenous accounts of Creation. Myths are non-
written narratives that also tell us where the community comes from, and what prohibitions to respect. They
also say what a correct or moral behavior is. Since there is no constitution on which to rely, myths additionally
provide a scale of obligations towards the others, and, when it exists, a clear hierarchy of deference to whom
and when.
In modern PA, mythical narratives can be translated as ‘sacred books’ (Bromberger, 1995), i.e. texts to which
members of a community refer on any occasion (the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Manifesto of
the Communist Party, The Federalist Papers, the Quran, etc.). Such texts help people to memorize a particu-
lar mapping of social encounters, with zones of comfort, zones of benign neglect, and zones of conflict.
One of the most analyzed processes of initiation rituals is political socialization, an introduction into a new
circle of sociability of people so far kept out of it because of age, sex, race, activity, or genealogy. It aims to
put future heads into the shoes of those on whom they will some day impose their decisions, and transfer
knowledge about secret societies’ proceedings, male-only meeting rules, magic, therapy, and prophetic skills.
Joining gangs or remaining loyal to their leaders, being put on the roll call of voters, mobilized by the army, or
invited as a guest of a host in an exclusive banquet, all require special rituals.
Narratives are special myths, especially ‘Grand narratives'. They include other materials open to anthropo-
logical work such as stump speeches, lullabies, legends, fairy tales, and ‘national novels’ (history textbooks
which reconstruct the past in order to make it consistent with an imagined community). Not all communities
have a narrative: there is at least one culture in which history is ignored, the Amazonian Jívaro who have
nothing to pass on to the next generation in terms of personal, family or collective heritage (Descola, 1996).
Moreover, when such narratives exist, they are competing with each other. Members of such communities
understand that each of its components has an equal right to stick to its own version of a reconstructed origin
(every version is therefore considered as equally valid). Whereas complex, populated, and intermingled soci-
eties tend to produce a national history taught at school in accredited textbooks, members of small illiterate
communities recognize the right of each person to choose among a plurality of views (this is well established
among the Dogon in Africa, and the Kachin in Asia).
Within the Classics, some authors used PA to show that tragedy could also be a political narrative which could
help an audience to learn what is bygone (e.g. loyalty to kin) and what is a new way to think and act (e.g.
loyalty to kings [Meier, 1993]). Drama has always been a convenient channel to tell people what to do, so PA
should include it within its perimeter. From drama to public speech there is some conspicuous continuity. This
explains why public speech and specialized idioms that are adopted when negotiating with foes are major
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sources of identity building – a proxy for ideology in societies with no written language. People who will soon
step in as leaders must learn the specific language of public speech, as do the Ashuar in Ecuador and Peru
(Descola, 1996) or the Guayakí of Paraguay (Clastres, 1974/1987).
Language
Anthropologists have long been divided on the causal relationships between language and society: does lan-
guage frame social interaction, or does it stem from previous intercourse? This ontological problem is known
as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. The way people build sentences (with a subject, an object, and a verb), their
numeration, and their vocabulary may stem from their way of life (urbanites do not need hundreds of quasi-
synonyms for animals, meteorological conditions, and edible plants). However, it may also be true that once
invented, language evolved and made people view the local world accordingly (if you have a lot of words to
address ethical issues, then they become more prominent, and the same could be said for politics and war).
In PS nowadays the conflict between structuralism and constructivism is still raging, and it lies mostly in the
language/society option.
Is language a natural source or a mere construct? Whatever the answer given to this question, language
and translation issues remain central in PA. The following riddle is an enlightening example of language am-
biguity and the necessity of knowing the context to understand it correctly. It is a convincing explanation of
the difficulty of being understood plainly when talking (and delivering political speeches, for instance). Imag-
ine a situation where the indigenous partner of a foreign observer takes him to the outback to teach him the
local terminology, when a rabbit suddenly surges from nowhere and starts running, accompanied by the in-
terpreter's shout (gavagaï!). The ‘derided anthropologist’ is then unable to decide on the exact meaning of
the word (‘rabbit'? ‘look'? ‘beware'? ‘hunt'? ‘wonderful', or just ‘wow'), each saying something about the value
of the rabbit and the meaning of the situation to the indigenous interpreter (Quine, 2013). The lesson to be
drawn is that context and intention matter even more than facts – a lesson we tend to forget in our world made
of objective and precise description that must be deprived of any equivoque.
Kinship: Real and Pseudo

Most of the comparative advantages of anthropology over the rest of the social sciences lie in its focus on
marriage and filiation. Parenthood trees are even considered as a specific technique without which the social
structure could never be understood. Consequently, every scientific study of men and women's interactions
and institutions worldwide should start from the basics – marriage, kinship, and family structures (as Egyp-
tologists do). However, research published about modern polities often skips such fundamental relationships.
Hence, there is plenty of pseudo anthropological research borrowing its techniques from anthropological field-
work without serious consideration of its objects.
In PS, research on family links is not as technical and meticulous as in mainstream anthropology. However,
personal connections between people in office and their challengers (who lives with whom, who is the god-
mother or the wedding witness of whom, etc.) are often studied. Of course, building solid knowledge about
such webs of pseudo parenthood is an uneasy task – as such relationships may be drowned in an ocean of
other connections (professional, educational, or incidental).
Since PA also targets societies in which marriage and filiation play only a marginal role, continuity between
mainstream anthropology and the way political scientists use it presupposes an extension of the perimeter of
kinship, to include fake blood ties – i.e. clientelist ties, allegedly similar to those analyzed by anthropologists,

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although void of any blood relationship (Leca and Schemeil, 1983).
Anthropological findings on kinship are a source of inspiration for political scientists. It forces them to take a
closer look at: prohibited and preferential marriage or friendship (with whom one must be seen or not when
dining out); ‘joking relationships’ among siblings, or just among peers (Radcliffe-Brown); social effervescence
(Durkheim); mentorship of junior politicians by seniors, etc.
Leadership
To avoid notions that may look Western (like ‘rulers'), anthropologists use indigenous labels like ‘big men',
‘prophets', and ‘sorcerers’ (respectively translated into the modern idioms of political regimes as ‘leaders',7
‘spin doctors', and ‘fixers'). PA needs words that neither mean full compliance with their public statements nor
imply enforcement of their decisions.
This points out the relative impotence of powerful people: to be heard by those over whom they rule they
cannot rely on force, or majority in Parliament. PA shows that compliance depends on intangible perceptions,
emotions, and symbols as much as they also rely on tangible resources. It also targets the volatility of per-
sonal influence, which depends on an endless maintenance of networks of sociability, plus a sincere under-
standing of reciprocity.
Instead of taking for granted that institutions define the amount of power that someone can use when in au-
thority, PA makes manifest the level of rulers’ vulnerability, even in modern political regimes (Abélès, 2002).
It sheds light on deterrence and curse rather than on the actual use of violence authorized by law. The para-
mount opposition of charismatic leaders to tricksters in most documented societies also underlines the fragili-
ty of power. Its double nature (Balandier, 1970: 37) is systematically made manifest through the opposition of
two characters. In ancient monarchies, the King faces his substitute, or his jester; in tribal systems, the politi-
cal chief is confronted by a ritual dignitary, or a ‘master of the land'; in modern regimes the ruler fights against
the leader of the opposition. The former is meant to accumulate power in order to protect the people and pro-
vide for its needs, as well as limiting entropy, anomy, etc.; the latter is conceived as a means of preventing
excessive accumulation of power, unacceptable to the people, through gossip and mockery or checks and
balances (Wedeen, 2002). Some leaders are specialized in the secular, others in the sacred. Some inherit
their status while feast-givers ‘buy’ it with gifts and free banquets (Abélès, 1980), as in modern electoral cam-
paigns not so long ago in Japan or Italy. These differentiated ways of accessing a position of power guarantee
that no influencer can ever become durably hegemonic.
Exchange
Since Mauss, then Lévi-Strauss, then Goody the role of mutual exchanges in isolated societies has been
carefully theorized. Although deprived of law and constitutions such communities have long ago designed
sustainable processes of self-administration. Basic organizational principles are universal: circulation of prop-
erty is required; some exchanges are prescribed and others prohibited; in the long run a strict equality of
advantages must be achieved.
With this in mind, the actual specificities of the modern world become obvious. Throughout the history of
mankind, property rights have not been the rule but the exception. PA shows that in the long run humans opt
for commons that cannot be owned privately. Contemporary political anthropologists claim that such lineage
shows that the economy is always embedded in the cultural and the political (Thomassen, 2008).

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The implication for contemporary societies is obvious: distributive justice is compelling; self-help is illegitimate.
Income and property must pass not only from one generation to the next but from neighbor to neighbor.
‘Waste’ (as in Amerindian potlatch or Ethiopian banquets) may be a functional equivalent for modern rational
investment tools such as campaigns expenses, interest rates, transaction costs, or hedge funds. When re-
distribution or restitution is not possible, excessive wealth must be destroyed, something illustrated by the
potlatch and New Guinean Kula ring (Boas 2006/189; Mauss, 1966; Malinowski 1922).
Exchange is also a proxy for alliance. Everywhere people are trying to find who is or could become an ally,
and who is or could become a foe. Most people living in isolated societies express concerns about latent sur-
rounding hostility. There is a scale of distrust, in which stepbrothers are common targets of defiance (Leach,
1954; Descola, 1996). The lesson to draw in politics is: be aware that most traitors are recent friends who
defect when they consider that the structure of bilateral exchange has become imbalanced.
Commons and redistribution, plus networks and alliance, are at the core of an anthropological view of ex-
change because they create and maintain more sociability than political institutions can.
Norms
This concept is not specific to PA but most anthropologists trace actual behavior to compelling norms with or
without enforcement structures. In isolated societies norms organize every single detail of life. When there is
no visible web of institutions, contrary to human groups studied by sociologists, or polities observed by polit-
ical scientists, then an exhaustive review of the hidden sources of compliance becomes a priority. Scholars
must go beyond the surface and find the causes of deference for others, and respect for the rules.
For instance, there is no enduring social organization without prohibitions – such as the prohibition of incest
that applies even when shared interest or mutual love would call for exceptions. Likewise, there is no society
without prescriptions – like the law of asylum even when fierce enemies or despised guests must be accom-
modated and protected willy-nilly. These paramount norms are vault keys of the whole social architecture.
Beneath these paramount norms, second-tier ones, like loyalty, solidarity, and reciprocity, derive from them.
For instance, political scientists know that no state apparatus could resist a sudden mobilization of the mass-
es: the core question is which norm(s) can prevent such an uprising, and this can vary according to time and
place. In 2010 in Egypt and Syria (just before the ‘revolutions’ in these two countries) two norms consolidated
a tacit social contract for a long time: first, an imaginary ‘red line’ not to be trespassed at the risk of personal
and social disorders of a large magnitude; second, contempt with regard to the political sphere, the realm of
vice, ruse, corruption, and cheating. When support for these norms weakened, activists began to mobilize a
less lethargic population. Although legal and even social rules had not changed at all, the hollowing out of
these two political norms made the uprisings possible.
A Global Ambition
It is of note that the Global South and the Global North make differentiated use of PA. In the former, political
scientists trace anthropological methods and problems to colonization. They rely on classical anthropology or
its revival. In the latter, anthropological insights may help authors reveal sorcery, prophecy, or magic hidden
behind modern procedures of rulers’ endorsement. Additionally, classical anthropology may bring solutions to
knowledge traps. When scholars are confronted with hostility, misunderstanding, and distrust towards inva-
sive investigation, then taking stock of the works of past anthropologists is helpful. This can apply to urban
gangs (A. Goffman, 2009), religious activists, corporations (Pudal, 2013), state visits (Mariot, 2011), citizens’
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committees (Patsias et al., 2017), or war militias (Baczko et al., 2011).
In the absence of seminal works in their own discipline that would help political scientists to find causes of
the processes they study, they tend to refer to famous anthropologists. In recent years, two ethno-sociolo-
gists have emerged from a long list of big names: Erving Goffman, and Nina Eliasoph. Both are celebrated
for focusing on the avoidance of conflict in public venues, which in a pun alluding to ‘political science’ the
latter labeled ‘political silence'. According to them, human beings live in a Hobbesian world, even after com-
plex institutions have been invented to pacify social interactions. Encounters with strangers are potentially
dangerous, worrisome, or embarrassing. Once conflicts break out from uncontrolled interactions, people must
openly take sides. However, a dissenting opinion will tear down the group. Cost- and risk-avoiding citizens in
densely populated nations are therefore close to indigenous people who minimize conflict because they can
neither exit from the small community to which they belong, nor voice their grievances too boldly.
Turning to anthropology is also the best option when quantitative methodology is not feasible. But Goffman's
and Eliasoph's achievements show that causation is not absent from qualitative research. PA can describe,
illustrate, understand, without renouncing to theorize and explain. In Turner's work (1969), ‘liminality’ explains
much – as does Godelier's survey of socialization processes among New Guinean Baruyas (Godelier and
Strathern, 2008). Leach takes for granted that divided selves exist everywhere. People are politically flexible
and they can understand deviant and selfish behavior that they may themselves occasionally adopt. Scholars
all assume that context and meaning matter. But they are also looking for causes that could apply elsewhere
– such as Abélès's ‘eligibility’ (an implicit status that brings heirs of former leaders to the fore when candidates
must be endorsed). It makes sense to look for genealogical credentials in a French town as well as in an
Ethiopian village (Abélès, 1980, 1989), but it also shows that ‘selectorates’ exist everywhere (clerks in Iran,
the military in Thailand, the Communist Party in China).
In the end, most political scientists sincerely believe that in-depth interviews (not iterative conversations), ac-
credited observation (not participant observation), and some attention to context (not field notebooks) are
means of obtaining recognition from mainstream anthropologists. They simply skip the very tools that dis-
tinguish the latter from other social scientists: family trees, folk culture, and body language, which can be
inferred from external signs such as garments, tattoos, and body piercing. Whereas anthropologists metic-
ulously collect artifacts (and make drawings or photographs and even films that focus on objects), amateur
ethnologists usually show disdain for ethnographic materials, since their quest for narratives take a heavy toll
in terms of time spent on the ground (Schemeil, 2006).
To be sure, methodological tools matter much when what is at stake is the establishment or the legitimization
of a science. No political scientists could however indulge in a fully inductive method. Living for years among
people whose lifestyles are remote from theirs, in search of something that would make sense and consoli-
date their own explanation of a political process in a non-political society, is beyond reach, and possibly coun-
terproductive.
PA is to PS what slow food is to fast food: a humble non-directed quest for those rare occasions where the
deep meaning of rituals and beliefs can be extracted from the relatively large amount of data with which pro-
fessional and amateur anthropologists are confronted.
While politics is quickly changing in political societies, authoritative assessment is required about what is go-
ing on there. It must be grounded in solid theory and exemplified by remarkable events. When hectic politics
is hidden behind non-political processes and religious narratives whose pace of change is very slow, then
patience and caution are of the essence.
Because of such a gap between politics in formally politicized and non-politicized societies, selecting mo-
ments of exception offers a timely solution to this dilemma. Durkheim's ‘effervescence’ in ‘primitive societies’
(Durkheim, 1915), Balandier's ‘theatrocracy’ in Africa (Balandier, 1980), Geertz's drama in Bali (Geertz, 1973),

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and Meier's Greek tragedy (Meier, 1993) help us understand politicians’ performances in the media. This
methodological shortcut brings together two assumptions: that visual representation of politics as a drama is
enlightening; that big events make political virtues manifest.
Here, popular support and participation prevail over what is actually represented – the uses and abuses of
political structures. A similar remark could be made about Erving Goffman's total institutions such as gar-
risons, hospitals, jails, and even schools, with their extensions in Parliaments and Courts: there are excep-
tional and reduced models of macro politics, whose social meaning is captured during special events (medical
treatments, the hunt for fugitives, verdicts). It's as if, in order to conciliate PS (which tries to explain events)
and ethnology (which unveils their underlying structure), PA should skip the fabric of politics to focus on what
comes out of it.
Because scholars are increasingly focusing on special events, we may wonder to what extent they can gen-
eralize from single case observations. Since events could be exceptional, inferring kinship rules from one
wedding, or political repertoires from one mass demonstration would be spurious. Rather than sound gener-
alization this would be extrapolation, an epistemological sin. Case studies would be worthless if no general
rule could be drawn from their particular lessons.
A Disputed Legacy
Major advances in PA may be considered as drawbacks in PS. A telling example is Leach's tripartite distinc-
tion between kin, stepfamily, and foe, which diverges from Carl Schmitt's frontal conflict between friends and
enemies: because PA identifies people living in ego's vicinity rather than foreigners as the main sources of
conflict, it focuses on civil wars rather than international confrontations. PA also shows that introducing a third
party between ‘us’ and ‘them’ substantially changes the nature of social conflict. It tells the story of humans
fighting less fiercely against aliens than against allies, thus putting treason rather than reason at the core of
their relationships with others.
Another divergence with mainstream PS is about the continuity of nature and culture. Despite variation be-
tween scholars over time, nature still matters more in PA than in PS, where it suffers from an early association
with the much debatable socio-biology. Political scientists feel estranged from biology; hence animals, bodies,
brains, and genes do not easily make their way as legitimate objects of study elsewhere than in ‘biopolitics',
a sidelined stream of research. On the contrary, anthropologists are less and less convinced of the necessity
of distinguishing ‘physical’ from ‘cultural’ anthropology. They insist on our animal nature, the environment in
which we live, and our relations with non-humans. In doing so, they are allegedly explaining variations be-
tween societies much better than they would, were they relying only on cultural differences (Descola, 2013).
There are methodological caveats, though. For instance, making successful efforts to popularize ‘grounded
theory’ and ‘analytic narratives’ is a respectable attempt to combine qualitative and quantitative methods.
Both have nonetheless to catch up with the mantra of a less theorized ‘thick description’ (Geertz, 1973), which
looks more like a motto than a method: is this 1973 notion ‘thicker’ than observation as usually understood in
ethnology (Hastings and Roux, 2018)? Because ‘thick’ description is selective, is it ‘richer’ than a detailed field
description? How new is thick description compared to Lévi-Strauss's (1955: 443) ‘slated structure', which al-
so focuses on a plurality of meanings for the same narratives or the same acts? According to Lévi-Strauss,
multilayered mythical sets are made up of all successive versions, like the Oedipal myth from ancient Greece
to Freudian Vienna (‘a myth is made up of all its variants’ and they all belong to a ‘permutation group’ [Lévi-
Strauss, 1955: 435, 439, 443]). For Geertz, successive versions of a Balinese wedding from a 19th-century
account to participant observation in the 20th century enrich the interpretation of this rite. The two approach-
es are similar, whatever Geertz could have said: both track the underlying resemblance concealed beneath
manifest difference. However, Lévi-Strauss's slated structure might be quantified whereas Geertz's ‘thick de-
scription’ cannot be measured. General laws are less easily achievable with a methodology attached to idio-
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syncrasies.
Because anthropologists focus on external symbols and artifacts of social life, they mainly work with cultural
materials – and this may be of course conducive to culturalism. Geertz himself could step down from his iconic
position in PA when we look at the way he addressed cultural issues. To get rid of any essentialism without
removing specificity from his analysis he tries to find a global meaning behind the local accounts made of a
cultural concept (like ‘person', or ‘law'). Rather than his treatment of particularities, political scientists drawing
inspiration from his work should take stock of his obsessional generalization: to convey their intentions to oth-
ers, people freely pick out tools in a constrained cultural repertoire. Lévi-Strauss and Balandier are not very
far away, neither is J.-P. Daloz when he compares two strategic options, both culturally acceptable – opting
for modest or agonistic behavior (Daloz, 2006).
Beyond unequal achievements and doubts about best practices, recent trends in PA are being contested.
Take the ‘interpretive turn'. In PA, people perform, they are acting, and they interpret a partition. Therefore,
PA is all about interpretation – theatrical interpretation by actors on stage (as in drama), or theoretical as-
sumptions made by interpretive anthropologists. Does this add much to the epistemology of Lévi-Strauss, Ba-
landier, and Geertz? Since Geertz displays a preference for an intuitive, inductive, and impressionist frame-
work, the ‘interpretive turn’ in the social sciences is traced to his Interpretation of Culture (1973). However, the
meticulous depiction of Clouet's portrait of Elisabeth of Austria in The Savage Mind was already an exercise
in such kinds of empirical inference (Lévi-Strauss, 1966: 24–5). The description of the lace collar in miniature
was an opportunity to infer a global law from a reduced model of reality,8 i.e. art is metaphorical and made
up of events, while science is metonymic and made up of structures. But both require the collaboration of the
informer/artist and the spectator/anthropologist – a rather Geertzian conclusion. This goes much beyond the
famous ‘tour de force’ through which Geertz tries to draw global information about eye blinking by examining
all possible ways to wink, blink, etc. and convey information with one's body (Geertz, 1973: 6-10).
Either interpretation is a synthesis of explanation and understanding which encompasses them both; or, it is
simply a literary facility used by scholars who are not novelists to freely depict reality as they see it, with no
epistemological constraint to objectify it. And, of course, if the interpretive turn is only a detour on the road to
a fully assumed cognitivism, then PA merely underlines the potential of cognition instead of taking stock with
regard to interpretation.
Lastly, look at the ‘practice turn'. Although it is too early to say how new this actually is, there are some solid
reasons to remain cautious about inferring pecking orders from actual behavior instead of deducting them
from structural arrangements (Pouliot, 2016: 15). If, contrary to anthropologists, political scientists and inter-
nationalists lose contact with ontological issues (as stated by Joseph and Kurki, 2017), ‘practitionists’ a fortiori
would remain on the surface of what they should explain in depth. However, turning to practice makes anthro-
pologists vulnerable to empiricism, inductionism, and excessive empathy for the people observed. Here lies
a big contradiction: a better understanding of the meanings of social behavior may be achieved at a high cost
– loss of lucidity.
Overall, the balance is nonetheless positive: PA brings more novelty than pseudo-innovation, and it opens up
many more avenues than dead ends.
A Bright Future
Two alternatives are offered to PA. Either it opts for interactionism and cognitivism as the best ways to concili-
ate anthropology and sociology, theory and practice, interpretation and explanation.9 Or it politicizes method-
ology and epistemology in an attempt to offer new explanations, different from what mainstream PS takes for
granted. PA surfs on the postcolonial wave and contributes to the debate about the colonization/decoloniza-

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tion process, on the ground or in the mind. Gender issues are less prominent, though. Because it reflects a
reality to which it tries to be faithful, PA often relays gender imbalances that exist in the real world.
PA could benefit from the recent popularization of ‘digital humanities', hence making true Lévi-Strauss's
dream of a computational anthropology. This would go much beyond the timid quantification of a qualitative
science. For instance, we can imagine all the possible permutations of acts or processes meant in various
spaces and times to convey the idea of a limitation of power.
Such moves could well bring PA closer to PS – so close that in the end the boundary between the two would
collapse. One question would nonetheless remain: to what extent does any ‘anthropology of…’ power, States,
revolutions, insurgency, wars, migration, securitization, climate change, class, etc., to cite entries of one of the
latest handbooks (Wydra and Thomassen, 2018a), differ from a political sociology or even a political theory of
the same issues? Is it not true that power as defined as ‘resistance to intrusion’ (Horvath, 2018), rather than
the capability of erecting borders in relation to others, is similar to Philip Pettit's concept of ‘non-domination’
(1997)? Is it not true that revolutions, as defined as ‘ritual processes, highlighting transformative characteris-
tics that closely resemble liminal in-between periods and spaces known from rites of passage’ (Thomassen,
2018), belong to a broader category – the ‘political socialization’ of amateurs who become activists (Patsias
et al., 2017).
Contrary to the growing popularity of PA, which is at the root of the so-called ‘anthropological turn', or may
be considered as the rescuing of post-positivism by anthropologists, ‘political anthropology’ cannot be a politi-
cized sort of knowledge; it cannot be conflated with ‘the politics of anthropology’ (Thomassen, 2008: 1); it
cannot indulge in tracing ‘the political stakes of practice’ (Rabinow and Stavrianakis, 2018).
To remain meaningful and keep their recognized added value, political anthropologists must export their
methodological skills and their own objects of observation (like interpersonal networks) rather than just im-
porting political scientists’ concerns. Mimicking or ‘challenging conventional wisdom in PS’ will not suffice.
Admittedly, PA is currently focusing on ‘process’ (instead of structure or function), ‘identity’ (instead of interest
and organization), and ‘otherness’ (instead of a Western-centered view of the rest of the world) (Wydra and
Thomassen, 2018b: 1–2). However, becoming post-positivist, post-modern, and postcolonial will not spare
theorization about institutions and policy designs, the strategic manipulation of culture, and the intermingling
of Western and non-Western powers.
Conversely, political scientists cannot be mere amateurs in the realm of PA or, worse, hide their lack of com-
petence in (and appetite for) quantitative methods behind an anthropologist-friendly attitude. To become a
true anthropologist one should get enough ethnological training, and become familiar with the genealogy and
the debates of the profession from the outset (which goes back to Maine, Morgan, and Taylor).
Actually, professional anthropologists and political scientists who use PA may agree on one point: taming vi-
olence, inventing forms of self-restraint, and avoiding conflict are documented across time and space. Most
people are risk-averse, in particular when they live or act within small groups and isolated societies. Encoun-
ters with strangers are possible sources of discomfort (Anderson, 2011; Schemeil, 2017). This may be true
when someone tries to express a dissenting opinion, which will inevitably jeopardize the very existence of the
group. Hence, nearly everywhere ‘avoiding politics’ is of the essence (Eliasoph, 1998). This may well be the
paradoxical lesson that can be gleaned by the sudden popularity of PA outside anthropology: the more you
do it, the less its objects remain ‘political'.
To conclude, the added value of true PA is multifold. It turns politics upside down, and works bottom-up in-
stead of top-down, horizontally instead of vertically, with networks as substitutes or rivals to governmental in-
stitutions. It helps us to see the invisible (unframed institutions, latent norms, and underlying social structures)
concealed by the visible. It combines the universal and the specific. It is conducive to extended comparison
across time and space with no regard for disciplinary insistence on ‘historicity', ‘continuity', and ‘incomparabil-

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ity'.
In other words, it paves the way for a cognitive socio-anthropology of the political in comparative perspective,
an interdisciplinary approach that is still to come.
Notes
1 PA ‘shows that all human societies produce politics and that they are all subjects to the vicissitudes of his-
tory’ (Balandier, 1970: viii).
2 ‘The very strong stress on social equilibrium, which was so evident in Evans-Pritchard's approach, was
quickly questioned in a series of works that focused more on conflict and change’ (Wydra and Thomassen,
2018b: 4).
3 ‘The Kachins choose, according to their particular situation, the most favourable mythical references for
their present interest’ (Balandier, 1970: 72).
4 ‘Anthropology was of course always about politics’ (Thomassen, 2008: 265).
5 Otherwise, how could we explain that listeners from most parts of the world understand the following joke
immediately and punctuate its ending by a loud laugh? (‘Paradise is a place where organization is German,
police is British, cooking is French, and opera is Italian; now, what's Hell? A place ruled by German police,
British cooking, French opera, and Italian organization').
6 While disciple-master relationships matter in Islam, clientele are unavoidable in the Middle East, and parlia-
mentary work owes much to pressure groups in the United States.
7 Although Bøås (2018) relevantly points out that in civil wars militias are headed by local ‘big men', which ex-
plains the extent and durability of fragmentation of states like Syria, and the replacement of state institutions
by ‘networks’ of insurgents.
8 ‘Science would have worked on the real scale but by means of inventing a loom, while art works on a di-
minished scale to produce an image homologous with the object. The former approach is of a metonymical
order, it replaces one thing by another thing, an effect by its cause, while the latter is of a metaphorical order'.
(Lévi-Strauss, 1966: 25)
9 One excerpt from E. Goffman's work (1983) is enlightening in this regard: ‘Social structures don't “deter-
mine” culturally standard displays, merely help select from the available repertoire of them. The expressions
themselves, such as priority in being served, precedence through a door, centrality of seating, access to vari-
ous public spaces, preferential interruption rights in talk, selection as addressed recipient, are interactional in
substance and character; at best they are likely to have only loosely coupled relations to anything by way of
social structures that might be associated with them'. (Goffman, 1983: 1)
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• political anthropology
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• legacy
• politics
• anthropology
• social interaction
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n13

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Uses and Abuses of Formal Models in Political
Science
Contributors: Jack Paine & Scott A. Tyson

Chapter Title: "Uses and Abuses of Formal Models in Political Science"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Uses and Abuses of Formal Models in Political Science

Jack Paine Scott A. Tyson
The Use of Models

Formal political theory is a methodological approach – common in domestic politics, comparative politics, and
international relations – that is characterized by its strong commitment to logical rigor as well as its conceptual
and analytical clarity.1 One of formal political theory's core strengths is that it confronts foundational ques-
tions about politics. For instance, who shapes policy? What strategies do they use? And what informational
and incentive constraints affect political interactions? Pioneering insights from formal political theory to each
of the subfields go beyond these basic questions to precisely articulate the mechanisms responsible for the
political outcomes we observe, often by untangling countervailing effects and isolating clear counterfactual
comparisons.
A formal political theory is usually comprised of at least two components: first, a logical (often mathematical)
structure representing the critical individuals, decisions, constraints, and information that make up the sub-
stantive question, and second, and just as important, an interpretation of that logical structure that gives sub-
stantive meaning to the aspects and results of the model. These two components are critical (Rubinstein,
2012), and they also introduce a flexibility in the questions formal political theory can address. The diverse
ways in which formal political theory can contribute to understanding politics has also engendered consid-
erable disagreement about how scholars can most productively use formal models as an analytical tool. In
fact, there is a great deal of disagreement among formal theorists regarding what qualities make for a good
(or insightful) model, the relationship between theory and empirical work, and what kinds of questions formal
models are most appropriate for answering.
In this chapter, we present a novel distinction between two common approaches to formal models in political
science. First is the phenomenon perspective, which seeks to relate a formal model to descriptive empirical
patterns, and the second is the experimental perspective, which views formal models as an explication of a
causal mechanism.2 To illustrate the strengths of each of these perspectives (relative to the other), we con-
sider the typical concerns a theorist confronts when developing a formal model from each perspective. We
focus in particular on how each perspective approaches a comparative static comparison, which examines
a comparison from changing one factor, while all other factors remain ‘static'. A comparative static analysis
focuses on an ‘all else equal’ comparison by changing a single factor, holding all other aspects of the model
fixed, and looking at the change in some outcome (perhaps simply equilibrium strategies).
An ideal model from the phenomenon perspective addresses three empirical considerations. First, what pat-
terns in the real world motivate the need for a formal model? Second, do real-world actors perceive tradeoffs
that correspond with key assumptions in the model setup? Third, do the model's comparative static predic-
tions match empirical relationships? Although phenomenon-driven models are not realistic in the sense of
providing a literal description of the real world, the setup and implications of these models do attempt to match
attributes of the real world.
Many approaches to model construction in political science draw elements from the phenomenon approach,
whether they espouse combining models with quantitative evidence (Morton, 1999; Granato and Scioli, 2004),
qualitative evidence (Bates et al., 1999; Goemans and Spaniel, 2016; Lorentzen et al., 2017), or a combina-
tion (Laitin, 2003). Furthermore, in practice, many scholars attempt to provide insight into real-world phenom-
ena when writing models, therefore implicitly adopting at least some elements of the phenomenon approach.
Lorentzen et al. (2017) surveyed every game theory article in six prominent political science journals between
2006 and 2013 that examined topics in international relations or comparative politics. They found that of the
182 articles, 128 (70%) included either a quantitative or a qualitative empirical component. The extent of this

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evidence differs from article to article, ranging from brief anecdotes in the introduction, to regression analysis
of experimental or other originally collected data, and detailed case studies. But even sparse discussions of
empirical evidence aim to convince the reader that aspects of the model are ‘realistic', and descriptively re-
flect substantive cases.
The real world is messy and complicated, and sometimes the best approach to understanding how it works is
to analyze things in isolation. But there are always substantive features which, although known to be impor-
tant real-world considerations, are nevertheless superfluous for explaining the core political mechanism. This
observation motivates the experimental approach to writing a formal model, which focuses on isolating and
understanding substantive mechanisms. Ideally, an experimental-driven model is intentionally parsimonious
because the priority is on viewing a particular causal mechanism in isolation. Consequently, introducing extra-
neous features into the model, although more descriptively realistic, is counterproductive because either such
features add no additional insights, or worse, they create confusion. Instead, the more focused the model, the
more focused the comparison, and the more general the insight (Banks, 1990).
Comparing the experimental approach to formal political theory to actual experimental design highlights its
goals and virtues (Haavelmo, 1944; Ashworth et al., 2015). The classic setup of an experiment considers dif-
ferent levels of a ‘treatment’ and compares average outcomes between a treatment group and control group.
Holding all else equal is precisely the goal of models from the experimental perspective, and consequently,
there is less concern with accounting for the full panoply of substantive factors because – from the theorist's
perspective – these additional things are not a critical part of the analysis.3 A key strength of this approach
is that by focusing on a particular mechanism, the analysis can reveal and understand the nuts and bolts of
a substantive case, regardless of whether the mechanism of interest actually operates in isolation in the real
world.
A particularly important component of comparative static analysis from the experimental perspective concerns
indirect effects. Often changing a single parameter can affect an outcome of interest through direct and infor-
mational channels. For instance, to understand the influence of political mobilization on government policies
(through voting, protest, or other means), scholars generally study two effects. The first is a direct effect: mo-
bilized dissent can create various problems that a government is forced to deal with regardless of the reason
for the disruption to society. Second, mobilized dissent is generally considered to communicate dissatisfac-
tion among members of the citizenry with the government's policies. This leads to a conceptually distinct,
informational, channel through which mobilized dissent influences government policy. From the phenomenon
perspective, indirect effects can be a nuisance because they obstruct clean directional predictions from the
model. However, from the experimental perspective, indirect effects are often the most interesting aspect of
the model, because they demonstrate the character and importance of strategic considerations.
Below we provide numerous examples of the phenomenon and experimental approaches in applied research,
distinguished by model motivation, setup, and comparative statics. We then discuss common critiques of for-
mal models based on empirical applicability or lack thereof, and illustrate the differences in how the two ap-
proaches handle critiques. We discuss two influential debates. First, redistributive political transition models
posit that economic inequality affects prospects for democratization by affecting demands for redistribution
(Acemoglu and Robinson, 2000, 2001, 2006; Boix, 2003). Second, selectorate theory examines how institu-
tional variation in leadership selection affects a range of outcomes, including public good provision and in-
ternational war (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2005). We conclude with implications for research and training.
Specifically, we emphasize how graduate game theory courses, by incorporating crucial philosophical and
conceptual issues, could demonstrate how models can address substantively interesting questions in addition
to teaching the technical structure of models.
Table 11.1 summarizes the defining elements of both approaches. Importantly, these approaches are not mu-
tually exclusive, and most published formal modeling articles contain elements of each. However, explicating
this distinction is critical for understanding how to use formal models to advance knowledge of political phe-
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nomena, and how to avoid common critiques that may be pertinent to one approach but not the other. Our
conceptual distinction between different perspectives has largely been overlooked and is useful for all political
scientists who might otherwise neglect some contributions of formal models.
Table 11.1 Key differences between phenomenon and experimental approaches

Phenomenon Experimental
Motivation Explain descriptive patterns Isolate mechanisms
Assumptions should be
Assumptions should correspond with tradeoffs perceived by
Model setup parsimonious to yield con-
real-world decision-makers
ceptual clarity
Sign of key comparative static predictions (usually the total ef- Comparative statics are
Comparative
fect) should match statistical relationship or actions/outcomes used to isolate substantive
statics
in empirical cases channels
The Phenomenon Perspective
Motivation
The phenomenon perspective is often motivated by empirical patterns or a set of observations, which can
be either quantitative or qualitative, that existing research does not convincingly explain. Sometimes, the re-
searcher presents a single pattern that raises strategic questions. For example, Slantchev asks a question
about a particular case:
During the last days of September 1950, the US administration faced a momentous decision about
what to do in Korea: should American forces stop at the 38th parallel, as originally planned, or should
they continue into North Korea, and turn the conflict from a war of liberation into a war of unification?
(Slantchev, 2010: 357)
He then presents a model in which an optimal response to such dilemmas depends on the opponent's incen-
tive to ‘feign weakness'. Miller and Schofield (2003) demonstrate that US states won by the Republican pres-
idential candidate William McKinley in the 1896 election nearly perfectly corresponds with states won by the
Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore in the 2000 election, motivating their model on how party agents
can push platforms that over time yield party realignment. Acemoglu and Robinson's (2006) book begins with
narratives from Britain, Argentina, Singapore, and South Africa to highlight four regime trajectories that differ
on whether democratization occurs and its stability. Their model explains how economic inequality shapes the
equilibrium behavior of elites and the masses, which creates varying regime trajectories.
Other articles juxtapose disparate patterns and argue that they share a common strategic logic. For example,
Powell (2012: 620) posits ‘three striking features or stylized facts about both interstate and civil war’ based on
quantitative and qualitative evidence in existing research: ‘(1) there are often periods of persistent fighting, (2)
fighting commonly ends in negotiated settlements as well as in militarily decisive outcomes, and (3) fighting
sometimes recurs'. He argues that shifts in the distribution of power and actors’ strategic fighting decisions (to
forestall adverse shifts) yield equilibrium behavior consistent with all three patterns. Paine (2018) contains a
section before the model setup that presents regression tables to highlight a mixed empirical pattern: higher
country-level oil production covaries with less frequent center-seeking civil wars, whereas higher regional-lev-
el oil production covaries with more frequent separatist civil wars. The model highlights two main countervail-
ing effects of oil production on the likelihood of civil war onset, and explains why these mechanisms vary in
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magnitude depending on the opposition's optimal civil war aims.
Model Setup
To explain empirical phenomena, the model setup should incorporate important tradeoffs that real-world ac-
tors perceive when making choices. Although explicitly motivating assumptions using real-world examples is
somewhat less common than motivating examples or testing comparative statics predictions, Lorentzen et
al.'s (2017) survey shows that 23% of game theory articles in their sample contained explicit evidence for
assumptions. For example, Svolik (2009) studies an interaction between a dictator that seeks to concentrate
power and a ruling coalition that attempts to maintain a power-sharing arrangement. He assumes that the
dictator's strategic action to concentrate power sends an informative (but imperfect) signal to the ruling coali-
tion, who may react by staging a coup. Svolik demonstrates the empirical relevance of this assumption by
providing examples in which leaders’ attempts to consolidate power-generated observable signals to ruling
coalition members. In the Soviet Union, Lavrenty Beria merged formal ministries after Joseph Stalin's death
to concentrate power in his hands. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein gradually replaced earlier supporters with loyal-
ists from his home town. In these cases, subordinates gained information that was consistent with attempted
power concentration, but they were unsure of the true motives of the dictator – which corresponds with the
core assumptions of Svolik's (2009) model.
The motivating puzzle in Nalepa (2010) is that in the late 1980s, many communist regimes in Eastern Europe
negotiated democratic transitions with the opposition. Gaining assurances that communist agents would not
face punishment following a regime transition, they resigned peacefully in cases such as Poland, Hungary,
and Czechoslovakia. This is puzzling when considering that the communists should seemingly have expect-
ed the opposition to break these promises. But, empirically, the new democratic leaders held their promis-
es, which is also puzzling given their widespread desire to punish the communists. Nalepa (2010) studies a
signaling model and explains that these promises were credible because of communists’ private information
about transgressions committed by the opposition as informants during communism – i.e., their ‘skeletons in
the closet'. But this mechanism is only empirically relevant if the real-world actors did indeed perceive this
information asymmetry, which she confirms using evidence from interviews. For example:
The communists attempted to exploit this informational advantage by trying to convince the opposi-
tion that it was highly infiltrated. One of the dissidents representing Solidarity in the roundtable ne-
gotiations recalled: ‘When I met Kwasniewski, he said, ‘Do not mess with those files, let them be –
the agents were mostly your own people'. (Nalepa, 2010: 349–50)4
Comparative Statics
Whatever the initial motivation for presenting and setting up a formal model, the analysis generates compar-
ative static predictions that researchers can evaluate either with statistical or qualitative evidence. This is a
central element of the influential ‘Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models (EITM)’ approach to political
game theory (Morton, 1999; Signorino, 1999; Signorino and Yilmaz, 2003; Granato and Scioli, 2004) and re-
ceives support from methodological research on combining game theory and qualitative methods (Bates et
al., 1999; Goemans and Spaniel, 2016; Lorentzen et al., 2017). Lorentzen et al.'s (2017) aforementioned sur-
vey of game theory articles in political science shows that 63% of game theory articles provided either statis-
tical tests, cross-case comparisons, or case studies to evaluate comparative static predictions.
For example, Conrad and Ritter (2013) examine the effects of international human rights treaties on incentives
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for domestic leaders to exercise repression. First, these treaties increase the likelihood of domestic protests
in reaction to repression, increasing the need to exercise repression to retain power. Second, international hu-
man rights treaties increase the probability that repressive rulers will face litigation, which increases the costs
of repression. Their formal analysis shows that the magnitude of the first effect depends on other aspects of
the leader's job security. The first mechanism is relatively small in magnitude for secure leaders because they
are unlikely to experience mass unrest regardless of the presence of an international treaty. However, the first
mechanism is large in magnitude if the ruler is insecure, and dominates the second mechanism. This analysis
yields a clear implication about an empirically observable interaction effect. Conrad and Ritter provide regres-
sion evidence that international human rights treaties are uncorrelated with repressive behavior in states with
insecure leaders, but covary with lower repression in states governed by secure leaders.
As another example, Paine (2016) examines two countervailing implications of oil production: it raises the val-
ue of capturing the state for a rebel group, but it also increases government revenues to spend on patronage
distribution and coercion. Untangling these distinct effects yields an implication about conventional practice
in the empirical conflict literature. Standard conflict models include both oil production and income per capi-
ta on the right-hand side of the regression, and usually find that more oil production covaries with a higher
frequency of civil war. The motivation for controlling for income per capita is that this is a strong predictor of
civil war onset. However, the logic of the model highlights the problem with this control variable, which many
argue proxies for government revenues. By controlling for income, the regression implicitly answers the large-
ly irrelevant question of what the effect of discovering oil in countries like Saudi Arabia would have been if
discovering oil did not increase government revenues. Revised regression specifications that incorporate this
consideration demonstrate empirical results inconsistent with conventional wisdom about a conflict resource
curse.
As an example of using qualitative evidence, Dunning (2008) highlights a set of conditions where resource
wealth can promote democratic stability. High rents enable the government to provide public goods to the
masses without needing to soak wealthy elites for tax revenues – mitigating class conflicts that would other-
wise arise under a democratic regime. Using evidence from Venezuela, he shows that when oil rents were
high in the 1970s, elites did not object to the high levels of public benefits provided to the masses because
these public goods did not require high taxation (163–6). By contrast, as oil rents fell, Dunning (2008) shows
that politics became polarized around classes and redistributive conflicts and ultimately facilitated the rise of
the populist Hugo Chavez (166–83).
These examples also highlight the value-added of the formal analysis for deriving empirically testable com-
parative statics. In all three examples, the model analysis highlights two countervailing effects of a particular
stimulus. The formal model facilitated the rigorous examination of the interaction between the two mecha-
nisms and the conditions in which one should dominate the other. In each case, the analysis yielded novel
empirical predictions that the researcher could take to data and check for directional congruence.
The Experimental Perspective
Motivation
The goal of experimental-driven models is to study specific attributes of strategic tradeoffs, such as individual
motivations, information frictions, and other strategic issues that shape politics. For instance, institutional con-
straints like voting rules, the timing of elections, or the rules determining how legislation must be proposed
dramatically influence various aspects of democracy (Diermeier and Krehbiel, 2003; Dewan and Shepsle,

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2011). Other examples include how political accountability differs from standard contracting problems (Ash-
worth, 2012), and the importance of communication in bureaucracy (Gailmard and Patty, 2012).
As another example, Di Lonardo and Tyson (2018) study the interaction of domestic political threats and the
logic of deterrence, which they approach from an experimental perspective. They first present the baseline
crisis bargaining model of Fearon (1994) and Schultz (1998), and use this model to formally articulate the
conventional logic of deterrence. Then they introduce domestic political threats into this framework similar
to Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2005) and Baliga et al. (2011): domestic support is necessary for a leader to
keep power. To isolate the effect of domestic political threats on the logic of deterrence, it is important when
adding domestic politics to hold constant all other aspects from the benchmark model. In addition, although
the benchmark crisis bargaining model suffers from some shortcomings, the contribution of Di Lonardo and
Tyson (2019) would not be clear had they started with a non-standard benchmark model of an international
crisis.
Model Setup
The goal of experimental-driven models is not to attempt to approximate the real world, but instead to only
include in the model elements needed to elucidate the core mechanism. For example, Tyson (2018) studies
a central problem with exercising repression in authoritarian regimes: the dictator requires the cooperation of
her security apparatus. However, the very need for a security apparatus creates an agency problem: if the
leader loses power, then she cannot completely fulfill the promises made to members of the repressive appa-
ratus. Tyson (2018) explicitly removes other agency problems from the model, like moral hazard and adverse
selection, even though such features are unarguably present in reality. Tyson (2018) does not include these
aspects in his model in order to study implications resulting exclusively from the agency problem that arises
from the leader's tenuous hold on power.
As another example, Banks and Duggan (2006) study determinants of public policy in legislatures with major-
ity rules. They adopt a bargaining approach that assumes different members of the legislatures interact over
time, and each can be randomly selected to make a policy proposal. If a majority adopts a proposed policy,
then it becomes the new policy. By contrast, if a majority rejects a proposal, then the status quo remains in
place. The goal of the model is to examine the implications of changing one key assumption from existing
models: each legislator prefers any settlement to the status quo policy, i.e., the status quo is necessarily bad.
This change implies that legislators may view the status quo policy favorably, making legislators more reluc-
tant to vote for a new policy. Although real-world legislatures contain many additional features that Banks and
Duggan (2006) do not incorporate into their model, making the setup more realistic would distract from their
goal of changing a single substantive feature from existing models.
Comparative Statics
The purpose of comparative static exercises in experimental-driven models is to highlight the distinct channels
through which a single factor causes a change in an outcome of interest, including equilibrium actions or their
substantively relevant consequences. In most cases, there are numerous channels that correspond to sepa-
rate mechanisms. The primary goal of the experimental approach is to elucidate each mechanism.
As a canonical example, suppose that different values of a treatment are represented by different values of
x that directly influence an outcome, but may also provide information to decision makers, i.e., by changing
their beliefs. In this case, the substantive outcome of interest, Y(x,β), depends on x and beliefs, β. Supposing

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that everything is differentiable, then the total derivative with respect to x equals the sum of the direct and
informational effects:
dY / dx = ∂Y / ∂x + ∂Y / ∂β.dβ / dx
The first term reflects the direct influence of x on Y. The second term combines the direct effect of beliefs on
the outcome and the effect of x on beliefs. These distinct effects may pose a nuisance if the goal is to yield
a predicted relationship between x to Y to take to the data. However, from the experimental perspective, the
goal of the model is to untangle these distinct mechanisms. Sometimes these results are counterintuitive and
‘surprising’ from the perspective of existing theories, and this is a key strength of models emerging from the
experimental perspective.
For an experimental-driven formal theorist, perhaps the most interesting aspect of a comparative static rela-
tionship is the indirect effects that arise as a result of the strategic context. To highlight the importance of in-
formational effects, consider, for example, the classic jury problem, which studies whether jury verdicts reflect
people's sincere opinions gathered from the facts of the case (Austen-Smith and Banks, 1996; Feddersen
and Pesendorfer, 1998; Persico, 2004).
To clarify this point, suppose there are N jurors and two collective outcomes, guilty (G) and innocent (I). Sup-
pose also that convicting (i.e., choosing G) requires unanimity. There are also two equally likely states of the
world: the defendant is truly guilty, or she is truly innocent, represented by ω ∈ {G, I}, respectively. Jurors
want to convict the guilty and to acquit the innocent, and their payoffs are represented by:
u(G, G) = u(I, I) = 1 and u(G, I) = u(I, G) = 0.
Each juror attends the trial, but despite their common preferences, each interprets the evidence and argu-
ments slightly differently. To capture this, each juror receives an informative signal, where guilty signals are
more likely to be seen when the defendant is guilty, and innocent signals are more likely to be seen when the
defendant is innocent. Formally, juror i receives a signal, si that equals either G or I, and Pr(si =ω|ω) = q ∈
(0.5,1).
Will all jurors vote sincerely in line with their signal? Consider the problem from the perspective of an individual
juror, who truly wants to convict only the guilty and to acquit only the innocent. Imagine this juror has seen a
signal suggesting that the defendant is innocent. However, she also knows there is some probability that her
signal is wrong and the defendant is guilty, and, moreover, other jurors’ signals may differ from hers.
The juror in this example is driven by an informational concern. There is a direct effect that follows from her
signal, namely, an innocent signal suggests that the defendant is innocent. However, there is an important
indirect effect that follows from the structure of the jury problem, namely, the voting rule. Specifically, a juror
considering whether her vote is pivotal in the ultimate verdict, and who is considering voting to acquit, knows
that the only case in which her vote will make a difference is when all other voters have cast guilty votes.
But if all these voters have voted sincerely, it means that they have all received guilty signals – an extremely
unlikely event when the defendant is in fact innocent. Consequently, it is not a best response for the juror to
vote sincerely. More broadly, this example illustrates how indirect informational concerns influence decisions
in political contexts.
The Abuse of Models

Most formal political theory articles contain elements of both the phenomenon and experimental approaches.
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A formal political theory formulated from one perspective is motivated by a distinct set of concerns that the
other perspective does not necessarily share – nor should it. But because the distinction between phenom-
enon and experimental kinds of models has not been articulated previously, concerns that are important in-
gredients from one perspective are often unintentionally used to obstruct the other. For example, an experi-
mental-driven model, on the surface, appears to be far more stylized than one written from the phenomenon
perspective. However, it is important to stress that this superficial kind of ‘artificiality’ is intentional, and consti-
tutes one of the key strengths of this theoretical approach. The experimental theorist is driven not by a desire
to include as many factors as possible, but instead, needs to ensure that mitigating influences, with respect
to the main factor of interest, are suppressed. To accomplish this theoretically, the theorist intentionally omits
factors, even though they might be important in the real world. These omitted factors are precisely the things
that an empiricist controls for, but for a formal model to keep such things fixed, the theorist must omit them
from the model.
A common critique of game theoretic models is that their implications are unimportant because they rest on
unrealistic assumptions (e.g., Green and Shapiro, 1996; Elster, 2000).5 To illustrate the difference between
the phenomenon and experimental approaches, consider how a theorist from each perspective might respond
to this criticism. A phenomenon-driven theorist should respond by modifying the assumptions to better reflect
reality, whereas the experimental-driven theorist would allege that such a complaint reflects a misunderstand-
ing of the question their model was designed to address.
Scholars have also debated the role and importance of empirical evidence in validating a model's predictions.
On the one extreme, the American Journal of Political Science proposed briefly in the early 2000s a submis-
sion policy in which the editors would desk-reject any formal modeling manuscript that lacked an accompa-
nying empirical test (Fowler, 2005). On the other extreme, Clarke and Primo (2012) argue that empirically
testing models misunderstands their purpose. Instead, they argue that the only purpose of models is what
we call the experimental approach. With regard to this controversial debate, the difference between the phe-
nomenon and experimental approaches to formal political theory is crucial for understanding the source and
relevance of these different points of view. Confusing philosophical positions with quality judgments tends to
obscure the discussion, leading scholars to talk past each other regarding things that are largely orthogonal
to substantive issues. To illustrate our point, we present two examples from prominent models that exemplify
these distinctions.
Redistributive Political Transitions

The idea that inequality and prospects for economic redistribution affect incentives to seek or to resist de-
mocratization has a long pedigree in political science. More recently, Acemoglu and Robinson (2000, 2001,
2006) present a parsimonious formal framework to explain these incentives in which a commitment problem
is the key mechanism. Acemoglu and Robinson's (2006) core model analyzes an interaction between a rep-
resentative rich elite that sets policy under a dictatorship, and a representative agent of the poor masses that
sets policy under democracy. Each actor seeks to maximize its own consumption by affecting the tax rate.
Because of the assumed wealth disparity, elites prefer no taxes whereas the masses prefer a positive tax
rate. Furthermore, economic inequality determines the extent to which the two actors disagree about taxes,
as higher inequality causes the masses to prefer a higher tax rate. Although the elite unilaterally determine
the tax rate under dictatorship (de jure power), the masses may be able to force higher tax rates by staging
a revolution (de facto power). The elite has three options to stave off revolution: temporary concessions, re-
pression, or democratization.
One key mechanism that Acemoglu and Robinson's (2006) model elucidates is the effect of economic in-
equality on the likelihood of democratization. They derive a non-monotonic relationship in which democrati-
zation only occurs if inequality is intermediate. At low levels of inequality, there is low demand by the masses

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for democracy because the amount of wealth held by elites that the masses could redistribute to themselves
in democracy is low. At high levels of inequality, democratization does not occur because the elites use re-
pression instead. The amount of redistribution under democracy would be so high that elites prefer to use
costly repression to retain power. However, if inequality is intermediate, then mass demand for democratiza-
tion is high enough that negotiated concessions are insufficient to prevent revolution, but the elites’ fate under
democracy is not dire enough for them to use repression.
Subsequent research criticizes numerous assumptions of the model setup. Some scholars allege that class
differences between rich and poor is usually not the primary political cleavage that drives political transitions
(Epstein et al., 2012; Haggard and Kaufman, 2012; Ansell and Samuels, 2014). Others argue that, at least
in the post-colonial world since 1945, economic elites do not usually exercise political control. For example,
the military usually does not act as a proxy for the wealthy (Slater et al., 2014). Some posit that revolutionary
threats rarely provide a stimulus for democratization and that other factors appear more important for explain-
ing manhood suffrage in most European countries (Collier, 1999; Lizzeri and Persico, 2004; Llavador and
Oxoby, 2005), womanhood suffrage (Przeworski, 2009), or internationally driven transitions in recent decades
(Levitsky and Way, 2010; Haggard and Kaufman, 2012). Finally, many democracies do not redistribute en
masse either because they lack infrastructural capacity (Slater et al., 2014), or because elites exert consider-
able influence even under democracy (Albertus and Menaldo, 2018).6
Are these critiques relevant? From the phenomenon perspective, many of these are pertinent critiques that
require a sustained theoretical and empirical dialogue. Given Acemoglu and Robinson's (2006) stated goal
to explain empirical instances of democratic transitions, it is important for the model to incorporate key trade-
offs that real-world policy makers faced. Correspondingly, models written in response to these critiques have
yielded numerous insights by altering aspects of the original setups to more closely capture particular empiri-
cal settings (Dower et al., 2018).
From an experimental perspective, these critiques are less relevant because the key contribution of Acemoglu
and Robinson (2000, 2001, 2006) was to build on existing non-formal theories of democratization to under-
stand the strategic interaction among social classes.7 Moreover, perhaps the most important contribution of
these models is in identifying how democratization can result from a commitment problem that arises when
elites lose (even temporarily) de facto political power. The models of Acemoglu and Robinson (2000, 2001,
2006) also generate several counterintuitive predictions. For example, Acemoglu and Robinson show that
if the masses can only mobilize infrequently to stage a revolution, then eventual democratization becomes
more likely. This result follows because infrequent mobilization enhances the masses’ bargaining leverage in
periods they can organize for revolution, since their future valuation of the status quo regime is low. As anoth-
er example, Boix (2003) shows that high inequality does not cause elites to resort to repression when asset
liquidity is high. If elites can move their assets abroad, then they do not fear high taxes under democracy,
hence highlighting a subtle mitigating effect in the inequality–democratization relationship. Furthermore, high-
lighting the value of mechanism-based contributions to spurring future research and empirical insights, Paine
(2019a) extends the asset liquidity mechanism in a dynamic model to help explain the empirical relationship
between oil production and separatist civil wars.
Selectorate Theory
The experimental perspective to formal political theory asks a different question. Specifically, does the setup
of the model, including the underlying assumptions, isolate clear causal mechanisms? Whereas ensuring that
all relevant factors are incorporated into the model is a mark of quality from the phenomenon perspective, it
is often a sign of conceptual confusion from the experimental perspective. Likewise, having a clean, stream-
lined, and focused model is ideal for the experimental approach, but a scholar motivated by the phenomenon
perspective typically has a skeptical view of such a model's conclusions.
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As an illustration, consider the selectorate theory presented in Bueno de Mesquita et al. (1999) and Bueno de
Mesquita et al. (2005). A simple observation motivates selectorate theory: every leader relies on the support
of some specified set of individuals, called the selectorate, which is designated by a country's institutions. As
a result of this, leaders cannot sustain their hold on power without adequately compensating their winning
coalition, the proportion of the selectorate needed to keep them in office. When the selectorate is small, as in
autocratic regimes, this is most effectively accomplished through providing private goods. By contrast, when
the selectorate is large, as in democracies, this is most effectively accomplished through public goods provi-
sion. Numerous implications follow from this core insight, including why democracies do not fight each other,
which they confirm with numerous statistical tests.
Like redistributive political transition models, selectorate theory has attracted considerable criticism. Gal-
lagher and Hanson (2015) critique three main aspects, all of which reflect a phenomenon perspective. First,
in reality, there is no clear distinction among winning coalition members, selectorate members, and non-se-
lectorate members. Second, existing measures of these concepts are flawed, rendering Bueno de Mesqui-
ta et al.'s (2005) statistical tests invalid.8 Third, Gallagher and Hanson (2015) criticize selectorate theory's
core assumptions, arguing that the theory treats selectorate members as homogeneous, conflates rulers with
regimes, and mischaracterizes the relationship between public goods and political rights.
Once again, the response to these critiques depends on one's philosophical perspective. From the phenom-
enon perspective, it is important to improve the descriptive accuracy of the assumptions and to incorporate
additional elements into the original model. These considerations have motivated several extensions to the
original model that include revolutions, purges, and other forms of authoritarian ruler turnover (Bueno de
Mesquita and Smith, 2009, 2017), the effects of natural disasters (Flores and Smith, 2013), and leader health
shocks (Bueno de Mesquita and Smith, 2018).
However, viewed from the experimental perspective, a deeper concern with the core selectorate theory model
is that it may attempt to be too realistic. The baseline selectorate model presented in Bueno de Mesquita et
al. (2005: chapters 2 and 3) contains more than ten choice variables, plus a number of exogenous parame-
ters and an infinite horizon. The core mechanism of the model, however, can be expressed more clearly by
removing most of these moving pieces. For instance, Bueno de Mesquita (2016: chapter 11) presents a sim-
plified version of selectorate theory that isolates the effects of the core mechanism – winning coalition size –
and shows how it affects public goods provision and foreign policy aggression.
Implications for Research and Training

Many debates about specific formal models in political science, and the modeling enterprise more generally,
draw from what we term the phenomenon and experimental approaches. But because scholars have not pre-
viously articulated these distinct perspectives, we often talk past each other – both among those actively en-
gaged in the formal theory enterprise and those who are not. Perhaps the most important takeaway from our
discussion is that neither the phenomenon perspective nor the experimental perspective is inherently flawed.
Instead, scholars often combine them effectively, if only implicitly, and insights from each has unique strengths
that have improved the scholarly understanding of politics.
Importantly, the phenomenon and experimental approaches to formal models are not mutually exclusive, and
most published models contribute to both approaches. However, most authors typically frame their contri-
bution, as emphasizing one perspective over the other, which generally leads the overall contribution to be
overlooked. Compared to the experimental approach, for many, the phenomenon approach is more intuitive
when writing and thinking about models in political science because it more closely corresponds to historical
and qualitative approaches. However, the experimental perspective has been gaining ground in all the social
sciences – and political science is no exception.9 Consequently, the experimental approach to formal political

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theory will become more useful as it more naturally connects to research designs focusing on causal relation-
ships as well as lends insight into the issues that are at the heart of these empirical studies.
In addition to the direct implications for conducting and evaluating formal political theory research, the phe-
nomenon and experimental distinction also carries important implications for future formal political theory
training in graduate programs. Formal political theory's key strengths lie in its ability to bring conceptual clarity
to substantive issues by transparently articulating the relationships that drive broader scholarly debates. But
introductory courses in formal political theory focus almost exclusively on ‘tools’ or ‘skill-building', which has
the unintended consequence of leaving some important philosophical and conceptual issues unaddressed.
Of course, correctly solving a formal model is necessary, but it is not sufficient for making a contribution to
political science using formal political theory. Instead, articulating the distinct virtues of the phenomenon and
experimental approaches highlights the diverse contributions of formal political theory, and it is our hope that
explicitly highlighting distinct philosophical perspectives to formal political theory can clarify the general dis-
cussion.
Notes
1 We interchangeably refer to ‘formal political theory', ‘game theory', and ‘formal theory'.
2 See Cox (1990) for a similar distinction applied to statistical models.
3 In experiments, all else equal is accomplished by randomization of treatment assignment (Kempthorne,

1977; Rosenbaum, 2017).
4 Less frequently, scholars motivate key model assumptions using statistical evidence (e.g., Paine, 2018).
5 The inherent complexity of the social world requires imposing some simplifying assumptions to construct a
model of political behavior, and thus, all models simplify, formal or not (Clarke and Primo, 2012). Friedman
(1966) presents an extreme view that models should be assessed solely for their predictive ability, and that
the assumptions that generate these predictions are entirely unimportant. On the other end of the spectrum,
Bates et al. (1999: 14) argue that ‘the assumptions [should] fit the facts’ for a model to have empirical applic-
ability, which is perhaps also too extreme.
6 Others examine empirical contexts in which the core assumptions of Acemoglu and Robinson's original
redistributive political transition theories exhibit greater empirical plausibility. Paine (2019b) argues that
post-1945 European settler colonies in Africa fit the scope conditions because a rich and politically dominant
European elite feared the revolutionary potential of the non-European majority. He demonstrates statistical
evidence consistent with Acemoglu and Robinson's and Boix's prediction that high inequality should yield high
repression and revolution.
7 Some responses by the authors adopt a mechanism-based defense. Discussing the original model, Ace-
moglu et al. (2013: 2, 16) state that ‘once one relaxed the simple poor versus rich nature of political conflict in
their original models as well as the restriction of policy instruments, the nature of the comparative statics with
respect to inequality in the basic model changed. Put simply, if the groups in conflict were not rich versus poor,
but for example based on ethnic, religious or regional cleavages, it was not necessarily true that increasing
inequality, in the sense of a higher Gini coefficient, would exacerbate conflict between groups. It might just
result in increased redistribution within groups'.
8 This critique also relates to Clarke and Stone's (2008) re-analysis of Bueno de Mesquita et al.'s (2005) data.
9 This movement gained substantial momentum following Leamer (1983).

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• models in science
• abuse
• formal political theory
• game theory
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n14

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Postmodernism Past, Present and Future
Contributors: Richard Beardsworth

Chapter Title: "Postmodernism Past, Present and Future"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Postmodernism Past, Present and Future

Richard Beardsworth
Postmodernism names an increasingly varied set of intellectual strategies that, in contradistinction to the ra-
tional empiricist method of mainstream political thought, in general and international relations in particular,
has foregrounded the interpretive and political nature of all international relations scholarship (see Cerutti,
Chapter 9, this Handbook). Postmodernism is, that said, not simply an academic exercise of knowledge (al-
though, as I argue later, it can run the risk of theoretical abstraction). Postmodernism's general aim is to test
the limits and assumptions of our forms of knowledge of the political world in order to open up alternative ways
of conceiving and practising the political (particularly to one side of the tenets of modernity). With its focus on
contingency, plurality and reflexivity, postmodernism is often considered an appropriate form of political think-
ing for a globalizing world. In comparison to the schools of liberalism, realism and Marxism in both political
and international theory, postmodernism does not present a school of thought but no scholar of a postmod-
ern disposition accepts the term uncritically; indeed, a wide variety of critical practices are covered by it. That
said, the above brief description underscores, in Wittgensteinian terms, a basic ‘family resemblance’ between
the arguments of these scholars. It is this resemblance that has allowed the concept of ‘postmodernism’ to
acquire, in the last 30 years, intellectual consistency, particularly in the disciplinary field of International Re-
lations (IR) and to designate something like a specific approach to international relations: an approach that,
for younger scholars especially, may appear justified by recent history – the relative decline of the West, the
concomitant changes in international order, global development, the political crisis of climate change, etc. In
this light, the following account of postmodernism focuses on: (1) the intellectual origins of the term and its
application to the discipline of IR; (2) postmodernism's major strategies and commitments within the IR field;
(3) important problems it meets as a specific disposition in IR; and (4) future perspectives. My account of the
past, present and future of postmodernism is neither unduly sympathetic nor unduly critical. It seeks rather to
situate the postmodern IR disposition in relation both to its historical formation and to the complexity of con-
temporary and anticipated international politics.
Origins
Postmodernism in IR must be traced back to the major moves of French thought in the 1960s and 1970s.
Amalgamating a set of arguments from modern linguistics, anthropology (see Schemeil, Chapter 10, this
Handbook), psychoanalysis, post-Kantian philosophy and phenomenology, and literary theory, intellectuals
like Jacques Derrida (2016), Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (2013), Michel Foucault (1980, 1991, 2008),
Jean-Francois Lyotard (1986a), Julia Kristeva (1984) and Roland Barthes (1972) launched from the late
1960s onwards a series of critiques of the major tenets of humanism in the humanities and social sciences.
They criticized, in particular, the authority of the modern subject (as the ground of modern knowledge, ethics,
politics and aesthetics), representative theories of truth and reality and progressive theories of history. Al-
though these critiques are different in kind and, at times, mutually incompatible, they are all, to a greater or
lesser degree, intellectually committed to the following: to look to difference, otherness and the non-human
there, where the modern period and/or modernity (within a larger metaphysical movement or not) secures
ethical, historical and political identity through reason; to undermine any straightforward correspondence be-
tween representation and reality, the knowing subject and the known object; and, by showing the constructed
nature of our representations of the world, to prise open the limits of these identities and constructions in or-
der to allow marginalized and alternative voices to emerge. Postmodern authorships have been concerned,
in sum, with transcending modern ontology, epistemology and ethics, with expositing forms of critique that do
not rely on a final instance of truth – God, humanity, the modern subject, the proletariat, the West, etc. – and
with opening up from within prevalent structures of power, alternative conceptions of ethical and/or political
determination.
From the 1980s onwards, this thought began to influence the sub-discipline of IR within political science.
Richard Ashley (Ashley and Walker, 1990), David Campbell (1998), William Connolly (2002), James Der Der-
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ian (2009), Jim George (1994), Michael Shapiro (1999) and Robert Walker (1993) are the foremost figures in
this translation. The French critiques of language and representation helped, notably, to offer an alternative to
the empirical rationalism of mainstream IR thought: the belief that theory describes the world and is validat-
ed through empirical evidence. The above refusal of an ultimate referent in language and of the concomitant
‘performative’ nature of all knowledge has allowed IR scholars, on the one hand, to historicize the dominant
‘objects’ of international relations thought – anarchy and collective action, sovereignty and interdependence,
security and conflict resolution – contra the perceived abstractions of ‘rational choice theory’ and the empir-
ical research methods of dominant forms of realism and liberalism. On the other hand, this refusal has also
allowed them to reveal relations of interest and power within any theoretical construction of political reality.
Here postmodernist critique has dovetailed with those of feminism and post-colonialism: or rather, the origins
of IR postmodernism have equally informed the latter critiques as well. Since knowledge cannot be neutral,
re-presented its object as such, it always already involves hierarchies of construction and interpretation.1 As
a result of these two gestures, the field of IR is pulled away from explanatory analysis and related back to
both theory and power; and the objects of IR are, in principle, opened up to alternative possibilities of political
knowledge, agency and organization.
This account of the origins of postmodern IR does little justice, within critical IR theory in general, to the impor-
tant normative differences between ‘modernist’ and ‘postmodernist’ understandings of international politics. I
will take these differences up in the next sections.
Commitments
Since the establishment of these strategies within IR theory, postmodern IR thought has increasingly weighed
theoretical understanding with empirical investigation. Postmodern topics in IR range from genealogies and
deconstructions of the IR tradition (see Hellmann, Chapter 76, this Handbook), through focused attention on
modern delimitations of sovereignty, to theorizations of contemporary modalities of warfare and security, of
‘liberal’ regimes of governance and surveillance, of American and British foreign policy, humanitarian inter-
ventions and migration. As said, since postmodern approaches to these topics simultaneously open up ques-
tions of patriarchy and western domination, they have necessarily dovetailed with respective transformations
of IR through feminism and post-colonialism. This article will focus on the topic of ‘modernity’ in postmodern
IR theory since all the above engagements presuppose a common approach to it. To understand the ‘how’ of
postmodern commitments in the IR field entails understanding this presupposition.
In its strongest philosophical formulations –one thinks here particularly of the works of Jacques Derrida and of
Jean-François Lyotard – the ‘post’ of ‘postmodern’ designates neither an ‘after’ nor an ‘against’ of the modern
period, of modernization processes or of the general descriptive ‘modernity’ (see particularly Lyotard, 1986b).
It refers, rather, to a critical, ambiguous relation to the general tenets of the modern (see Derrida, 1982, 2004).
These tenets consist in a belief in progress, in the emancipating powers of reason, in the political centrality
of subjectivity and in ethical and political universalism (for example, and respectively, human rights and inter-
national/global institutions). Together with these tenets, commitment to ‘modernity’ affirms the exemplarity of
a certain number of modernization processes that accompanied western capitalist development over the last
500 years: most importantly, the distinction between religion and the state; the separation of civil society from
the state; the emergence of the individual and the categories of ethical, legal and political personhood; and
liberal and social variants of democratization.
For postmodern thought – and here the work of Michel Foucault has been by far the most influential in the
social sciences in general and IR in particular – these processes dominate and discipline the individual as
much as they individualize and empower him or her. Subjectivity implies, also, subjection. In Derrida's terms,
modern law covers over its own violent emergence and is consequently unable to reflect upon its ethical and
political limits. Within the parameters of modern subjectivity and law, liberalism affirms, for example, univer-

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sal tolerance, general assembly and historical progress based on specific understandings of individual and
collective freedom. These parameters are, however, considered necessarily exclusive and violent since their
core assumption of a unified subject ignores multiple identities and histories (within the modern subject, with-
in western formations and among western, non-western and planetary formations). Finally, for postmodern
thought, following the French ethical philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas (1969), the immanent relation between
theoretical and practical reason in modernity codifies ethics and turns the Enlightenment principles of freedom
into ones of abstract domination with little eye to locality and contingency. In these three respects, moderni-
ty's promise of a generalizable axiomatics of freedom hides (ethical and political) practices of discipline and
domination. For postmodern thought, modernity can be neither avoided nor transcended. Its inherent limits
are, however, to be constantly (re)negotiated in a larger understanding of human and non-human worlds.
Within the field of IR this argument has meant the following. For many in IR – traditionalist or not – the practice
and discipline of international relations turns on the ‘anarchy’ of relations that befall the state outside the pa-
rameters of its own sovereignty as well as on the collective action dilemmas that ensue from this structural
anarchy. For postmodernists, sovereignty and anarchy are mutually constitutive, violent constructions, the re-
spective delimitations of which suppress the multiple differences and pluralities of the real world. Modern po-
litical organization – the state and the state system – does wrong to these differences, and it is only through
recognitions of these differences that other ways of thinking and practising political agency in international
and global politics are possible. Contra contemporary cosmopolitanisms, however, postmodern IR thought
does not affirm either the individual against the modern state or the trans-national human rights regime that
underpins supra-national juridical personhood. As said above, the limits of the individual are as constructed
as those of the modern state. Modern liberal individualism and its internationalist equivalent, cosmopolitan
liberalism, codify subjects in particular ways as bearersof rights, as fully delimited and conscious persons,
as beings prior to social interaction and meaning. While, therefore, aware of the freedoms gained through
modernity in distinction to the hierarchies of the pre-modern age, postmodern IR thought has considered, until
now, the state as an obstacle in the plural fields of global politics, and sees the individual and universalism as
the legacies of the particular formation of western Enlightenment. This legacy excludes understanding of non-
western practices of value, social interaction and community. It cannot, consequently, theorize for humanity
as a whole. Postmodern thought converges here with neo-Marxist and post-colonial critiques of western im-
perialism: modernity cannot be a straightforward counter-force to such imperialism since, however much it
distinguishes itself from authoritarianism, it is deeply complicit with past and present practices of domination.
What emerges from this post-modern analysis of modernity? Any counter-subject to replace western moder-
nity would simply reproduce the tenets of modernity. Postmodernists have consequently not sought (to date
at least) a new political subject. They have sought to untie and foreground what is repressed by political sub-
jectivity as such, hence their practical concern with the excluded, the marginal, the dissenting and an often
too implicit engagement with political organizations that are more inclusive, and less exclusive. Postmodern
thought's prevalent political concern has been either with non-state agency and/or with a radical ethics. This
ethics is not that of rational universalism. Addressing, as reasonably as possible, what political reason and
subjectivity will necessarily exclude, it is an ethics of contingency, of uncertainty, of humility in the interstices
of political arrangement and institution. Given technological and economic globalization, postmodernism in IR
befits, it is argued, a global age. For in this age, plurality and difference are increasingly critical values that
require articulation under the homogeneity of capitalist globalization processes and with the pluralization of
international power. The postmodern engagement with modernity leads, as a result, to critical, dissenting ap-
proaches to international topics.
Problems
I have said that postmodern thought considers itself to be a form of thinking that befits a globalized age.
Its aim to recognize difference and plurality from under the categories of Enlightenment reason, modernity
and globalization would indeed seem an appropriate intellectual project in order to transcend the binaries of
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west/non-west or north/south and set up a more appropriate ‘global’ discourse and practice of international
politics under contemporary processes of globalization (increasing interdependence and fragmentation). The
dovetailing of postmodernist, feminist and post-colonialist concerns over the last 20 years in IR appears also
to institutionalize this endeavour. There are, that said, a set of problems within postmodernism: ones affect-
ing postmodern intellectual commitments as such; and ones that have emerged as these commitments have
come to be rehearsed within the discipline of International Relations. This section considers two overriding
problems; the next section considers the futures of IR postmodernism in a globalized, fragmented age in their
light.
One major problem met by the postmodern intellectual disposition is relativism. If, as postmodernism argues,
all knowledge is constructed – and therefore informed by interest and power – it becomes difficult to posit hier-
archies of knowledge either in the realms of ontology and epistemology or in the realms of ethics and politics.
Without such weighted orders of knowledge, arguing for one set of knowledges and/or values against anoth-
er becomes inherently tendentious. As a result, postmodernists can end up giving theoretical and/or moral
equivalence to very different sets of claims in the name of reflexivity or diversity. The most evident example
of this equivalence is in the postmodern argument against theoretical and moral universalism (considered as
a basic tenet of modernity).
To argue that no theory can make universal claims, or rather that any theory must understand how its claims
are located in time and space in order to have theoretical rigour in the first place, ignores the processes by
which thought is universalized beyond the bounds of (a particular) time and space. A theory has universal
validity, for example, because the ‘peer review’ process of its particular community underpins the claims of
that theory. Without this process of peer review, these claims would remain within the community and not
transcend it. The emergence of the truth of climate change over the last 50 years provides, perhaps, the most
important recent illustration of this process. As a result of worldwide review among scientists of climate data,
the theory of anthropogenic climate change has been established beyond all reasonable doubt. No postmod-
ernist would wish to give intellectual equivalence to climate science and climate denialism; and yet, postmod-
ernism's suspicion regarding modern rationalism has not helped avoid our ‘post-truth’ era. More importantly,
it remains unclear how the commitments of postmodernism can help restore consensus around the priority of
truth.
The relativist risk of postmodernism is equally evident today in the realm of ethics. In a globalizing and frag-
mented world one must pay careful attention to pluralism and to the plural ways in which human and non-hu-
man worlds deserve recognition and respect. To argue against the modern norms of the European Enlight-
enment in the name of this pluralism can confuse, however, source and validity. To argue that all humans
‘possess’ individual rights that require institutional framing constitutes a claim that has its overt source in
European thought at a particular moment of economic, social and political transformation. The claim is not,
however,reducible to this moment, but transcends it (or not) through the way in which it outranks counter-
claims (or not). This normative outranking requires, in turn, spaces of discussion and deliberation that are
themselves formed by the very values that one seeks to discuss. Within this hermeneutic circle of moral inter-
pretation (played out through institutions and through historical time) it is impossible to reduce to a moment in
time or place the processes of universal value-formation. It is accordingly impossible to give – in the name of
reflexivity, plurality or diversity – moral equivalence as such to a universalist claim, on the one hand, and to a
particularist claim, on the other. Both claims must be tested through the processes of value-formation; it is on-
ly through this testing that moral argument can advance. The hermeneutic circle is never of course resolved:
neither ethics nor politics is a science. There is a difference, however, between rehearsing arguments within
the circle and short-circuiting the circle in the name of a flat pluralism: postmodern critiques of the Enlighten-
ment risk the latter step. This risk is unhelpful today in the context of both domestic and international disorder.
The second problem that the postmodern intellectual disposition encounters and that I want to address here
is the risk of marginalization. At least to date, and as the two earlier sections argued, postmodernism does
not seek to posit a counter-subject against the modern subject; rather, it seeks multiple identities and dis-

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senting, critical viewpoints from under the surface of modern subjectivity. For many, as mentioned above, this
intellectual move fits a rapidly pluralizing world (and is therefore far from running the risk of marginalization).
However, as I have argued elsewhere (Beardsworth, 2011), postmodern commitments confuse here aesthetic
and political specificities. The realm of political behaviour and action is a realm of forces in which one force
is necessarily counter-posed to another. The non-violent disposition of ‘turning the other cheek’ constitutes,
for example, a force in politics that was most efficient, for Mahatma Gandhi, in the context of the legal and
political forces of English Law in early 20th-century South Africa and India. This disposition would, howev-
er, have been physical and political suicide against the forces of Nazi Germany. The realm of the political
– however ethically mediated, whatever the exact form of the forces at play – is a realm of limits in which
agents necessarily brush up against each other. To translate to this realm values that, precisely, blur distinc-
tions and limits (within and among subjects) assumes that this realm is similar to the aesthetic, where such
blurring constitutes the very condition of good art. Postmodern commitments often commit this category error
or confusion. As a result, postmodernism makes sophisticated progressive arguments without delimitation of
the political limits and agents required to make such progress happen: it remains as a result absent from the
political field. Other forces take control of the political realm in their stead – today, new forms of particularist
politics. Postmodernism's self-justifying argument that it does not seek an alternative to the modern hides, I
suggest, its fundamental lack of political realism in this respect. This is not to suggest that postmodernism is
the cause of our present political disorders (a nonsensical claim). It is to suggest, as with our post-truth era,
that the postmodernist disposition has not helped to arrest the emergence of present political dilemmas. At
the very least, one cannot argue that its commitments befit a globalized, fragmented age.
The above two problems – relativism and marginalization – come to a head in postmodern approaches within
the discipline of IR for obvious reasons. In contrast with the humanities or a social science like sociology, IR
is focused on a field of limits, forces and agents. However complex this field is (and at the level of causa-
tion, it is obviously highly complex), questions of empirical political reality, questions of order and disorder and
questions of value and value accommodation are outstanding. Without consistent traction on these questions,
sophisticated arguments for self-reflexivity, plurality and diversity can become, at best, abstract and, at worst,
meaningless for the discipline. So, what futures can postmodernism countenance as an intellectual disposi-
tion in IR?
Futures
As is clear from the above, I consider the tenets of postmodernism to be tested by present political realities,
rather than confirmed by them. The postmodern critique of modernity – of rationalism, progress, the modern
subject and its ethical and political correlates – has certainly helped to make contemporary culture more care-
ful of the limits of modern approaches to the world. Moreover, this care, as well as the humility that goes with
it, can offer a framework within which to interpret, and help shape, a world undergoing important cultural and
political transitions away from western hegemony. To do so, however, those calling upon postmodern argu-
ment in the discipline of IR need to make this framework more intellectually rigorous. In line with arguments
rehearsed above, I would suggest at least four futures.
First, to counter the risk of both relativism and marginalization, postmodern approaches to international rela-
tions should rehearse what an ethics and politics of the lesser violence entails. For postmodernism, all acts
of theory and all practices of limitation are violent. The criteria by which both are either more or less violent
require, however, formalization. From out of this formalization one can then argue what, in the realm of inter-
national politics, a politics of the lesser violence might entail and what institutions (or institutional reforms) at
the international and global levels would be required to embody this politics of the lesser violence. In doing
so, postmodern tenets may find a way not only of transcending our post-truth era and post-truth politics (with
which I have argued it is partly complicit), but also of offering theoretical and ethical platforms on which to
build a plural international politics.

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Second, postmodernism needs to look again at the liberal project, born within its articulation of modernity
as a whole. Postmodern understanding of the liberal subject as well as of liberal ethics and liberal polity is
impoverished (at least in IR) by its decline into anti-universalism and its concomitant refusal to address the
formal, institutional conditions of difference. With this refusal, difference inverts into a politics of unarticulated
differences without common ground. To revisit critically these conditions and inversions might allow the post-
modern approach to national and international politics to rehearse a new liberalism for our globalized age.
Third, where the postmodern critique of modernity is very precisely borne out by present and future realities
is of course climate change and imminent climate catastrophes (see Voituriez, Chapter 85, this Handbook). It
is here, perhaps, that the ‘post’ of postmodernism will have found its most important place of argument. The
last 500 years of modernization processes – from industrialization to the modern subject and its freedoms –
are the very years in which the human has had such structural impact on the earth system that these very
processes are increasingly in doubt. Contemporary arguments for the Anthropocene pinpoint increasingly ac-
curately how the legacy of modernity is unsustainable for the planet as a whole (see, for example, Hamilton,
2017). Here indeed, the postmodern blurring between the modern subject and its un-freedoms, emancipation
and domination, the human and the non-human, etc. can find their truth in the modern, enlightened disrespect
of the planet and of its inhabitants as a whole. For this critical argument to have rigour within postmodernism,
two points must nevertheless be borne in mind: first, it must adopt a new ‘grand narrative’ of the planet; and,
second and concomitantly, it must relinquish once and for all an ethics and politics of the marginal in order to
develop collective strategies of sustainable life systems.
Fourth and finally, these collective strategies could work, for postmodernists, with an overarching agenda of
development that seeks greater equality and sustainability among, and within, the richer and poorer countries
of the world. It is well known that climate change will reinforce regional inequalities. Adaptation to it will re-
quire immense political will and effort so that something like global collective action offsets the new politics of
disparity that is already emerging (see Morlino in this Handbook).
In sum, will postmodernism make these jumps that would, at one and the same time, both confirm and re-
organize its critical commitments? Or will it – a child of the 1960s linguistic turn – cede to new intellectual
formations that are more ready to respond to the needs of the future? To rehearse the origins, commitments
and problems of postmodernism in IR is, perhaps, to suggest the coming fork in the road.
Note
1 I have not spoken of the similarities of commitment between postmodernism and constructivism in IR: suf-
fice it to say here that, while both sets of thought have similar theoretical outlooks on the social construction
of reality, IR constructivism is much less critical of the liberal project in general. This is particularly the case in
the United States.
References
Ashley, R K and Walker, R B J (1990) Reading Dissidence/Writing the Discipline: Crisis and the Question of
Sovereignty in International Studies. International Studies Quarterly 34 (3), 367–416.
Barthes, R (1972) Mythologies. Trans. Annette Lavers. London: Jonathan Cape.
Beardsworth, R (2011) Cosmopolitanism and International Relations Theory. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
Campbell, D (1998) National Deconstruction: Violence, Identity, and Justice in Bosnia. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press.
Connolly, W E (2002) Identity|Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox. Minneapolis: Univer-
sity of Minnesota Press.
Deleuze, G and Guattari, F (2013) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Mas-

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sumi. London: Continuum.

Der Derian, J (2009) Critical Practices in International Theory: Selected Essays. London: Routledge.
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Derrida, J (2004) Rogues: Two Essays on Reason. Trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas. Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press.
Derrida, J (2016) Of Grammatology. Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins Uni-
versity Press.
Foucault, M (1980) Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977. Ed. Colin Gor-
don. Brighton: Harvester Press.
Foucault, M (1991) Discipline and Punish: Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Penguin.
Foucault, M (2008) The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures of the College de France, 1978–79. Trans. Graham
Burchell. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
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CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Hamilton, C (2017) Defiant Earth: The Fate of Humans in the Anthropocene. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
Kristeva, J (1984) Revolution in Poetic Language. Trans. Margaret Walker. New York, NY: Columbia Univer-
sity Press.
Lévinas, E (1969) Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
Lyotard, J-F (1986a) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoffrey Bennington and
Brian Massumi. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Lyotard, J-F (1986b) Answer to the Question: What is the Postmodern? In Lyotard, J-F The Postmodern Con-
dition, pp. 72–84. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.
Shapiro, M (1999) Cinematic Political Thought: Narrating Race, Nation and Gender. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press.
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versity Press.
• postmodernism
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http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n15

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David Easton's Political Systems Analysis
Contributors: Henrik P. Bang

Chapter Title: "David Easton's Political Systems Analysis"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
David Easton's Political Systems Analysis

Henrik P. Bang
Introduction
David Easton introduced the systems theory in political science. This theory appeared in social sciences dur-
ing the 1930s and tried to promote a global approach of social facts considered as a whole which strives to
maintain a certain order and an identity. As such, Easton (1917–2014) is one of the founding fathers of mod-
ern American political science, even though he was born in Canada and retained his Canadian citizenship his
entire life. However, it was after first taking up a position in the University of Chicago in 1947 that he began
developing his specific approach to studying political systems. He describes his first 10 years in Chicago as:
‘just one great intellectual high'. From the onset, he was completely taken aback by:
the intellectual excitement, the natural interdisciplinary exchanges, the value put upon knowing and
understanding, the passion for the idea and the systematic subordination of bureaucratic necessities
to scholarly needs.
In Chicago, Easton was drawn into a cross-disciplinary group of scientists, discussing the new concept of sys-
tem in the natural sciences and its application to the study of human and social life. He got acquainted with
general systems theory's ambition to formulate a systems language which was not dependent on any par-
ticular science or discipline (Boulding, 1956; von Bertalanffly, 1962; Radcliffe-Brown, 1957). He also sensed
how members of the group looked to psychology, anthropology and sociology as the core sciences out of
which common variables might be identified. Finally, he noted how scholars from these sciences were espe-
cially attracted to studying human and social life by analogy with homeostasis (self-regulation) in individual
organisms. Thus, the young Easton could conclude that there was a lack in the group of a special interest for
understanding and explaining human and social behaviour in their political aspects. He then began his search
for such a special political theory in a dialogue with political scientists but from the general vantage point of
open systems theory, stating that the aim of critical systems inquiry must be (Wilden, 1972: xxvi) ‘to contribute
to the long-term well-being of humanity in its historical process and global context (Wilden, 1972: xxvi).
The coupling problem between a system and its environment and between the component parts of a system
is central to this general approach. Like Karl W. Deutsch, who applied it to study political communication and
control (1963), Easton employed it to look for the sources and the conditions common to whole sets of mes-
sages as such rather than to individual messages. The difference is that Easton, unlike Deutsch does not
focus solely on the ‘nerves of government’ (1963) but on politics and society viewed as an interrelated whole.
To him the coupling problem concerns political authority as a communicative and symbolic linking mechanism
between a political system and society on the one hand, and between political authorities and ordinary mem-
bers inside a political system on the other hand. This in turn explains why Easton did not adopt the home-
ostatic model that Parsons (1951), Almond and Verba (1963) and Rokkan and Lipset (1967) adopted from
biologically inspired general systems theory: then he would have had to place social stability and normative
integration in the forefront. However, in his endogenous and interrelationist political model, society could not
exist without a political system being capable of handling increasing complexity by continuously changing and
differentiating itself and its relationship to its relevant environments (Bang, 2011; Crozier, 2010). Thus, East-
on's application of general systems analysis to politics and society contains four claims (1965a: 24–5):
1. System. It is useful to view political life as a system of behaviour.

2. Environment. A system is distinguishable from the environment in which it exists
and open to influences from it.
3. Response. Variations in the structure and processes within a system may use-
fully be interpreted as constructive or positive alternative efforts by members of
a system to regulate or cope with stress flowing from environmental as well as

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internal sources.
4. Feedback. The capacity of system to persist in the face of stress is a function of
the presence and nature of the information and other influences that return to its
actors and decision-makers.
Claims 3 and 4 – response and feedback – point out two fundamental facts of political existence (1965a: 133):
• a. Members of a system are not passive transmitters of things taken into the system, di-
gesting them in some sluggish way, and sending them along as outputs that influence other
social systems or the political system itself. They are able to regulate, control, direct, modify,
and innovate with respect to all aspects and parts of the processes involved.
Furthermore, such a transformative political capacity presumes that a political system can learn from its life-
experiences (1965b: 369):
• b. Without being provided with an array of information about the consequences of present
outputs, it could not add to its store of knowledge, its memory would forever remain static,
and it would have no way of implementing its potentialities for learning and changing.
Hence, the persistence of a political system depends above all on its members’ capacities for learning and
changing their system, its environment or both together. Therefore, the critical issue of political existence is
how to provide coupling mechanisms between political authorities and ordinary members inside the political
system (internal response and feedback), and between the political system and its relevant environments
(external response and feedback). Without such coupling mechanisms, a political system could not become
better at governing itself in the face of unceasing stress or risk. In this sense, political systems failure can
mean one of two things: ‘[i] that [the system] has changed but continues to exist in some form; or [ii] that [it]
has disappeared entirely’ (1965a: 82).
It follows that the basic presumptions presented above in (3) and (4), (a) and (b) and [i] and [ii] concern a
political system's transformative capacity to persist in some form even in the face of the most turbulent crisis
situation, like a revolution or a rapidly developing high-consequence risk (like global warming). Considered
in this light, is it any wonder that Easton's critics nearly all begin their interpretations of his system from the
conclusion that ‘the primary focus of David Easton's work is what Talcott Parsons designates as the polity or
the goal-attainment subsystem’ (Lewis, 1974: 676). ‘Like Parsons he is concerned with stability and order,
with the “persistence” of political systems in a world of change and stress’ (Meehan, 1967: 174). ‘The result
of this focus is to set aside the question of how the capacity of the polity is used to meet demands and to deal
solely with how this particular subsystem maintains itself or persists’ (Lewis, 1974: 676).
However, there is a simple reason why Easton's political system from the onset was looked at as an offspring
of Parsons’ structural, or normative, functionalism. This is how his model was introduced into comparative
politics as an exemplar of modern political analysis. As Gabriel A. Almond puts it in his contribution to East-
on's Festschrift:
Talcott Parsons's formulation, coming out of a mix of sociological, psychological, and anthropological
theory, stressed culture and personality, psychological orientation, and socialization processes…
It was in this setting that Easton perfected his system framework. It was this systems model, much
influenced by cybernetics, that I inherited from Easton's work and that enabled me to codify and
systematize the findings and conclusions of the five or six preceding decades of empirical research,
primarily on American political processes. (Almond in Monroe, 1997: 224)
To Almond, and most other scholars in the mainstream, Easton was the one who fleshed out the missing
diachronic and dynamic aspect of political history in Parsons’ synchronic and static scientific model. Thus,
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Easton's political system became Parsons social system applied as the concrete, historical mechanism for
‘unfolding’ the social structure just as it is ‘in itself'. The irony is that Easton's systems model constitutes a
fundamental break with this modern dichotomization of space and time, the first being available for synchron-
ic analysis in abstraction from the diachronic functioning of the latter. As Parsons argued:
[P]olitical science [is] the discipline concerned with political power and its use and control, but be-
cause of the diffuseness of political power this makes it a synthetic science in the social system field,
not one built about a distinctive analytical conceptual scheme. (Parsons, 1951: 551, emphasis in
original)
However, in The Political System, already Easton plainly and directly rebuts Parsons’ claim:
If this statement were true, then the development of political science would be so dependent upon
the other social sciences that little blame could attach to it for the level of its insights, the nature of its
methods, or its neglect of theory…… I shall assume that political science does constitute a distinct
field of research, not for problems of application alone, but what is more significant, for analytical
and conceptual purposes as well. (Easton, 1953: 60–1)
As I shall show, Easton considers time-space inseparable from one another. To him, stability cannot be con-
trasted to change, because ‘stability is only a special example of change, not a generically different one’
(1965a: 106). His practical interest in politics is by no means prompted by a ‘technical’ interest in applying
political authority to secure and sustain homeostasis in the social organism. To the contrary, it stems from his
break with this identification of authorization with legitimate domination. In his doctoral thesis The Theory of
the Elite: A Study of the Elitist Trends in English Thought, Easton raises the political claim that:
[e]litism, the ideal of the reaction against democracy, yields political and social domination to the
rulers. The democratic ideal, wherever it is found, encompasses a credible political sociology by rec-
ognizing the superior role of the people. Since the elitist myth of the governing class seeks to elim-
inate the people in connection with the destiny of society, this myth explodes when confronted with
the fact that without the people, the rulers are as free spirits wandering lonely, dejected and unem-
ployed in an empty world. But without rulers dominating their existence, the people, on the contrary
find that very freedom that calls forth their most creative efforts. Elitism places blind faith in an ap-
propriate governing class. The democratic ideal incorporates a tempered trust in the wisdom and
creative genius of the people. (Easton, 1947: 418, emphasis added)
Easton's practical commitment to, and belief in, ‘the people's’ creative capacities for governing and taking
care of themselves stems from his early experiences in Canada where he was born. He grew up in Toronto in
very modest circumstances in a family with no academic background. He was the first in the family to attend
college (the University of Toronto) and soon became engaged in left-leaning political activism. He toured back
and forth between Canada and the United States as a stowaway on freight trains to participate in various
rallies and protests. He met his wife Sylvia in a Trotskian Friendship Association in Chicago; she remained
a left-leaning activist her entire life. They discussed the connection between democracy and political science
their entire life together, combining her deep sense of human suffering with his natural intellectual curiosity.
Thus, the mature Easton's systematic focus on power-knowledge as the key to understanding and explaining
political systems persistence comes from a practical ambition to connect political authorities and laypeople in
the political community in terms of reciprocal relations of power, knowledge trust and respect. This is why the
coupling problem is at the core of Easton's political systems analysis: it is not only at the foundation of political
existence but also of a democracy in which people accept and recognize their intrinsic differences – not as a
barrier to, but as a condition of, identifying and handling their common concerns.
I shall begin by illuminating in a bit more detail how Easton became Parsons, and how this concealed the
young Easton's quest for finding a way to connect ‘fact’ and ‘values', political science and democracy. Then I

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shall present Easton's simple four-function model of the political system and shed light on how it makes the
authority relationship between political authorities and laypeople in the political community inside the political
system the heart of understanding and explains: (a) how a political system is structured in time-space and (b)
how it manages to persist in some form in its relevant environments through time-space. Then I shall show,
how Easton became inspired by the Chicago School – especially by Harold D. Lasswell's technocratic and
democratic approach to making and implementing policy – to find a way to overcome the twin dangers of evo-
lutionism and historicism in his specification of the political relationship between democratic political authori-
ty and democratic political community. I shall conclude by encouraging young scholars to critically reassess
Easton's uniquely political macro-theoretical approach to the persistence and structuration of a political sys-
tem in the light of current advances within the study of political institutions, political psychology, governance,
governmentality and discursive and participatory democracy.
How Easton Became Parsons

Then, how did Easton become famous (not to say notorious) as a founding father of an American political be-
haviouralism, which has been widely accused of silencing ‘the reflective and critical voice of the discipline’ and
of undermining its status ‘as the discursive home of political theory’ (Gunnell, 1993: 269)? How could Easton
become an exemplar of Parsons’ non- and apolitical kind of normative functionalism in which a political sys-
tem is assessed solely by its capacity to attain goals that contribute to ‘pattern maintenance', ‘normative inte-
gration’ and ‘economic adaptation’ in the social system (Alexander, 1984: 10)? This social systems approach
tends to reduce the practical tasks of political theory and science to a technical issue of how to internalize
norms of social stability into the unconscious parts of people's personality, hereby creating a disposition in
them to support ‘the system’ and obey the decisions and actions of their political authorities (Parsons, 1968).
This position is flagrantly inconsistent with Easton's own specification of the relationship between democratic
theory and political science presented above.
However, Almond adjusted Easton's model to that of Parsons. Citing a lecture which he once conducted to
show the bond between Eastonian and Parsonian systems analysis (1997: 225), Almond critiques Easton of
never providing: ‘the full notions of multidirectional interaction and of equilibrium and disequilibrium which are
implied in the concept of system’ (ibid: 225). When Easton does not provide any such notion, it is because in
his model ‘[a] system may well seek other goals than those of reaching one or another point of equilibrium’
(1965b: 20). This should also be common sense, since many political systems in history have had to hob-
ble along in continuing disequilibrium when seeking new goals to cope with the concrete high-consequence
conflicts, risks and challenges that confront it. When Almond does not notice Easton's distinction between
goal-seeking and goal-attainment but instead imposes Parsons’ Freud-inspired notion of order vs. anomie on
his political system, it may be because he overlooks two facts about Easton's systems approach:
(1) Easton's political system has not been modelled after a biologically and structuralist-inspired mix of soci-
ology, psychology and anthropology. It is more influenced by the kind of general but open systems thinking
represented by scholars like von Bertalanffy (1962) and Vickers (1959), which explicitly breaks with all equi-
librium thinking. For example, as von Bertalanffy puts it:
In contrast to equilibrium states in closed systems which are determined by initial conditions, the
open system may attain a time independent state independent of initial conditions and determined
only by the system's parameters. (von Bertalanffy, 1962: 18, cf. Wilden 1972: 38)
Of course, in this framework, organisms are considered goal-seeking systems too, but ‘what they seek is sta-
bility, not change; what they reproduce is themselves, not novelties’ (Wilden, 1972: 363). This is exactly why
it is a mistake to believe that what a political system seeks is ‘best described as a changing equilibrium’ (Al-
mond, 1997: 227). Unlike an individual organism, a political system is not predetermined to seek equilibrium,
homeostasis, order or stability, above all else. What it seeks is to exist in, and through, continuous change,
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whether incremental or revolutionary. Without such chronic changes, a political system simply could not artic-
ulate and handle the complex relationship within itself or to its relevant environments. As Easton himself puts
it:
What political systems as a type of social system possess uniquely, when compared to both biologi-
cal and mechanical systems, is the capacity to transform themselves, their goals, practices, and the
very structure of their internal organization. (Easton, 1965a: 99)
(2) Open systems thinking made Easton realize that (a) a social system is of a higher level of complexity, or
order of organization, than are mechanical and biological systems (Buckley, 1968; Luhmann, 1995; Mingers,
1995; Bateson, 2002), and (b) a political system is distinct from all other kinds of social system as a general
type of communicative decision and action, which can do something for society substantially different from
what could be done without it (Deutsch, 1963). As he opens A Framework for Political Analysis – his first sys-
tematic investigation into the problem of political systems persistence:
[I have] not been able to lean on any readymade model; and no eclectic borrowing from other varying
kinds of systems approaches would do. A consistent structure of concepts had to be newly devel-
oped that would fit the kind of system that political life constitutes. (Easton, 1965a: xii)
Somewhat ironically, it was Almond's Parsonian-inspired equilibrium approach to reading Easton which made
his political systems model the most influential one in the field of comparative politics (Rokkan and Lipset,
1967; Blondel, 1990). Curiously, this Parsonian reading of a political system is still quite influential in compar-
ative politics although it has since long been abandoned in all the other social sciences. As Mark Blyth notes,
mainstream political science still suffers from ‘ELEN’ – a sickness making one study institutional formation in
terms of concepts of equilibrium, linearity, exogeneity, and normality (2011: 99). Almond ‘infected’ Easton's
political system with this ELEN sickness to make it more useful to assessing the relationship between ‘ratio-
nal man’ and ‘irrational society’ that liberal democracy has been designed to handle and mediate (Barry and
Hardin: 1982). This relationship has until very recently been claimed to determine the input of specific (‘ratio-
nal') and diffuse (‘irrational') support for a political regime and thereby its homeostasis or self-maintenance.
Thus, the factor of exogeneity in the ELEN model turned Easton's model into a black box for studying how
to stabilize and harmonize the relationship between the democratic regime inside the political system and the
civic culture outside. It was claimed to address only:
beliefs, feelings, and values [that] significantly influence political behaviour, and that … [they] are the
product of socialization experiences. (Almond, 1989: 29)
Thus, Easton became a common professional possession in mainstream political science, who, like Almond,
claims that adequate socialization experiences generate the kind of specific and diffuse support for political
authorities and political regime without which no political system could maintain itself. Without such support,
conflicting individual preferences and social interests could not be aggregated and integrated into binding de-
cisions in an orderly and consensual manner. Nor would the political system be able to deliver outcomes that
are experienced as fair and just by most citizens in society.
Very few in the mainstream have challenged this input-driven interpretation of Easton's political system, ac-
cording to which the conversion of inputs into outputs inside a political system is determined by the clash be-
tween private interests in the market and public interests in civil society and the civic culture outside. American
comparative politics has celebrated many successes and has enjoyed hegemony in the political discipline for
more than 60 years with this ‘outside-in’ approach to the authoritative articulation and allocation of values for
a society. However, in our world where all focus is on how a political system makes and implements binding
decisions from the inside-out, it is difficult to see how American comparative politics is to sustain its politics-
before-policy model of consensus, order and equilibrium. In our ‘brave new world’ where political elites and
laypeople increasingly place policy-before-politics, and where conflict, chaos and disequilibrium are becom-

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ing the new ‘normality', questions of power, knowledge and identity are becoming ever more central. As Blyth
asked his mainstream colleagues some years ago:
[W]hat if we live in a world that is actually disequilibrial and dynamic, where causes are endogenous
and nonlinear, and where outcomes of interests are not normally distributed? (Blyth, 2011: 87)
There is no ‘what if’ any longer, since it has become obvious to most that chaos is the rule more than the
exception, and that the best one can hope for politically today is to be able to create islands of order in this
general maze of disorder. It is in this context that political systems analysis gains new and immediate signifi-
cance and relevance, since chaos is the very idea that enables Easton to argue that ‘a system can be said to
persist even if it changes [completely]’ (1965a: 82).
As a Canadian, Easton has never had the same relationship to ‘American exceptionalism’ as Almond and
many other scholars in the mainstream. His ambition was from the onset to overcome the tendency in the
social sciences to put the blind eye to the phenomena of change and power. This compelled him to try to find
a way to overcome the order vs. anomie distinction with its commingling of facts and values, science and his-
tory, authority and hegemony, a political system and a democratic regime. Easton was seeking a way to avoid
making values into facts by identifying the general issue of how a political system manages to persist with
the specific issue of how close to, or far away from, different countries are from the democratic equilibrium in
terms of which a stable and consensual relationship between a political regime and a civic culture is estab-
lished, maintained and developed. As he argues in A Systems Analysis of Political Life, his political model:
helps us to prevent research from remaining exclusively and narrowly preoccupied, at least implicitly,
with one type of system, namely, democracy as it has developed in the West. Even where non-de-
mocratic systems are under scrutiny, it is seldom for the sake of understanding and explaining po-
litical systems as such, but through contrast with Western democracies, to shed a stronger light on
the conditions surrounding the existence or emergence of democracies. The designation of exotic
systems as developing or transitional suggests a norm toward which they are moving, and seldom
does this standard represent anything other than Western democracies as we know them today.
The prevalence of the concept of ‘modernity’ further reflects this marked cultural limitation. (Easton,
1965b: 15)
In fact, political systems analysis is as relevant to assess the limits of liberal democracy today as to reimag-
ining its future possibilities. In sharp contrast to the ELEN model outlined by Blyth above, Easton has always
insisted that in his model there is:
• no specification of stability as normal, and, hence of change as the exceptional phenome-

non to be understood and explained:
There is never a social situation in which the patterns of interaction are absolutely unchanging (Eas-
ton, 1965a: 106, cf. Giddens, 1979);
• no evolutionary traits of rational and normative modernity that unfold themselves ‘behind the
backs’ of members of a political system:
At times members in a system may wish to take positive actions to destroy a previous equilibrium or
even to achieve some new point of continuing disequilibrium (Easton, 1965b: 20, cf. Giddens, 1981);
• no teleology – the attainment of an already existing goal – but instead teleonomy, as mani-
festations of its members’ ongoing seeking for goals:
It would be impossible to understand [systems persistence] if either the objectives or the form of the
responses are taken for granted. A system may well seek goals other than those of reaching one or
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another point of equilibrium (Easton, 1965b: 20, cf. Wilden, 1972);
• no disciplined and obedient cultural ‘dopes’ blindly consenting to orders from above when
‘adapting’ to changing circumstances:
Since [a political system] is composed of reflective human beings, it is capable of evaluating what is
happening and of taking evasive action (Easton, 1965b: 225, cf. Bang, 2015);
• no ethnocentrism, claiming modern liberal democracy to be a rational Western development

to which all modern social systems must adapt to make their members free and equal:
Once we affirm that all political life in its varied manifestations may properly become our universe,
the substance of theoretical inquiry would have to change radically. It would no longer suffice to as-
sert some central value that is associated with an interest bred by the historical experience of the
West (Easton, 1965b: 14).
Almond's Parsonian reading of the political system made many believe that Easton's systems approach ‘be-
longs to the category of theories that come into vogue and then just vanish’ (Lane, 1978: 161). This has not
been the case: Easton's model has proved puzzlingly resilient. It has survived all major paradigmatic conflicts,
and, unlike structural-functionalism and structural Marxism, it has not yet been put to rest at the ideological
and theoretical scrapheap of history. Even today, basic elements of Easton's systems approach inform much
political research in the mainstream into political support, culture, citizenship and political parties (Abramson
and Inglehart, 1970; Dalton, 1998, 2002; Klingemann, 1998; Norris, 1999, 2011). Although they only deliver
some partial applications of his political theory, they demonstrate how, as Daniele Caramani notes in the in-
troduction to his book on Comparative Politics:
Easton's work has been a victim of its own success. His concepts have impregnated the minds of
political scientists, as well as those of the wider public, so deeply that, in a way, it goes ‘beyond cita-
tion'. (Caramani, 2008: 12)
Let me therefore instead begin from listening to, and learning from, what Easton himself says his political
systems model is all about. This is the first necessary step towards a critical analysis of his original political
macro-approach to studying how values of all kinds are authoritatively articulated and allocated for a society,
in and through a political system of some kind.
Easton's Political Systems Analysis

It is difficult to imagine what political science would have looked like had David Easton not in 1957 introduced
‘An Approach to the Analysis of Political Systems’ in World Politics. His four-function model (see Figure 13.1)
with its ‘inputs’ of demand and support and ‘outputs’ of decision and action have reached the stage of some-
thing learned at one's mother's knee.
Figure 13.1 Easton's four-function model

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Critics from all major paradigmatic perspectives in political science have continually been blaming Easton's
four-function model for being inconsistent and inadequate in its view of social structure, class relations, the
nation-state, rational actors and political institutions. Although critics from his own behaviouralist tradition do
consider his model useful, they also think it is badly flawed. For example, Lane opens his Parsons-inspired
critique by stating: ‘THERE MUST BE LIMITS TO CONFUSION’ (1978: 161). Easton, he argues, never even
tries to answer Parsons’ crucial question about what homeostasis or social order is about: ‘e.g. that the so-
ciety persists biologically and socially and that it is not characterized by anarchy or anomie'. In contrast,
Sorzano, a rational choice critic, argues that this failure stems from the fact that Easton's model is not struc-
tural-functionalist at all. It ‘not only regards the actors as behaving in a maximizing fashion but it also char-
acteristically distinguishes between the actor's intentions and the objective consequences of his behavior
for the system as a whole’ (1975: 98). Thus, Easton was entangled in the heated and ongoing battle be-
tween methodological collectivism and methodological individualism (O'Neill, 1973), against which state theo-
ry (Badie and Birnbaum, 1983) positioned itself in the 1980s. As a result, another reading of Easton's political
system appeared considering the core issue in his model as being historical and political in nature rather than
sociological and economic. As Green argues, structural-functionalism and rational choice theory have got the
problem raised by Easton's political systems analysis all wrong:
If politics is indeed the realm of the authoritative allocation of values for a society, then support, sta-
bility, and compliance behaviour are much less important in its analysis than many have thought.
Rather, the existence of authority in a society depends on there being standards which function in
a particular way in the practical reasoning of its members: they guide their subjects’ action without
appeal to their view of the merits of the case. But to understand authority in this way, as a feature of
practical reasoning, is to embark on a very different kind of political science than the one anticipated
by systems theorists or by most of their critics. Where it ultimately leads is in the direction of the
traditional theory of the state claims authority over its subjects, and whose claims subjects surrender
their judgement. (Green, 1985: 141–2)
Notice that this statist interpretation of Easton's political system stands in sharp contrast to the young Easton's

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practical critique of elitism (Easton, 1949). However, Green's criticism opens the black box, introducing the
mature Easton's own specification of political authorities, the political regime and lay members in the political
community as the three basic component parts of any going political system. Thus, the question of political
authority becomes central to understanding Easton's systems model as a whole.
Political Authority: The Heart of Political Systems Analysis

As Green notes above, political authority serves as the principal coupling mechanism between a political sys-
tem and its relevant societal and non-societal environments on the one hand, and between political authorities
and laypeople inside the political system on the other.
Thus, the basic message Easton sends with his almost banal four-function model is very simple: a political
system is identified by its general capacity to make and implement authoritative decisions that are accepted
and considered binding by most members of society, at least most of the time. Therefore, political authority
and people's practically considered acceptance of it are at the core of any kind of political system from the
tribal to the global (Easton, 1955b, 1958, cf. Bang, 2015). It is the political condition of living together as a
group of people whose differences about how values are to be distributed that often call for immediate political
decision and action amidst, and cutting through, all debacles. When differences cannot be resolved custom-
arily or privately, then someone must step up and say: ‘we must do this now'. If the members then accept this,
after having recognized that messages received in this way must be acted on without raising further delaying
questions to their validity, they bestow political authority on the sender. Their reasons for doing so may be
manifold. Some may feel threatened to accept the message; others may expect to be rewarded after having
accepted it; some may consider the sender trustworthy or morally superior; others may consider that their
acceptance is in their own best interest or contribute to developing their political identity:
But regardless of the particular grounds, it is the fact of considering the allocations as binding that
distinguishes political from other types of allocations. (Easton, 1965a: 50)
Hence, the ‘test’ for what makes a message political in nature is:
(1) that the message is issued clearly and directly by the sender to the receiver without involving any intent to
distort communication (through manipulation and deception) or engage in a rational dialogue with the sender
about its validity (‘deep’ persuasion oriented towards agreement); and
(2) that the receiver accepts the message as binding for his or hers doing or refraining in the concrete situa-
tion, carrying it out without undertaking a deeper analysis of its instrumental or moral validity.
These, in Easton's view, are the two political conditions of group life which make political authority distinct
from all other types of societal power-knowledge. It follows that political action is modelled after neither in-
strumental action (rational choice) nor moral-legal action (communicative rationality) but from the practical
experiences underlying its considered acceptance. As evidence of a distinctly political relationship, authority
is simultaneously cognitive and affective, involving various mixes of emotions and sound practical judgments,
depending on the situation – what Aristotle calls phronesis as distinct from techne and episteme (Eikeland,
2008; Flyvbjerg et al., 2012).
Political authority ‘as such’ says nothing about the special form in and through which its message is commu-
nicated. It simply manifests what makes the political distinct from the economic, the social, the cultural, the
religious and other real and significant differences that people living together have sorted out from each other
to cope with the existential risks, conflicts, challenges and problems that they confront in time-space. Political
authority can lean towards antagonism or consensus; be centred or decentred; based on hierarchy or net-
working; shaped as a command or a request; reveal the power of the few over the many, or that the power
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between the few and the many are equally distributed. It all depends on the political situation.
As a politically communicated message, political authority is inherently open to reinterpretation, reconfigu-

ration and transformation. Thus, the crucial existential issue for a political system of any kind does neither
concern its stability nor its change. Nor is it about the extent and degree of conflict or consensus associated
with its articulation and exercise. The primary existential issue for a political system is that of uncoupling –
of its political authorities from laypeople in their political community, or of itself from its relevant environments
(Easton and Dennis,1969). Inversely, connectivity is what makes it possible for a political system to go on in
multiple, irreducible forms in, and through, history (Bang, 2015).
Today, we seem to have forgotten about uncoupling as the core issue of political existence. Liberal democracy
was originally founded on this idea that a viable connection between political authorities, political regime and
political community must exist to cope with conflicts, risk and problems in a democratic manner (Dahl, 1957;
Almond and Verba, 1963; Putnam, 1993). However, party politics (national and transnational) has never been
so uncoupled from laypeople inside the political community and from the population outside as today. The
situation is not much better in the international political system, which is in great danger of losing the minimal
interconnectivity between nation-states required to live together in peaceful co-existence. In fact, the situation
resembles the kind of uncoupling in the democratic Weimar Republic that led to Hitler's gradual seizure of
total control from 1933.
The response to political uncoupling has so far been dominated by nativist populism with its call for a ‘strong-
man’ to seize hegemony and form collective identity out of an imaginary ‘pure’ people (Müller, 2016; Mudde
and Kaltwasser, 2017; Bang, 2018). The societal cleavage and conflict between globalism and nativism have
taken over from established party politics along the left–right axis. They have generated a virtual war, online
as well as offline, between ‘the elite’ and ‘the people', or ‘the professionals’ and ‘the amateurs', propelled by
nativist populism's revolution against ‘the world elite’ and ‘the world elite conspiracy’ which in Hitler's horren-
dous terminology became ‘the world Jew’ and ‘the world Jew conspiracy'(Klemperer, 2011: 44). One should
think that Easton's four-function model would gain new importance and significance in a situation where un-
coupling is accelerating even in Hitler's demonizing form. After all, its crucial political message is that uncou-
pling is the biggest threat to political and societal existence, as stemming from, and leading to, the refusal to
accept and recognize that difference is at the heart of the political as well as of democracy.
The Issue of Coupling Inside the Political System

Easton claims that authority manifests the transformative capacity of any political system, whether shaped as
a tribe, a wandering nomadic band, a city-state, a principality, a nation-state, a transnational political system
or a world political system. Political authority is in any case what makes it possible for a political system to
convert different, contested and sometimes profoundly opposed demands into collective decisions and ac-
tions. It provides the members inside the political system with the capacity to structure the system in multiple
irreducible ways to cope with internal as well as external conflicts, risks and problems. Thus, authority does
not only place limits and constraints on political decision and action; it also facilitates and enables new forms
of political discourse and practice to occur, take root and develop. As such, political authority manifests the
basic coupling mechanism between political authorities and lay members in the political community, condition-
ing their contingent structuration of the political regime as both a medium for, and outcome of, their situated
interaction (Figure 13.2).
Figure 13.2 Regime structuration

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The Political Systems Model: Extended Version

Political authorities must conform to the following criteria: (1) they must engage in the daily affairs of a political
system; (2) they must be recognized by most members of the political system as having the responsibility for
day-to-day decisions and actions and (3) their actions must be accepted as authoritative by most members,
at least most of the time, as long as they act within the limits of their assigned role (Easton, 1965b: 193).
The political regime refers to ‘the general matrix of regularised expectations within the limits of which political
actions are usually considered authoritative, regardless of how or where these expectations may be ex-
pressed’ (Easton, 1965b: 193–4). It consists of values (goals and principles), norms and structures of author-
ity. The values serve as broad limits concerning what can be taken for granted in the processing of demands
into collective decisions and actions without violating deep feelings of important segments of the political com-
munity. The norms specify the kinds of procedures that are expected to be recognized as acceptable for mak-
ing and implementing binding decisions for society. The structures of authority designate the formal and in-
formal patterns in, and through, which resources (material, symbolic, imaginary and virtual) are accumulated,
institutionalized, organized and brought into play for authoritatively articulating and allocating society's scarce
values (1965b: 193).
The political community concerns that aspect of a political system that consists of its members seen as a
group of feeling and sensible people who are drawn together by the fact that they participate in a common
political structure and set of processes – however tight, or loose, their ties to these structures and processes
may be. From the vantage point of sharing such a political division of labour it does not matter whether people

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form a community in the sociological sense of a group of members who share a deep feeling of community
and a set of common traditions. A political community may well be composed of people with different, even
antagonistic, nationalistic and other collective identities. The members may also experience deep religious
cleavages and conceive of their different cultural values and norms as entirely incompatible with one anoth-
er. However, so long as they, at least implicitly, accept and recognize that they share in a political division
of labour, they can be said to constitute a political community in this minimal sense as an action commu-
nity (Easton, 1965b: 177). Regardless of their internal divisions, their situated interaction will then express
Rousseau's claim (1987: 153) that ‘political authority is one and single and cannot be divided without be-
ing destroyed'. Hence, political community is the final test of any political system. Political authorities can be
overturned time and again, and the political regime can be in disequilibrium and revolutionary change without
threatening systems persistence; but if the members of a given political community refuse to share a political
division of labour any longer and give up collaborating even minimally in the situation, then the continued ex-
istence of not only the political system but also society is at stake. An illustrative example is what happened
in the former Yugoslavia.
Easton's insistence on political authority as a necessary condition of political and societal existence is often
seen as a sign of authoritarianism and elitism. As Dag Anckar puts it in his Easton critique:
Outputs result in certain outcomes, functioning as stimuli resulting in certain responses from the
masses. In other words, we are dealing with a society in which the rulers manipulate the ruled and
where the ruled react mechanically to their manipulation. (Anckar, 1973: 82–3, my translation from
Swedish)
This conclusion is obviously inspired by Anckar's a priori conception of Easton's political system as a small
appendix to Parsons’ social system. However, some critics do sense that the young Easton operates from the
presumption that political science and ethics must be anchored in people's reciprocal acceptance and recog-
nition of each other's differences to be optimally useful and valuable to science as well as to democracy and
democratization. But again, Parsons stands in the way, making, for instance, Miller conclude that ‘[Easton's]
theoretical position does not favor the revival of serious inquiry about the ends of political life’ (1971: 223).
This is despite the fact that Easton's political systems analysis begins and ends with the member's accep-
tance and recognition of political authority inside their political community. Political authority need neither be
coercive and commanding, as Anckar seems to believe, nor does its acceptance imply that authorities are the
only political actors in town, as Miller tends to suppose. As the mature Easton stresses:
Unfortunately, in political research we have no convenient term for distinguishing the authorities from
all other members in the system. Marx's ruling class as against the ruled, Pareto's elite, Mosca's
political class and Michels’ oligarchy versus masses are transparently not satisfactory for this pur-
pose. They classify members of a system according to the power they hold whereas here we wish
to point up the difference between those who are occupants of authority roles as against the occu-
pants of all other roles. But however we might classify members in a systematic structural analysis
of political systems, this much can be said here and has also been implied in all of the preceding
discussion: the authorities need not be co-extensive with the politically relevant members. (Easton,
1965b: 214–15)
As evidence of a general political transformative capacity, authority is contingent on freedom and domination
and presumes power and knowledgeability on the parts of both senders and receivers of its communicated
messages. As an ordinary member, one can accept and recognize that political authorities can do something
for the political system substantially different from what can be done without them, and yet actively resist
those who misuse authority to try to dominate one's political existence. This is the conclusion that the young
Easton arrived at in his doctoral thesis (1947) written directly up against Parsons’ knowledge regime at Har-
vard. The younger Easton developed his thesis partly in opposition to Parsons’ social evolutionism, partly in
conflict with the historicism that also made its presence felt at Harvard in that period. Easton was intensely

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dissatisfied with the entire programme as well as with his advisor, which is why he moved on to the University
of Chicago in 1947, accepting a joint position where he would be teaching Scope and Method of Social Sci-
ence in the graduate division of social science and then doing research in the department of political science.
Easton's Meeting with the Chicago School: Policy Before Politics

Chicago gave Easton the perfect start to his career, because it gave him the possibility to combine his interest
in facts and quantitative method with his more politically and ethically oriented theoretical and philosophical
thinking. He was also greatly attracted to the Chicago School, especially to Harold D. Lasswell and Charles
E. Merriam, who became two of his methodical and theoretical exemplars. Especially Lasswell's democrat-
ic policy analysis attracted Easton's explicit attention, because he could sense how Lasswell struggled with
the same issues as himself about global vs. national, science vs. history and elite vs. people. It was also
through his critique of how Lasswell tends to oscillate between technocracy and ethics in his policy analysis
for a democratic society that Easton found a preliminary road to avoiding the twin pitfalls of evolutionism and
relativism (Easton, 1955a).
The idea of a political system already appears in embryonic form in Easton's thesis from Harvard, but it was
first with his involvement in a multidisciplinary group of systems scientists in Chicago that his idea of political
systems as irreducible to any other types of systems began to take shape. It is intriguing to note how this
group already in the early 1950s imagined a future based on the internet, robots and artificial intelligence.
Easton was taken aback by the profound scientific curiosity driving this group. He developed a deep fasci-
nation with technology that he kept his entire life, though without forgetting his classical insights into how
technocracy needs be connected to ethics in any democratic society worthy of its name (Baer et al., 1991:
195–215; Easton, 1969; Easton, 1973).
Easton learned from Lasswell, how technocracy comprises a rationality, ideology and culture distinct from that
of bureaucracy. Technocracy is oriented towards achieving success by competing and networking in finding
‘best practices’ for doing things efficiently and effectively. In contrast, bureaucracy has its foundation in the
ancient King's hierarchical, disciplinary and coercive power. With the occurrence, consolidation and develop-
ment of representative democracy, state sovereignty was tied to popular sovereignty, and bureaucracy took
on a new role as the rational, loyal and obedient servant of democratic government and ‘we the people'. How-
ever, its basic structure was, and still is, that of a centralized system of rank and grade which functions in, and
through, a strictly hierarchized and disciplinary chain of commands to sustain political and social order. Thus,
bureaucracy and democracy are in constant tension with one another (Habermas, 2015).
The young Easton was fascinated by Lasswell's policy-oriented, managerial and collaborative ethos, commit-
ting administration to continuous innovation and change through its knowledgeable employment of technolog-
ical advances. Technocracy, as distinct from bureaucracy, carries no intention to exercise coercive power over
individuals. Rather, it wants to manage or ‘nudge’ them to become more and more autonomous and thereby
more and more functional to boosting competition and growth. The younger Easton agreed with Lasswell that
both political science and democracy must be more policy oriented to handle the threat of new despotisms
like fascism, Nazism and authoritarian communism. However, already when writing his doctoral thesis, he
sensed the new threat to democracy resulting from the new kind of domination intrinsic to technocracy. This
was what he called science-based factual elitism:
Elitism is an attack against democracy but it engages in battle in a subtle and disguised manner.
The elitists would disavow any intention of combating democracy as such; they are simply interested
in establishing a science of society. But in fact, they do try to undermine an especially strong pillar
beneath democratic theory. This is the notion that the people have a vital part to play in creating a
prosperous and viable community. (Easton, 1947: 2)

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Easton's overarching ambition was, from his days as a graduate student in Toronto, to find a way to avoid
that the crucial political difference, and division of labour, between political authorities and laypeople in polis,
turns into a bilateral either/or opposition between the elites and the masses. He critiqued the young Lasswell
as adopting the elitist equation: ‘politics=the study of changing value hierarchy=influence and influential=elite
or few’ (Easton, 1950: 462). Following Pareto, the young Lasswell considered policy a rational game for elites
only. The young Easton sensed that the older Lasswell endeavoured to break away from this elitist equation
by trying to get away from identifying authority with ‘power over', hegemony and legitimate domination. The
older Lasswell could see that although political authorities will always consist of the few, this does not in any
way imply that the few must possess most power and knowledge. As the young Easton argues:
If the same reasoning had been used about stealing, an example which Pareto himself cites, then
from the fact that the thieving capacity is distributed in the form of a pyramid, the clearly invalid con-
clusion would have to be drawn that the greater part of the loot is necessarily obtained by the few
best thieves. Of course, in contemporary society the few thieves at the top may quite easily accumu-
late the greater part of stolen wealth. But in the last analysis it is a question for factual investigation
as to how much of the loot they actually do get. Similarly, where actual supremacy lies, that is, who
has the greatest power at any time, is a matter for empirical research. (Easton, 1950: 466–7)
Thus, the young Easton adopted Lasswell's claim that ‘the political’ is about outputs before inputs, but he
wanted to find a way to render the mature Lasswell's insight that democratic authority must provide for recip-
rocal power, knowledge, trust and respect more analytically distinct. The young Lasswell revealed a tendency
to consider technocratic expertise more important to handling policy problems and risks than democratic en-
gagement. To the young Easton, making and implementing policy is not only about having expertise, but also
about possessing the practical wisdom and intuition required to conduct significant and relevant actions that
can do well for people. As Aristotle emphasizes: ‘A city [or system] is good in virtue of the goodness of the
citizens who have a share in its constitution’ (1995: 282).
Bringing the Classical Greek Polis Back into Policy Analysis

The young Easton embraces Aristotle's understanding of polis as a praxis involving everybody in its (re)con-
stitution as subjects to a political authority relationship. The difference only is that the mature Easton distin-
guishes a political community in its general minimalist sense as partaking in a political division of labour from
democratic political community as defined by Aristotle's ethics of the good and happy life (Bang, 2009). Eas-
ton developed this distinction between political community as a general political condition of existence, and
the special, irreducible forms in which it occurs in time-space to overcome the fact–value divide that he de-
tected in the young Lasswell's policy analysis. Easton saw Lasswell as a scholar struggling against himself.
The technocrat and social scientist in Lasswell pushed him towards abjuring values, treating them either as
objects of desire or as amenable to scientific validation. Thus, the classical dream of self-government of and
by the members of polis themselves vanishes in a puff of smoke. However, when the mature Lasswell begins
to commit himself more seriously to the linking of collective decision-making to political communication in the
public realm, he imperceptibly begins to undermine his earlier elitist equation. Instead he tries to complement
his rational policy orientation with a more commonsensical everyday approach to democracy as being about
the exercise of self-governance in, and through, a political action community:
In place of his insistent attention to the arrival, survival, and composition of the elite, his interest now
shifts to the parts of the political process that might make it possible for the people to challenge and
limit the power of bureaucracy. (Easton, 1950: 468–9)
The mature Lasswell begins to acknowledge that democracy carries an ethical obligation to practising one's
freedom in, and through, joint involvement in identifying, pursuing and resolving one's common concerns
(Habermas, 2015). Democracy, Lasswell could suddenly see, is not only about rational decision and action
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but also about how laypeople are constantly challenging and problematizing expertise in, and through, their
more sensuous and spontaneous everyday practices. Thus, the technocratic elitist in Lasswell begins to wa-
ver and revise his rational position.
Firstly, he acknowledges that ‘there must be greater awareness of the role that conceptual principles play in
research':
The assumptions of a framework, unavowed or explicit, may so compel research in one direction
that the theories and facts discovered may not be relevant to the more urgent purposes of society.
(Easton, 1950: 476)
Secondly, Lasswell becomes conscious that:
If a social discipline is to contribute to the understanding of social policy it is not enough that it con-
fines itself to the search for the ‘pure’ truth. So long as the plain truth was the objective, values –
could and did creep in through the back door even though they appeared to have been suppressed.
(Easton, 1950: 476)
Thirdly, Lasswell begins to recognize that a politics of truth hang together with democratic policy-making and
implementation, especially when facing a crisis situation:
If the survival of society were guaranteed under any eventualities, then the social sciences could
afford to tolerate research that was indifferent to the framework within which it was cast. But when
the threat of self-destruction hangs over the world, the urgency of social problems demands a recon-
sideration of the link between the conceptual framework in each social science and the utility of the
results of that science for the attainment, preservation, and extension of the goals upon which men
have agreed. (Easton, 1950: 476)
Finally, the young Easton sensed a fourth implicit challenge in the mature Lasswell's democratic policy analy-
sis:
[T]here appears in embryo the further claim that even the goals upon which social policy must be
based can be established with the procedures of a fully developed science of man. (Easton, 1950:
476)
Mediating between Facts and Values

The young Easton began to ponder Lasswell's last bold claim noted above in his emerging theoretical ap-
proach to political systems persistence. He realized that a political system cannot itself articulate, pursue and
reach its goals; only its members can do so. However, because of its intrinsic transformative capacity, a polit-
ical system can keep its ongoing processes of decision and action inherently open to its members’ new goals
and directions. A political system, as the mature Lasswell also argues, does not, like an individual organism,
regulate itself according to a biological code or formative principle. It is coded and given its formative prin-
ciples through the situated and contingent interventions of its members in its ongoing processes of decision
and action.
An ethically informed science of the political system is ultimately about demonstrating what makes democracy
possible as government of, by, for and with ‘the people'. It follows that empirically oriented general political
theory is not principally concerned with what the political is, or ought to be, but rather with what the political is

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not; what it could be. Only by establishing a creative alliance between facts and values, can the possibility of
a democracy as founded on both episteme, techne and phronesis be theorized and applied to practice (Bang,
2015). This merely requires that people, as historically situated political subjects, reciprocally accept and rec-
ognize that just as a political system most generally is about handling differences of all kinds, democracy is
most specifically about showing mutual trust in and respect of such difference.
Hence, the democratic imaginary can be claimed to be the only one which has a potential for including every-
one in a political system's continuous constitution and reconstitution. All other political imaginaries exclude
some members from partaking in this constitution, whether by reference to their culture, class, ethnicity, na-
tionality, race, sex, gender or religion. A political system, which is founded on reciprocal acceptance and
recognition of difference on the part of both political authorities and laypeople in the political community, would
merely exclude those who do not accept and recognize difference.
The Tensions between Bureaucracy, Technocracy and Democracy

President Donald J. Trump's conflict-driven policies for ‘Making America Great Again’ can serve to illustrate
the young Easton's critique of elitism. Trump's nativist populism is principally targeted towards stopping the
cosmopolitan global elite's undermining of the nation as the home of the ‘pure’ people (Bang, 2018). Accord-
ing to ‘Trumpism', this technocratic and science-based global elitism has, by allowing and facilitating the free
movement of ‘professionals’ in the global knowledge economy, opened the sluice gates for uncontrollable im-
migration and illegal aliens into the homeland of ‘we the people'. Trump is using bureaucracy as well as his
people movement as his ‘personal army’ to smoke out ‘the global elite’ from all its ‘policy holes’ within na-
tional policy domains like health, environment, education and, of course, immigration. The intention is to stop
the undermining of central government and leaderships by the global meritocracy of networking and collabo-
rating policy elites. The young Easton's critique of Lasswell indicates that this takes us out of the frying pan
and right into the fire. Liberal democracy is besieged by these two opposed hegemonic forces, leaning on
global, science-based technocracy and national, people-based bureaucracy, respectively. On the one side,
Trump seems justified in critiquing the global policy elite of having uncoupled itself completely from laypeople
in the political community. It makes only ‘the professionals’ count in the constitution of policy, what in turn has
contributed to depoliticizing policy, atomizing the nation, and depriving ‘the people’ of its sovereignty. On the
other side, in trying to stop this global elite domination by (re)politicizing major parts of bureaucracy and the
citizenry in the pursuit of hegemony, the politics of the strongman that haunted democracy in the 1930s is
once again attempting to take over from democratic law, morality and ethics. As the young Easton indicates
above, a technocracy set free from the ethics of polis is indeed as great a danger to democracy as is a bu-
reaucracy set free from democratic morality and law. In any case, what suffers is democracy as a political re-
lationship between elites and laypeople founded on reciprocal acceptance and recognition of difference (see
Table 13.1).
Table 13.1 Bureaucracy, technocracy and democracy

Bureaucracy Technocracy Democracy
Politicization/
Issue Politicization Depoliticization
Problematization
Power Hierarchy Meritocracy Circularity
Knowledge Rational Rational Practical/Prudential
Strategic manipulation Strategic communication
Domination Mob rule
and deception and management
Freedom Autonomy to pursue Autonomy to achieve suc- Emancipation from domination and au-
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own interests cess tonomy to make a difference
The mature Lasswell's democratic policy analysis is primarily addressed to overcoming the kind of manipu-
lation and deception that derives from a politicizing bureaucracy which is only loyal to itself and which only
pursues its own special interests. The younger Easton moves a step further by emphasizing how democratic
critique must also be addressed to problematizing the depoliticizing and evidence-based technocracy's elitist
presupposition that the few always knows best. Technocracy does not dominate in, and through, deforma-
tions and reifications of democratic discourses and practices; it is much subtler in its exercise of domination,
making use of competence development and nudging to get people to do what they otherwise would not have
done. Technocracy is global and scientific in nature (Castells et al., 2006); it aims at ‘adjusting’ all individu-
als and institutions to seek instrumental success above all else. This is also why many technocrats consider
bureaucracy as such a threat to improving policy efficiency and policy effectiveness. Bureaucracy is all about
state sovereignty, order, hierarchy and one-way commands; it is by nature inflexible and rigid in its organi-
zation. It must be depoliticized by all available means and subjected to evidence-based administration, tech-
nocrats hold, if it is not to become an authoritarian force, undermining global competition and growth.
Had Easton been alive, he would surely have warned us against the hollowing out of discursive and practice-
oriented democracy by the depoliticizing global technocracy and the politicizing national bureaucracy. Their
internal conflict can only extend and deepen the opposition between globalism and nativism, innovation and
tradition, achievement and equality, the reasonable and the emotional, and so forth. Following Easton means
recognizing how a ‘freestanding’ technocracy or bureaucracy necessarily undermines the transformative ca-
pacity of authority in terms of which political authorities and laypeople in the political community are coupled
together inside the political system. If laypeople in the political community did not share in this transformative
capacity, political authorities and policy elites would be left in the dark as to how best to make use of laypeo-
ple to identify and handle the conflicts, risks, challenges and problems that confront them in their everyday
practices. Political authority in its democratic sense is not only committed to protect and approximate people's
liberties equally; it is also dedicated to nourishing and expanding people's capacities to govern and take care
of themselves.
Democracy as Equal Freedom and as Self-Governance

The depoliticizing technocracy is widely discussed within the new institutionalisms (March and Olsen, 1989,
1995), governance analysis (Bang, 2003) and governmentality studies (Dean, 2007), just as the politicizing
bureaucracy has continuously been a concern for advocates of critical theory (Habermas, 1987), deliberative
democracy (Dryzek, 2002) and discursive democracy (Laclau, 1990). The young Easton's double critique of
bureaucracy and technocracy indicates how these more institutional steering perspectives should be connect-
ed to formulating new, more connective approaches to recoupling political authorities, the political regime and
the political community (Bang, 2016). Both politicization and depoliticization should be more explicitly consid-
ered from the vantage point of laypeople in their diverse everyday practices in the political community. On this
level, the young Easton seems to have much in common with Habermas, who also argues that ethical claims
to concrete action by associated individuals go beyond what citizens would be obliged to do by institutional-
ized law and morality:
Moral commands should be obeyed out of respect for the underlying [democratic] norm itself without
regard to the future compliance of other persons, whereas the citizen's obedience to the law is con-
ditional on the fact that the sanctioning power of the state ensures general compliance. Fulfilling an
ethical obligation, by contrast, can neither be enforced nor categorically required. (Habermas, 2015:
21)

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Easton helps by illuminating how Habermas lacks a distinction between authority as legitimate domination
and as facilitating communicative governance to accomplish his mediation between (1) what people in polis
must accept to obey to enjoy their abstract liberties, and (2) what they can only voluntary accept and recog-
nize as required to practice their freedoms on their own everyday terms and conditions.
People's obedience to democratic law and morality is required to (re 1) hinder the politicizing bureaucracy
from distorting and repressing the struggles for equal freedom. In contrast, (re 2) people's voluntary accep-
tance and recognition of the communicated message of political authority is required to expand self-gover-
nance and avoid that they are simply nudged by technocrats to do what they would otherwise not have done.
Habermas does himself, implicitly make this distinction between equal freedom and self-governance, when
arguing that:
What differentiates both ethical expectations and appeals to solidarity from law and morality is the
peculiar reference to a ‘joint involvement’ in a network of social relations. (Habermas, 2015: 23)
To Easton such joint involvement is not peculiar at all but characteristic of how members of a democratic polit-
ical community are networking based on their mutual acceptance and recognition of their intrinsic differences.
Even the vision of such a democratic political community is today dissolving in front of our eyes. Either the
members of the political community are subjugated to a global technocracy arguing that ‘the professionals’
know best, or they are haunted by nativist strongmen making use of bureaucracy to impose their false imag-
inary of a ‘pure’ people on their everyday practices. The young Easton points to a way for democracy out of
this morass:
With a general empirical theory woven into a moral theory, we would then have completed the new
or post-modern image of social science. We would then have returned to the kind of knowledge
prevalent in all ages prior to the late nineteenth century, but at a higher level of understanding and
empirical confirmation … We would be clearly aware of the responsibilities and potentialities of each
kind of knowledge without fearing to utilize each separately or together as the situation seemed to
demand. (Easton, 1955a: 18)
The demand for such a postmodern political analysis should be obvious in a political situation where fears of
failure and of everything foreign are permeating every pore of society. It is time we begin to reconsider how a
systems approach to political life as a whole can help to reinstall the vision of the good and happy life intro-
duced by Aristotle in Classical Greece.
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• systems analysis
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n16

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Max Weber and the Weberian Tradition in Political
Science
Contributors: Andreas Anter & Hinnerk Bruhns

Chapter Title: "Max Weber and the Weberian Tradition in Political Science"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Max Weber and the Weberian Tradition in Political Science

Andreas Anter Hinnerk Bruhns
Introduction
As one of the most influential political thinkers of the modern age, Weber offers starting points for the most
diverse directions of political science. There's hardly a textbook that would not refer to him. With his positions
on state and legitimacy, power and domination, parliament and government, he shaped the political science
debate sustainably. He is one of the classics of the discipline – texts such as Politik als Beruf (Politics as a
Profession) (Weber, 1992 [1919]) are among its canonical texts. Weber's reception is not only limited to posi-
tions and concepts, but also extends to theory formation and empirical research. It is therefore no coincidence
that a ‘Weberian tradition’ developed in international political science. However, one cannot assume that this
would be a homogeneous direction or a ‘school'. On the contrary, the different representatives of this ‘Weber-
ian tradition’ are as disparate as Weber's work. Given this diversity, the question arises as to which varieties
of Weberian analysis can be distinguished in political science or whether one can speak – as in sociology –
of a ‘Weber paradigm'. With Lawrence Scaff, the question is: ‘are there essential characteristics attached to
Weberian analysis?’ (Scaff, 2014: 3).
Early Weberians
From Weimar to America

Weber's effect during his lifetime, as well as in the first decades after his death, was comparatively small. A
greater resonance was only reserved for his writings on Protestant ethics and the question of value judge-
ment, as well as his series of articles such as Parliament and Government in Germany under a New Polit-
ical Order or the lecture Politics as a Profession. In retrospect, prominent figures such as the two German
Chancellors Helmut Schmidt and Kurt Georg Kiesinger or a constitutional father such as Carlo Schmid later
reported on the lasting effect of reading Politics as a Profession during their student days. Theodor Heuss,
the first German Federal President, already felt the impact of the lecture as sensational and recommended
that professional politicians should read Politics as a Profession.
The collected essays edited by Marianne Weber, including the Collected Political Writings (Weber, 1921), did
not meet with much response in the Weimar years. Weber was quoted, but hardly received, and if so, then not
necessarily positively. An important exception from Weber's own generation was Otto Hintze (Bruhns, 1996).
The generation immediately following Weber was sceptical or hostile towards him. This applies not only to
sociology and Weimar state theory, but also to political science, which slowly began to develop in Germany
at that time. Among the exceptional figures are Sigmund Neumann with his party analysis (Neumann, 1932);
Karl Mannheim, who in his draft of a political science in Ideology and Utopia repeatedly referred to Weber and
the ‘truth of Max Weber's words’ (Mannheim, 1929: 171, 67); and Siegfried Landshut, who meticulously occu-
pied himself with Weber; moreover, he was the first to describe the ‘rationalization’ as ‘Max Weber's research
topic’ (Landshut, 1929: 35ff.; Landshut, 1930).
Hermann Heller in particular presented the advanced draft of a political science with his – posthumously pub-
lished – Staatslehre, in which he assigned Weber a central place (Heller, 1934: 13ff.). Heller can be called
the founder of the ‘Weberian tradition'. This orientation can already be seen in his definition of the state as
an order, which could only endure if it could enforce its ‘order against other social orders’ (Heller, 1934: 268)
and at the same time has the corresponding legitimacy: ‘Where a self-asserting state power is not wanted,
there is no state’ (Heller, 1934: 229). With this, he confirmed Weber's finding that a state exists only as long

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as ‘people orient their actions on the idea that it exists or should exist in such a way’ (Weber, 2013: 161–2).
The Weberian approach of his state theory is also evident in the historical explanations, when Heller makes
it clear that statehood is an achievement of modernity which must not be projected into earlier epochs, but
only begins with the monopolization of violence, the streamlining of the bureaucratic apparatus and the unifi-
cation of the legal order (Heller, 1934: 141ff.). His representation reads over long distances like a paraphrase
of Weber's positions. When he sees the monopolization of legitimate physical violence as the ‘hallmark of the
modern state’ (Heller, 1934: 152), he joins Weber's concept of the state, which marks a turning point in the
history of state theory and establishes a historical-sociological viewpoint that has asserted itself international-
ly over the decades (cf. Anter, 2014: 25ff.). Heller's orientation is most evident when he defines his approach
as ‘reality science', which aims to understand the peculiarity of the life around us (Heller, 1934: 62). Thus, he
also joins Weber in programmatic terms, who understands his approach as a ‘science of reality’ that aims to
understand the ‘lived reality within which we are placed’ (Weber, 2004 [1904]: 374).
The appeal to ‘reality’ is a permanent feature in Weberian literature. In the post-war period, the German Amer-
ican political scientist and Weber student Karl Loewenstein took up this line when he saw it as the task of
political science to make a contribution to the ‘reality of the power process’ (Loewenstein, 1957: 147). He
saw political science as a science of reality, with a particular focus on its epistemological foundations. Weber
had demanded that every scientist should disclose his own values, since every insight is always subjective
(Weber, 2004 [1904]: 366, 383). This is the core of his often distorted value judgement postulate. Weber was
therefore not concerned with an ‘objective’ reality, but with the fact that science should not be exhausted in
sterile norm analysis. That was entirely in line with Loewenstein's intentions. He thought that political science
should not do ‘mental acrobatics', but should focus on the ‘reality’ of the political order (Loewenstein, 1952:
433). In German political science, Weber's perspective was referred to as ‘constitutional realism’ and repre-
sented by leading figures such as Ernst Fraenkel (1961: xv).
Loewenstein's Weberian attitude also led him to his passionate opposition to the thesis that Weber, with his
positions on ‘plebiscitary leader democracy', had been an intellectual precursor of Hitler. This ‘pioneer’ thesis,
which the young Wolfgang J. Mommsen had put forward in 1959 in his dissertation (Mommsen, 1984), met
with a strong response at that time, all the more so as Weber had until then been regarded as one of the few
great thinkers by means of whom the young Federal Republic of Germany could continue a positive German
tradition beyond National Socialist Germany and the failed Weimar Republic. In this sense, the first German
Federal President, Theodor Heuss, had formulated his foreword to the new edition of Weber's Political Writ-
ings in 1958. The ‘pioneer’ thesis that Karl Löwith had already advocated in 1939–40, however, was able to
establish itself in academic discourse.1 The thesis was, of course, untenable, since it turned Weber's political
thinking into its opposite. Beyond the defensive attitude, a typical element of the ‘Weberian tradition’ can be
recognized in the debate: that it mostly reacted to ideological distortions of reality.
Like Weber, Loewenstein also regarded power as a central category of political science. For Weber it was the
central criterion of the political: he generally saw political questions as questions of maintaining and distribut-
ing power and therefore defined politics as the striving for power in the state and between states. Loewenstein
similarly devoted himself to the problem of power and made it clear that politics is ‘nothing else but the strug-
gle for power’ (Loewenstein, 1957: 3). For him, political reality was decisively shaped by power processes. His
conviction that society is ‘a system of power relations’ (Loewenstein, 1955: 247) has meanwhile condensed
into certainty in the more recent theory of power.
German-Speaking Emigration

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In Germany, the various strands of a Weberian tradition in the social sciences were cut off after 1933. The Na-
tional Socialist policy towards university and science left no room for developing social sciences in the sense
of Weber. Numerous scientists who were acquainted with his work emigrated, especially to America. Most of
these emigrants did not return to Germany after the end of the war, as, for example, Paul Honigsheim, Hans
Gerth, Karl Mannheim, Karl Loewenstein, Alexander von Schelting and Alfred Schütz. Others, such as Ernst
Fraenkel, returned and played a major role in the re-establishment of political science in Germany (Söllner,
2006: 160ff.).
If it can be said for sociology that Weber returned to Germany via America after the end of the Second
World War, this does not apply equally to political science. In the Weimar Republic political science did not
yet exist at universities as an institutionalized discipline. Politics was taught at the faculties of Staatswis-
senschaften, together with economics and law. But German emigrants succeeded in integrating themselves
into American political science and to influence it, even if they were actually law graduates, like Arnold Brecht,
Ernst Fraenkel, Otto Kirchheimer, Hans J. Morgenthau or Franz Neumann (Söllner, 1996).
Franz Neumann emphasized the importance of the United States for the continuity of a Weberian tradition.
In his structural analysis of the National Socialist regime published in 1944 (Behemoth: The Structure and
Practice of National Socialism, 1933 – 1944) he combined Marxist and Weberian approaches. Neumann com-
mented later:
It is characteristic of German social science that it virtually destroyed Weber by an almost exclusive
concentration upon the discussion of his methodology. Neither his demand for empirical studies nor
his insistence upon the responsibility of the scholar to society were heeded. It is here, in the United
States, that Weber really came to life. (Neumann, 1953: 22)
The reception of Weber the ‘political economist’ and the ‘political sociologist’ in parts of the emigrant com-
munity, especially at the New School for Social Research, was counterbalanced by the ‘non-reception’ in
the Critical Theory, transported from Frankfurt to Manhattan (Scaff, 2011: 241–2). Although elements of the
political Weber found their way into the American discussion (the theory of bureaucracy, the concept of the
‘rational-legal authority', the thesis of disenchantment, etc.), it was the sociologist Weber who made his ca-
reer in America, the Weber of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Weber, 1930 [1904/05, 2nd
ed. 1920]). This work, translated by Talcott Parsons in 1930, tapped unintentionally ‘the most fundamental of
American narratives; the possibility of emancipation in pursuit of a better life'. In America, it was read as ‘a
story about ourselves’ (Scaff, 2011: 198). David Beetham summed up Weber's paradoxical reception in the
Anglo-American world as follows: profound impact on sociology – relative neglect within political science, but
with an indirect influence ‘through the dissemination of his theory of competitive leadership democracy via the
work of Schumpeter and others’ (Beetham, 1985: 2).
In the founding years of the Federal Republic of Germany, German emigrants played an important role in
the development of political science, especially in the American Zone of Occupation. The familiarity of emi-
grants such as Franz Neumann, Ernst Fraenkel, Karl Loewenstein or Hans Gerth, Albert Salomon and Hein-
rich Blücher with Weber's work however, had less significance for the revival of Weberian traditions in the new
German political science influenced by America than the anti-Weberian influence of others, such as above all,
Leo Strauss (Natural Right and History, 1953), who accused Weber of nihilism and indifference to the norma-
tive aspect of the political, and Eric Voegelin (The New Science of Politics, 1952). Despite his initial proximity
to Weber, Voegelin has conveyed a completely distorted image of Weber as an arch-positivist based solely on
a misunderstanding of the concept of value freedom: ‘The movement of methodology, as far as political sci-
ence is concerned, ran to the end of its immanent logic in the person and the work of Max Weber’ (Voegelin,
1952: 13). Weber ‘participated in the destruction of science’ (ibid.: 12). Strauss and Voegelin had more influ-
ence than others like Brecht, whose Political Theory (1959), though entirely based on a critical assessment

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of the debate on values in science, radically rejected the Weber interpretation of Strauss and Voegelin.
Non-Weberian Political Science in Post-War Germany: A ‘Science for Democ-

racy'
Weber's marginal role in German political science in the 1950s and 1960s has various reasons. On the one
hand, it can be explained by the fact that as an academic discipline it ‘did not develop in an inner-scientific
process of differentiation of subject areas and disciplines'. From 1949 on it was ‘imposed on the universities
with a political-pedagogical intent and soft governmental power’ (Behrmann, 1998: 448). The re-establish-
ment of democracy, under the influence of the Western victorious powers, and the re-establishment of political
science coincided and gave the latter a normative orientation.
On the other hand, most of the remigrants who were involved in the establishment of political science in the
early Federal Republic now represented less of a German scientific tradition than an American one (cf. Söll-
ner, 2006: 185–6); only a few – Fraenkel is an important example – continued regarding Weber as a ‘spiritual
mentor'.
However, in the general intellectual spectrum of the new German democracy, Weber was initially considered
as one of the very few great personalities who could serve as a bridge, beyond the Nazi regime, to honourable
periods and traditions of German history.
For the new political science in Germany, however, not only Weber's distorted image as a methodologist and
representative of a radical pluralism of values posed a problem, but also recent interpretations of Weber's
political positions from his Inaugural Address as professor of economics in Freiburg in 1895 on to the First
World War and the Revolution of 1918–19. Criticism of this had been voiced early on. Weber's intense com-
mitment to the democratization of Germany between 1917 and 1919 was obscured by interpretations of his
political thinking that drew a direct line from his ideas about political leadership (plebiscitary leader democra-
cy) to Hitler and National Socialism. However, this criticism, expressed by Karl Löwith as early as 1939–40
from Japanese exile, did not initially meet with much response. The decisive break came in 1959 with the
publication of Mommsen's book on Max Weber and German Politics 1890–1920 (1984). Mommsen insisted
heavily on Weber's nationalism and his understanding of international relations (IR) in terms of power politics.
In a political science that considered itself as a ‘Demokratiewissenschaft’ and as being positively involved in
the process of democratization of Germany, a Max Weber who had fought fiercely for the democratization of
Germany during the First World War and the Revolution and had made important contributions to shaping the
constitution of the Weimar Republic, paradoxically had no place. His relationship to democracy was perceived
as ambivalent: Weber's commitment to parliamentary democracy was not based on normative and philosoph-
ical ideas, but on historically founded rational considerations about the form of government that on the one
hand provided Germany as a modern industrial nation with the means to assert itself in the competition of
the ‘power states', and on the other hand guaranteed citizens a minimum of political equality and participa-
tion. In the 1950s and 1960s, however, Weber's concept of politics, his (alleged) ‘pluralism of values’ and his
(misunderstood) ‘postulate of freedom of value judgement posed a threat to philosophical-normative political
science’ (Hübinger et al., 1990: 184).
In the early 1960s in Germany, the actual Weber renaissance took place in sociology and social history. As to
politics and the political, the discussion did not focus on his ideas about parliamentary democracy but almost
exclusively on Mommsen's interpretation of Weber's nationalism, his attitude to imperialism and his alleged
theory of plebiscitary leader democracy, which, according to the accusations, had helped to mentally attune
the German people to the National Socialist dictatorship. The result of this was that at the Heidelberg Con-
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gress of the German Society of Sociology, organized in honour of Weber's centenary in 1964, the discussion
on the political dimension of Weber's work was tailored entirely to the topic of power politics, for which Ray-
mond Aron had been invited as a keynote speaker. Aron's Weber interpretation ended in an aporia: ‘Weber
after all betrayed himself in his theory of politics for power was never his aim, neither for himself, nor for the
nation. […] The man and the philosopher leave us an inheritance undiminished by the mistakes of the theo-
retician of power politics’ (Aron, 1971: 100).
The comments and responses by Carl J. Friedrich, Hans Paul Bahrdt, Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Karl W.
Deutsch, Eduard Baumgarten and Adolf Arndt (Stammer, 1971: 101–30) to Aron's lecture at the 1964 Con-
gress of Sociology raised a series of highly interesting questions with regard to Weber that only later found
their way into political science research. An interesting example is the observation made by Arndt: ‘We should
not forget that [Weber] put three questions to himself and to us: How can we make the people political? […]
How can we instruct parliament? How can we find politicians of the right calibre?’ (Arndt, 1971: 130). These
questions were only taken up two decades later by Wilhelm Hennis as central dimensions of Weber's work
for political science (Hennis, 2000a, 2000b), while in the 1960s and 1970s Weber was deliberately received
‘one-sidedly'. Political scientists largely ignored the research on Weber and his work in the neighbouring dis-
ciplines. Also, research controversies about Weber as a political theorist were more likely to be carried out
in the leading sociological journal, the Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, which René
König had made to a kind of Weber forum, than in the journals of political science (Hübinger et al., 1990,
189ff.).
Strauss’ and Voegelin's far-reaching critique of science at the interfaces of German and American political
science, ‘from whose point of view Max Weber in particular had misled modern political science’ (Behrmann,
1998: 474), was reinforced by the effects of partial and biased, often second-hand reading, of Mommsen's
study on Weber and German politics. It was strengthened by the sharp attacks at the Heidelberg Congress
in 1964 by Herbert Marcuse: ‘In the development of capitalist rationality, irrationality thus becomes reason’
(Marcuse, 1971 [1965]: 137, emphasis in the original) and by Jürgen Habermas, who turned Carl Schmitt into
Weber's ‘natural son’ and underlined that ‘viewed in the light of the history of influences, the decisionist ele-
ment in Weber's sociology did not break the spell of ideology, but strengthened it’ (Habermas, 1971: 66).
Parallel to such normative and ideological oppositions to Weber, there was also, in Political Science, a real
interest in Weber, especially for the ‘Sociology of rule’ in Economy and Society, and for political writings such
as ‘Suffrage and Democracy', ‘Parliament and Government', ‘Politics as Vocation and Profession', ‘Germany's
Future Form of Government'. This interest was reinforced by the fact that Johannes Winckelmann had intro-
duced a ‘Sociology of the State’ as a final chapter in the 4th edition (1956) of Weber's Economy and Society.
Winckelmann had compiled this ‘Staatssoziologie’ from Weber's political writings of the years 1917–19 and
from his lecture on economic history held in Munich in 1919–20. Weber's political writings, sometimes de-
valued as ‘political of the day', found their way into other languages earlier via this ‘sociology of the state',
translated as a part of Economy and Society, or through translations of the political writings.
Treatises such as ‘Suffrage and Democracy in Germany’ or ‘Parliament and Government in Germany under a
New Political Order’ were already put in a row with the Contrat social by Loewenstein in 1920. Nevertheless,
in political science and its neighbouring disciplines the separation between Weber's ‘political’ and ‘scientific’
writings has long been elevated to a principle. Only Hennis, as late as 1987, made it clear that such a di-
vorce of the work is untenable (Hennis, 1987: 224). Since then, the traditional separation has been tacitly
abandoned. Similarly hesitant has been the attitude of political scientists to the historical and comparative di-
mensions in Weber's sociologies of rule and state.
Weberians in Contemporary Political Science

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Max Weber's Central Question

It was Hennis, who made a pioneering contribution to Weberian political science by examining Weber's central
question. As a young scholar, he had fought Weber vigorously, blaming him for the positivist departure of
political science from the Sinnfrage [question of sense]. Thus, he condemned Weber's political science as
empty and worthless (Hennis, 1959: 20–1). In his criticism, he incomprehensibly followed the distorted Weber
image of Strauss, who regarded Weber as a relativist (Strauss, 1953: 44). Hennis later recalled self-critically
that political science at that time ‘under the opinion leadership of its authoritative “founding fathers” refused to
accept Weber positively’ (Hennis, 2003: 5).
In the 1980s, however, Hennis radically turned his Weber image from head to toe: in his book Max Weber's
Central Question (first 1987), he saw Weber in a completely new light, namely as an ‘authority’ of political
science (Hennis, 2000a: 86). With an unparalleled interpretive power and a refreshing polemic, he shook the
prevailing doctrine that the ‘occidental rationalization process’ was Weber's central theme. In contrast, he
disclosed the anthropological question: the question of the fate of mankind [‘Menschentum'] in modernity. In
doing so, Hennis opposed the unhistorical approach in the prevailing Weber orthodoxy – and returned the
existential dimension of Weber's work to political science. His gripping reinterpretation caused an internation-
al stir and catapulted him into the premier ranks of Weber research. Hennis vigorously protested against a
de-historicized Weber reception, presented in diagrams, and demanded, ‘Weber has to be read afresh and
“without prejudice”. And that means the entire corpus of his work’ (ibid.: 5). His appeal did not go unheard. It
was particularly popular with those Weberians who could not make friends with a de-historicized and colour-
less Weber à la Habermas. In today's literature of political theory and international relations, for example,
Weber's explicitly nationalist positions are discussed much more openly than before (cf. Lebow, 2017b).
Legitimacy: A Weberian Category

Weber's interest focuses on the question: Why do people obey other people? His answer is that domination
can only assert itself permanently if it is considered legitimate. He thus placed the category of legitimacy at
the centre of political science. Today, the discipline is concerned with the question of why claims to political
order are followed. In any case, claims for order cannot be based on naked violence, otherwise they would
not be permanently observed (Weber, 2013: 449ff.). Weber's concept of legitimacy was a successful concept,
since almost all investigations into the relationship between state and legitimacy have since been based on
Weber – whether critical or approving.
The debate reached its first peak in 1975, at the Congress of the German Political Science Association, which
was dedicated to the issue of the so-called ‘Legitimation Crisis of the Political System'. The topic of the Con-
gress was inspired by Jürgen Habermas’ book on the ‘Legitimation Crisis of Late Capitalism’ [Legitimation-
sprobleme im Spätkapitalismus, 1973], which maintained that the Western political system is short before
its decline. His opponent was Wilhelm Hennis, who argued that there is no such thing as ‘legitimation crisis’
(Hennis, 2009: 77). Moreover, he showed that never before in recent German history had the foundations of
the state ‘been so little questioned and contested as in the era of the Federal Republic’ (Hennis, 2009: 77).
After Congress, Hennis’ lecture was printed in several journals and books and found much discussion, since
it was perceived as a document of political realism against political ideology. The Weberian approach of this
document becomes clear when Hennis explicitly points out: ‘Wherever the category of legitimacy turns up in
modern social sciences it is at root Max Weber's concept’ (ibid.: 89). Hennis’ lecture was a turning point in
the evolution of his political thinking. Moreover, it was a starting point for a new Weberian tradition. In all of
his writing before, he has been criticizing him, whereas he was now considering Weber's state theory as ‘one
of the most acute and earliest decodings of the internal law of development of the modern state’ (ibid.: 89).
Since that time, political science's debates on legitimacy have been shaped by Weber's concepts. In between,

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this is true to various parts of international political science, such as International Relations theory (IR) theory,
political philosophy, Governance studies and European studies.
The category of legitimacy is actually the Archimedean point in Weber's theory of domination. From his point
of view, the question of legitimacy is one of when, how and why the political and legal order is recognized and
respected. It was Weber, who made legitimacy an elementary analytical category for the comprehension of
political and legal order. Legitimacy is the twin of the modern state, which particularly goes for the democratic
constitutional state, which invokes legal principles such as human dignity, liberty and equality, but cannot be
based on higher values and principles. If a state order can only exist as long as it is regarded as legitimate,
an intimate relationship emerges between state and legitimacy, a Weberian perspective that is deployed by
theorists like Patrice Duran (2019).
The fact that the stability of an order can be read off from the degree to which the actions of individuals are
oriented towards the order is also evident in the field of international politics. In his investigation of the effects
of state collapse, Daniel Lambach draws on Weber's concept of legitimacy and comes to the conclusion that
a population's belief in legitimacy is a central factor ‘that determines the success and failure of a state: The
state therefore exists only to the extent that people follow its rules’ (Lambach, 2008: 278). With this, he indeed
agrees with Weber, for whom the existence of an order is based on the people's belief that it should exist: it is
based on legitimacy.
The ‘Weberian State'

The modern state is one of the prominent objectives of today's political science research (see Schlichte and
Gaufman, Chapter 81, this Handbook). The discussion is as vital as it is controversial, since the reality of the
modern state itself can only be described in paradoxical formulas. The varieties of state experience rely on
the heterogeneous manifestations of the state. This causes a central problem of state theory, which is reflect-
ed by Weber, who described the notion of the state as ‘the most complex and interesting case’ of the problem
of concept formation (Weber, 2004 [1904]: 394). Weber defines the state as a political institution that claims
successfully on the ‘monopoly of legitimate physical force’ (Weber, 2004 [1922a]: 356, emphasis in original).
Weber occupies a central position in present-day state theory since he formulated more clearly than anyone
else the monopoly of violence as the elementary criterion of the state. It is no coincidence that he is recog-
nized in the international scientific community as the theorist of the monopoly of force. Weber's concept of the
state seems to be well established (cf. Anter, 2019). As Duncan Kelly points out, it is ‘quite simply the most
commonly used working definition found in contemporary historical and political writing’ (Kelly, 2008: 4).
Weber's theory of the state, however, is not limited to the monopoly of violence, but includes a series of crite-
ria, among them the institutional and action-based character of the state. For Weber, the state is a ‘business
enterprise’ (Weber, 1984 [1918]: 451), which he defines as ‘continuous purposive action of a particular kind’
(Weber, 2013: 209). This perspective was closely bound up to his action-based theory of the state: that the
state ‘only covers a course of human action of a particular kind’ (Weber, 2013: 440). He goes even a step
further, when inserting the category of ‘chance’ before that of action, for the state ‘consists exclusively and
solely of the chance that action occurred, occurs or will occur’ (Weber, 2013: 177). Weber concludes that a
state ceases to exist sociologically with the disappearance of the chance that particular forms of action might
occur (Weber, 2013: 177).
Thus, the ‘chance’ becomes the condition of possibility of the state. The ‘chance', which plays a central role
in Weber's writing (Anter, 2014: 88ff.), has an empirical payoff: if the chance of the state is quantifiable, there
must be different degrees of the state, which can eventually be measured empirically. Such a ‘gradual’ con-
ception of the state corresponds to the gradual validation of orders. Hence, an order depends on the chance
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that action ‘can be oriented by an actors’ conception of the existence of a legitimate order', so that ‘there
exists no absolute alternative between the validation and the non-validation of a particular order. There are
instead fluid transitions from one to the other’ (Weber, 2013: 183–4, emphasis in original).
For current state research in comparative political science and international relations, Weber's gradualist ap-
proach offers the conception for an empirical analysis of the different degrees of statehood. For some time,
a ‘Weberian approach’ has been established in international state theory (vom Hau, 2015: 135ff.). Even the
state itself is referred to as a ‘modern Weberian state’ (Lemay-Hébert et al., 2014: 7). It is a rare case in mod-
ern social science that an object is labelled with the name of the theorist who is monitoring it.
The Weberian approach is represented in international state theory by authors as diverse as Theda Skocpol
(1985) and Gianfranco Poggi (2010). Stefan Breuer's study ‘The State’ (Der Staat, 1998) with its typology and
genealogy of the modern state, following Weber, is one of the important recent state analyses. At the same
time, he is among the important Weber interpreters of our time. The current debate turns particularly to the
role of the monopoly of violence in the processes of state-building, its function in securing domestic peace,
and the threatening fact that the monopoly is constantly endangered in the European states and does not
even exist in many parts of the world. Particularly, the global danger of Islamic terrorism has rendered the
monopoly of violence in many states as highly tenuous (cf. Laqueur, 2017).
The monopoly of violence is not least essential for contemporary democratic states since it guarantees that
legitimate decisions have the chance to be enforced. This is particularly evident from a Weberian perspective
(cf. Anter, 2019). Without a secure statehood, no stable democracy can emerge, as Wolfgang Merkel shows
based on failed states, since without an efficient state administration, ‘democratic decisions could not be ad-
equately implemented’ (Merkel, 2013: 300). Arthur Benz also refers to Weber when he makes it clear that
the modern state is not a static entity, but that today's ‘multinational multi-level state’ is exposed to increasing
dangers in view of the progressive dissolution of boundaries, in particular the abolition of the control function
of state borders (Benz, 2013: 68). He argues in favour of strengthening the institutions of the nation-state in
relation to the multilevel structure of the EU, above all the courts and the administrations (Benz, 2013: 70).
Charisma, Patrimonialism and Bureaucracy: Weberian Issues in Political Sci-

ence
Weber's typology of forms of legitimate rule (legal-rational, traditional, charismatic) has become an important
part of Weberian tradition in social sciences. This does not mean, however, that Weber's scheme is generally
made on the basis of the analysis of political regimes, nor that Weber's types, subtypes and subcategories
have proved to be real stimuli for political science. This statement must be corrected in relation to the con-
cepts of charisma, patrimonialism and bureaucracy.
The concepts of charisma and charismatic domination have made a never-ending career from sociology
through history, religious studies, social psychology to political science, but this has not really contributed to
clarify her instrumental value for the analysis of concrete political configurations. The abundance of works on
the concept of charisma and on the type of charismatic rule has meanwhile developed into a field of its own
in research on Weber.
From the long list of political leader figures to whom the concept of charismatic rule has been applied, early
works on Hitler and the Nazi regime are of particular methodological interest, beginning with ‘The Nazi Party:
Its Leadership and Composition’ (1940) by the German emigrant Hans Gerth, who has played an important
role for the reception of Weber in the Anglo-American world. Other early authors are Ernst Fraenkel (1941)
and Talcott Parsons (1942). The analysis of the charismatic dimension of the National Socialist regime was
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later taken up by political scientists with reference to Weber (e.g. Nyomarkay, 1967). Most interesting from
the viewpoint of methodology are the works of sociologists (Lepsius, 1993 and 2017) or historians (Herbst,
2010). Lepsius examines the conditions for the exercise of charismatic leadership in a complex and differ-
entiated territorial state, taking up suggestions made by Fraenkel. The administrative staff of the charismatic
leader must also fulfil the everyday tasks of a society. With the dissolution of formal coordination procedures
and the lack of institutionalization, the leader has a central role as a coordinating authority. Lepsius describes
an only partially charismatic system of rule, the core of which lay in securing the personalized belief in legit-
imacy, which was syncretistically mixed with elements of formal legality, enriched by elements of traditional
legitimacy (Lepsius, 1993: 115–17).
Another example of differentiated applications of the concept of charisma are Guenther Roth's (1987) analy-
ses of charismatic leadership patterns in authoritarian one-party systems and democratic presidential sys-
tems. In political sociology, the topic of charisma has been pursued under theoretical aspects by Edward Shils
(1965) in relation to charisma as a universal element of persons, strata and institutions, which in times of
crisis intensively and concentrated, but also in everyday life in a diffuse way, gives social orders legitimacy
through transcendence (cf. Utz, 2014). Breuer (1994) emphasized both the order-generating significance of
the charisma and its transformations for the evolution of archaic states and the significance of the ‘charisma
of reason’ in the American and French revolutions.
Early on (Friedrich, 1961), Weber was accused – under the impression of the often misunderstood concept of
value pluralism – not to have sufficiently differentiated between charismatic structures within constitutional or-
ders on the one hand, and dictatorial regimes which searched to acquire plebiscitary legitimacy on the other.
Yet for the 20th century in particular, historians, sociologists and political scientists have analysed a whole
series of charismatic situations with the help of Weber's model of charismatic rule and his concept of rou-
tinization of charisma, i.e. ways of institutionalizing religious or political power after the death of a charismatic
ruler. Weber's ‘theory’ by no means focuses solely on phenomena such as personal charisma or charismatic
legitimacy, the belief in legitimacy. Central concepts for the political science analysis are beside it the ‘rou-
tinization', the follow-up question, the ‘day-to-day interests of the administrative staff and the transformation
of charismatic norms into traditional norms (Weber, 2013: 503–4, emphasis in the original).
After the Second World War, the concept of charismatic rule was often applied to regimes in so-called devel-
oping countries characterized by strong personalities in order to distinguish them from rational-legal bureau-
cratic regimes (Theobald, 1982). In response to this undifferentiated use of terms from Weber's sociology of
rule, Roth (1968) suggested resorting to another term from the typology of domination: patrimonialism.
The concept of patrimonialism has then largely been used, with reference to Weber, to analyse certain forms
of state construction and governance, namely in Africa, Latin America and Asia. The intention was to take ac-
count of various facets of obstacles encountered in the process of democratization and political development
in general. Political and social scientists insisted on aspects as the confusion between the public and pri-
vate spheres, the assimilation between administrative and domestic functions, the recruitment of the agents
of power and of public bureaucracy, are among those who are close to the ruler, who acts in such a manner
as to make it impossible to distinguish between the function and the person holding that function (Fauré and
Médard, 1995: 289–90).
Shmuel N. Eisenstadt questioned the legitimacy of using the term ‘patrimonial', a term derived from the analy-
sis of traditional historic political systems, for analysing modern political systems. He proposed to use the
term ‘patrimonial’ not in order to describe a level of development or differentiation of political regimes, but only
in order to designate a specific way of coping with the major problems of political life ‘which may cut across
different levels of “development” or structural complexity’ (1973: 59). Eisenstadt suggested distinguishing be-
tween traditional (Antiquity, Middle Ages) patrimonial regimes and modern forms of patrimonialism, thereby

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introducing the terms ‘neo-patrimonialism’ and ‘post-patrimonial regimes’ (1973: 13, 46). He saw the essen-
tial differences between patrimonial and neo-patrimonial regimes as being, first, ‘the political problems which
were faced respectively by such traditional and modern regimes', and, second, ‘in close relation to these prob-
lems, the constellations of conditions which could assure the continuity of any specific patrimonial regime’
(1973: 50).
By introducing the term of neo-patrimonialism, Eisenstadt was reacting to a development in the use of the
concept of patrimonialism initially put forward by Roth (1968: 194–206), who had observed that in many new
states, tradition had lost its force as a source of legitimacy without having been replaced by legal, rational
legitimacy. As a consequence, forms of personal rule that did not correspond to any of the three Weber-
ian ideal-types of legitimacy essentially owed their maintenance to material incentives and rewards, notably
cronyism and corruption. To take account of this development, Roth suggested grasping these forms of dom-
ination conceptually by distinguishing between traditional patrimonialism and de-traditionalized, personalized
patrimonialism, later referred to as neo-patrimonialism.
Eisenstadt's term ‘neo-patrimonialism’ has been widely used, but with different accentuations, as for example,
by Jean-François Médard, who distinguishes between ‘rationalized’ neo-patrimonial states, i.e. those regulat-
ed by a form of specific regulation based upon particularist redistribution, and purely predatory and cleptocrat-
ic states leading to the criminalization and privatization of the state. This ultimate state of neo-patrimonialism,
which destroys the state which feeds it, recalls ‘sultanism’ as described by Weber (Médard, 1990).
Other authors point to a general problem in the discussions on patrimonialism and neo-patrimonialism: the
relationship between patrimonial domination on the one hand and legal-rational bureaucratic domination on
the other. The hybrid phenomenon of neo-patrimonialism is seen as ‘a creative mix of two Weberian types of
domination: of a traditional subtype, patrimonial domination, and legal-rational bureaucratic domination’ (Erd-
mann and Engel, 2007: 104). Important studies devoted to the concept of patrimonialism in Weberian sociolo-
gy (e.g. Hermes, 2004; Breuer, 2006) have hardly resonated among contemporary analysts of so-called neo-
patrimonial regimes. These are manifestly two completely distinct fields of research. In the latter, references
to Weber are almost completely limited to a few paragraphs of Economy and Society. Weber's major study
of a patrimonial regime: China (Weber, 1989 [1915–1920], seems to be extremely rarely read by researchers
interested in contemporary (neo-)patrimonial regimes.
Weber conceived his concepts and typologies, including its sub-types and hybrids, as analytic instruments.
‘Historically, there has never been an ideal-typical purely patrimonial “state”’ (Weber, 2013: 484, emphasis in
the original). From a pragmatic vantage, we might well ask whether the list of sub-types of traditional dom-
ination elaborated by Weber (including patriarchalism, patrimonialism and sultanism) should be completed
with other sub-types on the basis of new empirical data and configurations. Médard suggested to reserve
the concept of neo-patrimonialism for forms of the state which, in contrast to the European development, are
the product of ‘two processes of bureaucratization and patrimonialization which otherwise have always gone
hand in hand and are intimately linked'. He thus completed the Weberian idea of bureaucratic patrimonial-
ism with that of a patrimonialized bureaucracy (Médard, 1998: 311–12). Theobald (1982) had demanded to
pay more attention to historical and economic factors and to include the specific characteristics of adminis-
trative systems in developing countries in the analysis of patrimonial regimes. The intention to make Weber's
theoretical findings fruitful for research on the ‘patrimonial state’ characterizes the joint venture of Bach and
Gazibo (2012).
The question of bureaucracy occupies an important place in Weber's sociology. Ancient Egypt, the late Ro-
man Empire, the medieval Roman church and 18th-century China are major fields of his investigations. With
the modern state and the legal-rational mode of rule the theme becomes absolutely central: ‘The whole histo-
ry of the development of the modern state is identical with the history of modern bureaucracy and the bureau-

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cratic enterprise’ (Weber: 2004b [1922b]: 135). He states: ‘The purest type of legal rule is that of bureaucratic
administrative staff'. Weber constructs the ideal-type of bureaucracy by assembling a series of unilateral ac-
centuated characteristics of this bureaucratic administrative staff, such as recruitment, qualification, advance-
ment or organization, and of its way to administrate. This ideal-type is neither a description of the reality, nor
a normative ideal, but an analytic instrument.
The fact that purely bureaucratic rule is the most technically efficient and formally rational form of exercising
power is not the central element of Weber's theory of bureaucracy. What is decisive for him is the sociological
observation that the development of modern forms of associations as state, church, army, party, business
enterprise or university, is ‘identical with the increase in bureaucratic administration’ (Weber, 2013: 463, em-
phasis in the original). Without such a bureaucratic administration, mass administration is not possible, and
people's everyday lives are confined to it. Weber observes the effects of bureaucratization mainly, but not
only, from the perspective of domination. Basic tenets like the principle of qualification, the enforcement of
salary and the labour market regulated by rational law, put social relations on a new basis. Bureaucratization
with the aim of more rational action has the effect of weakening or eliminating social hierarchies.
When Weber speaks of the transition from communal action (Gemeinschaftshandeln) to rational social action
(Gesellschaftshandeln: Weber, 2005: 34), modern social sciences translate this as coordination of individuals
who are different by qualification, social, local or ethnic origin and other criteria. In this sense, the bureaucra-
cy, as presented by Weber, is an answer to the problem of coordination in a mass society.
The international reception of Weber's theory of bureaucracy has largely been shaped by American sociology,
in which Weber's ideal-typical construction was often misunderstood as a representation of reality or as a nor-
mative ideal (Duran, 2011). As a result of this reading, the international sociology of organization has largely
developed from the criticism of Weber's thesis of bureaucracy, misunderstood in this way (Mayntz, 1965).
In this respect, the sociology of organization initiated in France by Michel Crozier is also a continuation of
American research. Crozier's interest is limited to partial aspects of Weber's theory of bureaucracy. For him,
bureaucracy is only a formalization of social exchange by means of systems of rules and procedures that the
actors must adhere to. Weber, however, was less interested in the organizational aspects than in the institu-
tional ones and in the question of power relations (Meier and Schimank, 2014).2
Similar to organizational sociology, theorists of New Public Management have used Weber as a punching ball.
In light of the modernization of state administration by New Public Management, it has often been claimed
that the functional principles of bureaucracy described by Weber have proved dysfunctional under today's
conditions (cf. Dunn and Miller, 2007). Indeed, more recent reform concepts with their focus on competition,
controlling, output management, privatization and deregulation seem to have marked a departure from the
principles described by Weber. However, most political scientist observers come to the conclusion that a ‘post-
Weberian’ administrative model is not in sight (Bogumil et al., 2006: 184).
In the one-sided and partial reception of Weber's works, it has largely been forgotten that Weber was above
all interested in a genuine political dimension. Breuer draws attention to the role of the bureaucracy in the
frame of the Weberian type of ‘rational rule’ and explains why ‘Weber's entire political theory is geared on
the problem of how to produce sufficient political energy to keep the bureaucracy at the status of a mere in-
strument’ (Breuer, 1991: 110). ‘Parliament and Government in Germany under a New Political Order’ (Weber,
1994 [1918]) shows that for Weber the control of officials was not a question of theory, but of empirical in-
vestigation. The analysis is focused on the specific German case and is illuminated by comparison with other
cases. Weber's second concrete study concerns the development of the Chinese bureaucracy in the 18th
century. Weber describes a system in which the bureaucracy as a whole – but not the individual civil servant
whose position was completely precarious – was secured by a huge prebendary income. The interests of the
top class of officialdom were not appropriated individually but collectively. Thus, the officialdom as such op-
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posed resistance to any intervention or reform (Zingerle, 1983).
Weber raised the question of how the individual in a society subject to the growing process of bureaucrati-
zation can still preserve a rest of freedom. Contrary to the tendency to interpret Weber here in terms of a
philosophy of history (cf. Mommsen, 1974: 95–115), François Chazel pointed out that Weber's work contains
already a ‘theory of mass democracy as an oligopolistic competition between bureaucratic parties’ (Vincent
1998: 105). Public administration and private bureaucratic apparatuses of parties or business associations
compete for the shaping of politics. This competition between the bureaucracies serves freedom, even if this
is not their goal. Normative interpretations of Weber's speak here of ‘bureaucratic sabotage’ (Brecht, 1937:
53).
Weber and International Relations

Despite the current processes of change, states continue to be the key political actors in international rela-
tions. ‘The international community is essentially a community of states. The states continue to be the bearers
of the international order, the actual creators and guarantors of international law’ (Isensee, 2003: 12). There-
fore the states also play an important role in the theories of international relations. From Weber's perspective,
a differentiated answer must be given to the question of the function of today's states, since the picture is
very different in the different territories. Political science is even more referring to Weber, since IR theory has
always been focused on questions of power and power relations (see Hellmann, Chapter 76, this Handbook).
There is hardly any theory of power or domination that would not draw on Weber. So it is no coincidence that
he is regarded as ‘the father of modern IR theory’ (Lebow, 2017a: 1).
Hans J. Morgenthau is one of the most important pioneers of the ‘Weberian tradition’ in IR theory. He was one
of those German emigrants in the United States who influenced university debates as well as public political
discussions, especially during the Vietnam War, when he opposed American warfare as a ‘public intellectual'.
In his writings one can see that he oriented himself to Weber, whereby this orientation reaches back to his
student days. He reports that during the first state examination in Munich he attended a seminar on Weber's
political thinking, which became formative for him (Morgenthau, 1977: 7). His Weberian attitude can already
be seen in his positions of power theory, which he phrased in the 1940s. Like Weber, he regards power from
an action-oriented perspective as an asymmetric structure between acting individuals: ‘When we speak of
power, we mean man's control over the minds and actions of other men’ (Morgenthau, 1948: 13). In his under-
standing of politics, Morgenthau proves to be a Weberian. For him, political action, especially in international
politics, is not guided by idealistic goals, but rather by the pursuit of power, a position that Weber arguably
held most firmly. The Weberian attitude also includes an anti-eudaimonistic attitude. Just as Weber thought it
illusory to expect ‘that peace and happiness lie waiting in the womb of the future’ (Weber, 1994 [1895]: 14),
Morgenthau also thought it absurd to expect international politics to create peaceful happiness: for him it was
first and foremost an arena of power struggles (Morgenthau, 1948).
Regarding today's IR theory, one cannot speak of a uniform concept of power. The discussions here are just
as controversial as they are in other parts of political science. Nevertheless, a dominance of the Weberian
tradition can be observed. When Robert Keohane and Joseph S. Nye say that ‘[p]ower can be thought of as
the ability of an actor to get others to do something they otherwise would not do’ (Keohane and Nye, 2012:
10), then a tradition becomes clear that extends from Morgenthau to today's IR theory. According to the pre-
vailing opinion in international relations, ‘those who are in a position to sustainably enforce their will against
the ideas of others are considered powerful’ (Münkler, 2006: 847). The Weberian tradition can still be seen
in Nye's influential distinction between ‘soft power', which asserts itself through persuasion, and ‘hard power',
which asserts itself through command (Nye, 2005), for this distinction follows at large Weber's distinction be-
tween power and domination.
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While Morgenthau played an important role for Weber's reception in American IR theory, Aron played a similar
role in France. He had already encountered Weber during a study visit to Germany between 1930 and 1933
and had subsequently introduced him to the French public with his book La sociologie allemande contempo-
raine (Aron, 1935). Aron felt connected to Weber through a kind of elective affinity, though he felt distant from
him in ‘important points’ (Aron, 1990, 60–1). For example, he shared neither Weber's political pessimism nor
his assessment of the ‘Machtstaat’ [‘power state']. Aron played a major role in the canonization of Weber in
the 1960s. This aspiration is clearly evident in the lectures he gave in Paris, which culminated in a ‘Weberian
interpretation of the contemporary era’ (Aron, 1967: 222).
Like Morgenthau's IR theory, Aron's view of international relations is strongly focused on the phenomenon of
power. This becomes evident in his book Peace and War, where he distinguishes between different types of
power:
An individual's power is his capacity to act, but above all to influence the actions or feelings of other
individuals. On the international scene I should define power as the capacity of a political unit to im-
pose its will upon other units. In short, political power is not an absolute; it is a human relationship.
(Aron, 2003: 47)
Here, as in other contexts, it becomes clear how strongly he is oriented towards Weber, from methodological
questions to questions of international politics. Like Weber, he considered ethics of conviction to be incom-
patible with the laws of international politics (Aron, 1990: 49). He was by no means uncritical of Weber. In his
lecture at the 1964 Heidelberg Congress, he raised the question of whether Weber ‘was not slipping towards
some kind of nihilism’ by ‘setting the power-interests of the German nation as the ultimate goal’ (Aron, 1971:
98). Aron was not the only one who criticized a discrepancy between Weber's national stance and his scien-
tific positions (ibid.: 100). It was very common at that time to label Weber's political positions as time-related
and to separate them from the social science work. Thus, Aron ended his Heidelberg lecture with the state-
ment that Weber had left us ‘an inheritance undiminished by the mistakes of the theoretician of Machtpolitik’
(ibid.: 100). He had thus found a formula that would enable later Weberians to put nationalist positions in the
shadow of the master constructions.
Having already played an important role for pioneers of IR theory such as Aron or Morgenthau, Weber also
occupies a prominent position in the current IR discussion (cf. Lebow, 2017a). Not only his concept of pow-
er and his view of the political, but also his understanding of the gradual character of statehood have pre-
vailed among many theorists of international relations (see Lebow, Chapter 75, this Handbook). It is indeed
methodologically advantageous to understand statehood as a gradual phenomenon. Approaches to this point
of view can already be found in 1968 in J. P. Nettl's essay ‘The State as a Conceptual Variable', which initial-
ly received little attention (Nettl, 1968), while Christopher Clapham was able to establish the concept of the
‘Degrees of Statehood’ (Clapham, 1998). Daniel Lambach rightly points out that it was Weber who made ‘an
understanding of the state as a variable’ possible (Lambach et al., 2016: 21).
Based on a gradual understanding of statehood, as introduced by Weber, it is possible to develop typologies

of strong and weak statehood, to reconstruct state-building processes or to establish a ‘State Fragility Index’
(Marshall and Cole, 2014), which shows that weak statehood is primarily due to a perforated monopoly on
violence, and that the strong Weberian state is rather the exception than the rule. A view to the global situ-
ation of political communities offers a very heterogeneous tableau. Weak orders and failed states are facing
stable political communities with a high degree of statehood. From a Weberian perspective, a policy of active
state-building is crucial for many areas, since without statehood, a legitimate political system cannot emerge.
It is not without reason that contemporary advocates of state-building policy refer to Weber (Fukuyama, 2005;
Lemay-Hébert, 2013).

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Political Thinking, Political Education

A central question in Weber's political thinking has only been dealt with late in political science: how to create
a reservoir of genuine, responsible leading politicians (leaders) and how to educate the Germans to political
thinking (Weber, 1994 [1918]: 143). Scaff first explicitly investigated the relation between ‘Politics and Political
Education’ in Weber: ‘for Weber fulfilment of both the scientific and political vocations required the cultiva-
tion of the role of “political educator”’ (Scaff, 1973: 128). Political education and life conduct are interrelated.
Weber's work on Protestant ethics and Puritan sects had a political dimension (Scaff, 1973). The conception
of Weber as a political educator was then introduced by Hennis into political science (2000b: 85ff.). Hennis
relates Weber's ‘sociology’ to the tradition of the classical political science. The ‘social orders and powers’
are ‘educational powers', as well as the formative realities and institutions of modern society: press, asso-
ciations, factory work, universities, political parties, constitutional forms (Hennis, 2000b: 89). Hennis ranks
Weber among the great educators, in the sense of nomothetes: Plato, Rousseau and Tocqueville.
Scaff described Hennis’ search for the centre of Weber's work as ‘in part an odyssey of discovery, a renewal
of inquiry into a missing tradition of thinking about politics’ (Scaff, 2013: 320). A ‘political thought’ understood
in this sense is not a theoretical enterprise, ‘a matter of “theorizing” in the abstract. […] Instead it is an in-
vitation to dissect, diagnose, reflect upon and understand the conditions and relations of a state of affairs
that is historically given to us’ (ibid.: 316). For Hennis, in this sense, Weber's ‘Parliament and Government in
Germany’ ‘has always been the pattern of a political-scientific situation analysis: what historical factors had
shaped the situation, what problems did they raise, where did the tendency of further development go, where
was it to go’ (Hennis, 2000 [1998]: 401).
The Future of Weberian Political Science

If one follows the development of political science over the last 100 years, then one can speak of the formation
of a Weberian tradition, even if some of the manifold lines of tradition do not really go back to the core of We-
berian theories, sometimes they are only supposed or misunderstood traditions. What initially articulated itself
only gingerly in small circles and in individual publications during the Weimar period, experienced a sudden
setback in Germany in 1933. But on the other side of the Atlantic, German emigrants developed a vital and
influential reception, which at the same time also started in some European countries. In the post-war period,
it had, albeit at first hesitantly, an impact back on Germany. Today, the Weberian tradition is no longer tied
to individual places or centres, but has developed into an international, global community, from Berkeley to
Tokyo. Weber's concepts are used to discuss the phenomenon of rationalized modernity, its advantages and
dark sides.
If there is a leitmotif that emerges again and again, then it is that of realism. It was no coincidence that the
Weberian tradition initially asserted itself in the various directions of political realism. Weber himself had giv-
en the keyword ‘reality science', which was immediately taken up by the first generation of Weberians in
Weimar. Heller adopted the concept programmatically. This marks the beginning of a tradition that runs like a
red thread through political science, from Loewenstein, Morgenthau and Aron to Hennis, New Institutionalism
and today's theory of International Relations. As far as Weber's worldwide impact is concerned, his concept of
‘orders of life', which Hennis so sustainably called into consciousness, is particularly relevant. Weber's theme,
the tensions between the orders of life, provides an important starting point for reception in cultures as diverse
as Japan, or America.
One cannot predict how the Weberian tradition will develop in political science in the future. In the past, de-
velopments have always been unpredictable, and there is much to suggest that this will not be any different in
the future. It would be desirable to strengthen communication between political science on the one hand and

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Max Weber research, which is based on several disciplines, on the other.
Notes
1 On the dispute over Mommsen's thesis, cf. Bruhns (2009).
2 Crozier even claimed that Weber had eliminated the dimension of power from his analysis (Crozier, 1961:
34).
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Scaff, Lawrence A., 2014: Weber and the Weberians, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Shils, Edward, 1965: ‘Charisma, Order, and Status', American Sociological Review 30(2), 199–213.
Skocpol, Theda, 1985: ‘Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Analysis in Current Research', in: Peter B.
Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Theda Skocpol (eds.), Bringing the State Back In, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 3–37.
Söllner, Alfons, 1996: ‘From Public Law to Political Science? The Emigration of German Scholars after 1933
and their Influence on the Transformation of a Discipline', in: G. Ash Mitchell, Alfons Söllner (eds.), Forced
Migration and Scientific Change: Emigré German-Speaking Scientists and Scholars after 1933, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 246–272.
Söllner, Alfons, 2006: Fluchtpunkte: Studien zur politischen Ideengeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts, Baden-
Baden: Nomos.
Stammer, Otto (ed.), 1971 [1965]: Max Weber and Sociology Today, trans. Kathleen Morris, Oxford: Black-
well.
Strauss, Leo, 1953: Natural Right and History, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Theobald, Robin, 1982: ‘Patrimonialism', World Politics 34(4), 548–559.
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Stuttgart/Weimar: J. B. Metzler, 42–46.
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. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
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• Max Weber
• tradition
• politics
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n17

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The Survival and Adaptation of Area Studies
Contributors: Rudra Sil

Chapter Title: "The Survival and Adaptation of Area Studies"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
The Survival and Adaptation of Area Studies

Rudra Sil
Most of what is truly useful for policy is context-specific, culture-bound, and non-generalizable. Francis
Fukuyama (2005: 22)
Introduction
Within the framework of the humanities, the significance of ‘area studies’ is largely unproblematic. The subject
matter – be it the history, literature, art, or culture of a particular region – is presumed to be worthy of study in
its own right. There are surely debates over the objectives and methods of an inquiry, with some more partial
to critique or deconstruction and others more concerned with evoking the richness of human experience with-
in a given society. Even so, area specialists housed in a humanities discipline typically feel no special need
to justify their investments in expertise on a given country or region. The status of area studies within the so-
cial sciences, by contrast, has grown more tenuous over the past quarter-century. Area specialists appointed
in social science disciplines must contend with simultaneously engaging two kinds of scholarly communities,
one representing the discipline or one of its subfields and one defined in terms of an abiding interest in a
geographic region. The problem stems largely from the growing gap in assumptions about which skill-sets
are most crucial and what constitutes ‘good’ or ‘useful’ scholarship. An area specialist's efforts to generate
social scientific knowledge on a given country or region is likely to run up against questions about whether
and how that knowledge speaks to general theories or matches up with methodological ‘best practice’ within
one's home discipline.
This chapter is concerned with the trajectory of area studies in relation to the discipline of political science.
It begins with a short history of the emergence and evolution of area studies, stressing in particular the long
shadow cast by the Cold War. The second section turns to some important shifts and challenges that have
emerged in the wake of the Cold War, both in terms of the resources available to area studies research and
methodological currents in the discipline of political science. The section also examines the different ways in
which area studies scholarship has survived as part of a more globalized political science within the United
States, Europe, and other parts of the world. The next section addresses some of the problematic aspects
of conceptualizing and demarcating ‘areas', especially to cope with the more fluid processes and global chal-
lenges that have emerged in the past two decades. As the geopolitical agendas and theoretical frameworks of
the Cold War era recede into the past, some of the newer intellectual and methodological currents that have
taken root in the discipline are serving to intensify the trade-off between investing in approaches and theo-
ries touted within political science and accumulating contextual knowledge about socially constructed spaces
called ‘areas'. The fourth section addresses efforts by scholars in comparative politics to manage both the
methodological and practical dimensions of this trade-off. The section considers new ways to frame the con-
tributions of single-area research so as to better resonate with disciplinary trends as well as the emergence of
new rationales and designs for cross-regional qualitative research, including comparative area studies (CAS),
qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), and sub-national comparisons within and across areas. The chapter
concludes by noting that area studies, viewed from a global and long-term perspective, have not only survived
and adapted but will likely remain a crucial element of the field of comparative politics.
Area Studies and Political Science in the Shadow of the Cold War
At the start of the 20th century, empirical research by Western scholars on non-Western societies was largely
confined to historians delving into archives, or anthropologists immersing themselves in distant lands, often
isolated communities or colonized societies. The ‘father of modern anthropology', Bronislaw Malinowski, pub-
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lished his study of the islands of Melanesia, Argonauts of the Western Pacific, in 1922; it came to epitomize
the ethnographic study of the beliefs, rituals, and social relations of faraway communities. Although future
anthropologists would criticize or refine Malinowski's methods and interpretations, including his findings on
Melanesia (Carrier, 1992), ethnographic practices would influence the general notions in sociology and politi-
cal science that extensive field research was a necessary part of efforts to better understand foreign countries
and areas. But it is only following World War II that area studies would grow into a core component of the
discipline of political science, primarily within the subfield of comparative politics. To a large extent, this devel-
opment was propelled by the sense that both the building of a stable post-war order and the containment of
communism depended on deepening our understanding both of the main ‘enemy’ – the Soviet bloc – and of
the growing ranks of newly decolonized sovereign states. In short, it was within the context of navigating the
Cold War that area studies centers and institutes began to proliferate throughout the United States, Western
Europe, and later, the Soviet bloc as well.
In the United States, the growing demand for knowledge among government agencies, such as the State and
Defense Departments and the Central Intelligence Agency, came to be met by new streams of federal fund-
ing, notably the Fulbright Program enacted in 1946 and the Title VI of the Higher Education Act – which grew
out of the National Defense Education Act of 1958 – supported by programs set up by leading philanthropic
organizations such as the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations. This set the stage for massive investments in
learning foreign languages, deepening the understanding of previously less familiar societies, and develop-
ing frameworks for tracking economic, social, and political transformations in particular states. Two academic
bodies founded in the aftermath of World War I – the Social Science Research Council and the American
Council of Learned Societies – helped coordinate the activities and funding programs of universities, founda-
tions, and government programs (Szanton, 2004).
Across Western Europe, the leading universities became a natural focus for concentrating resources that
could be used by rapidly burgeoning communities of researchers devoted to building up stocks of knowledge
across the humanities and social sciences, spanning language study, historical research, and cultural studies,
as well as analysis of the politics, society, and economic development of specific countries and regions. The
University of Oxford's School of Global and Area Studies1 developed graduate-level programs of study on
entire continents (in the case of African Studies and Latin American Studies) alongside programs focused on
either single countries (e.g. Japanese Studies) or sub-continental regions where one country clearly stood out
(Modern South Asian Studies, and Soviet and East European Studies). In both the United States and Western
Europe, national and international associations worked to promote research on various areas of the world,
establish interdisciplinary area studies journals, and bring together scholars from different disciplines to area
studies conferences each year.
On the other side of the iron curtain, the impetus came from a Soviet leadership eager to carefully monitor
trends in the West while increasingly seeking engagement with post-colonial countries in search of new can-
didates that might join, or at least cooperate with, the communist bloc. The most prominent area studies think
tanks were the institutes set up as part of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (now, once again, the Russ-
ian Academy of Sciences), a vast multi-disciplinary organization built around the core of the Tsarist-era Russ-
ian Academy of Sciences (Zhuk, 2017). The largest of these institutes, the Institute of Oriental Studies, was
first established in 1818. During the Cold War, the institute produced research focused on the countries of
Asia and North Africa. The Cold War saw greater attention to the Americas, with the founding of the Institute
of Latin American Studies in 1961 followed by the founding of the Institute of the USA and Canada in 1967.
These institutes, as well as numerous other research centers and think tanks, accounted for thousands of re-
searchers in the USSR (Gottemoeller and Langer, 1983) and in other Eastern-bloc countries. Many of these
area-focused institutes and centers remain active as part of reorganized academic bodies such as the Russ-
ian and Polish Academy of Sciences.
What is interesting to note is that, despite differences among particular institutions and funding sources across
regions, the overall organization and content of area studies scholarship during the period of the Cold War
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consistently reflected an unflinching interdisciplinarity. In fact, this interdisciplinary character of area studies,
far from being a tangential attribute or a problem for cumulating disciplinary knowledge, was viewed as a dis-
tinctive asset for scholars housed in any of the social science disciplines. Political scientists, sociologists, and
anthropologists regularly joined area studies associations and attended area studies conferences alongside
scholars representing the humanities, and their pursuit of area-specific knowledge did not detract from their
status within their home disciplines. Perhaps the persistent theme of the (de)construction of ‘modernity’ in
the humanities and the growing interest in problems of ‘modernization’ across the social sciences helped to
make narratives about continuity and change in various contexts and regions intelligible across disciplines.
In the United States, modernization theory provided a common analytic framework and theoretical vocabu-
lary for social scientists analyzing the trajectories of political and economic development in different regions
of the world (Stevens et al., 2018). For better or worse, modernization theory also provided an overarching
theoretical foundation that made deep, multifaceted interdisciplinary knowledge about countries and regions
seem reliable and useful to Western policymakers seeking clues about how to contain the spread of commu-
nism and to respond to the varied developmental imperatives across the so-called “Third World” (Packenham,
1973).
With the end of the Cold War, area studies centers and associations started to become the sites for new
debates over historiography, methodology, culture, politics, and economics. These debates began to take
off in directions not anticipated in the initial programs of government agencies and foundations to build up
policy-relevant knowledge (Mosley, 2009). These debates would pull area specialists within the humanities
and social sciences in very different directions. Within the humanities, a growing segment within area studies
communities came to see their role as one of ‘deparochializing US- and Euro- centric visions of the world in
the core social science and humanities disciplines, among policymakers, and in the public at large’ (Szanton,
2004: 2). Building on, or perhaps chastised by, Edward Said's (1978) rebuke of ‘Orientalism', this strand of
thought called for a fundamental reorientation of Western area studies scholarship so that it would reject or
transcend the binaries of ‘us’ and ‘them’ underpinning overt and hidden relationships of domination between
the West and the developing world (Sidaway, 2013). In historiography, this critique inspired a shift from a
focus on national elites to a deeper consideration of the experiences and perspectives of ‘subalterns', partic-
ularly in post-colonial countries (Chakrabarty, 2000). Importantly, these pointed critiques of past scholarship
implied not a rejection of area studies but a more expansive and open-ended engagement with diverse social
groups and contending intellectual currents within the countries and areas being studied.
A different set of challenges would be faced by social scientists, particularly political scientists, who consid-
ered themselves to be area specialists. For scholars and policymakers alike, the end of the Cold War rep-
resented a critical turning point. The Cold War had provided the background condition for many of the argu-
ments in favor of large-scale investments in the study of foreign languages, histories, and cultures, ostensibly
to keep as much of the world safe from communism as possible (Clowes and Bromberg, 2015). With the
Berlin Wall coming down in 1989, these heretofore substantial investments were scaled back sharply, creat-
ing new challenges for maintaining support for language training and the building of area expertise. This shift
coincided with the crystallization of a more methodologically focused line of attack within political science. Al-
though this critique was most explicitly articulated in the United States, there was a general sense that past
efforts of area specialists had lacked the discipline and rigor that distinguishes the social sciences from the
humanities. At least one oft-repeated indication of this shortcoming, according to some, was the presumed
failure of area experts, in both scholarly and policy communities, to foresee the fall of communism and the
end of the Cold War.
In political science, while area-focused research was not dismissed out of hand, it was seen as useful for
building disciplinary knowledge only insofar as it shed its humanistic side and was primarily motivated by the
theoretical debates and methodological principles of contemporary political science (Hanson, 2009). The re-
sult of these trends was not the ejection of area studies from political science but an increasingly stark set
of trade-offs, both methodological and practical, for scholars in comparative politics. On the one hand, there
was the imperative of leveraging extensive investments in area-focused expertise, fieldwork, and scholarly
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networks; on the other hand, there was the pressure to conform to research practices identified with ‘rigor-
ous’ social science. This trade-off is not new, but in the context of the post-Cold War challenges faced by
area studies, it has given rise to new rationales for area-focused inquiry and new styles of within-area and
cross-area comparative analysis (see below). The next section turns to the different ways through which area
studies has managed to survive as part of a more globalized political science within the United States, Eu-
rope, and other parts of the world.
Adapting to Challenges: Emergent Regional Patterns

With the end of the Cold War, area studies research worldwide had to contend with new pressures and con-
straints. To some extent, this is the logical result of the thinning out of funding streams tied to the geopolitics
of the Cold War, but it was also exacerbated by global financial crises in 1997–8 and 2008–9. There is also
the impact of different intellectual currents tugging on different disciplines which put pressure on area spe-
cialists to reformulate the character and significance of their contributions to their respective disciplines. Yet
the challenge has been just that – a challenge. It has not thus far led to any concerted effort to dismantle
the organizational framework for area-based scholarship. Indeed, one lasting legacy of the Cold War era has
been the durability of the various academic units created for the production and dissemination of area-specif-
ic knowledge (Stevens et al., 2018: 6). In addition, major events in the real world have played a crucial role
in reminding political scientists and policymakers of the significance of deep contextualized knowledge about
different parts of the world.
Even so, in the United States, area specialists have faced mounting challenges in securing the resources
needed for building language proficiency and carrying out sustained research in the field, as the government
has steadily scaled back funding for area expertise except in the limited context of providing specific types
of information deemed to be reliable and useful for the purposes of policymakers and media (Clowes and
Bromberg, 2015). Within political science, it is scholars in comparative politics who would be most affected
by these cuts. For most areas, steady cutbacks in the Department of Education's Title VI funding since the
1990s made it progressively difficult to obtain federal support for language training and area expertise – ex-
cept for select projects that are of high priority to US national security in a post-9/11 world (frequently focused
on the Middle East and China). Additionally, in October 2013, the US State Department also eliminated its
Title VIII program, which had been once a massive source of funding for language training and area expertise
for scholars studying Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union (King, 2015). Despite the spirited effort to
highlight the importance of area expertise by many political scientists (e.g. Fukuyama, 2004; Hanson, 2009;
King, 2015; Pepinsky, 2015), area studies have remained under strain in the post-Cold War era.
The strain has been magnified by a second trend: since the mid 1990s, leading political science departments
in the United States have been placing less emphasis on the accumulation of area-focused knowledge in
favor of methodological techniques consistent with the ‘causal inference revolution'. Driving this shift is a ba-
sic epistemic notion, most famously championed by King et al., (1994), that there exists a universal set of
methodological principles and logics of inference that define rigorous scholarship in both quantitative and
qualitative research. This idea is certainly not without its detractors, as evident in ongoing debates as to
whether there exist distinct ‘cultures’ of quantitative and qualitative scholarship with distinct understandings
of evidence and causation (Goertz and Mahoney, 2012). Nevertheless, the growing attention to causal identi-
fication in the United States has reduced the space for stand-alone qualitative research, especially if focused
on particular countries or areas. This is especially evident in flagship journals of the discipline (such as the
American Political Science Review), which rarely publish papers focused on one country or region, not count-
ing the United States. And, at the very top political science departments in the United States, stand-alone
qualitative research on a single country or area, no matter how compelling or original, is treated as lying out-
side the realm of ‘cutting edge’ scholarship in the discipline.
At the same time, there are indications that area specialists in the United States, though facing new chal-
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lenges, have managed to survive and evolve. For one, within comparative politics, where political scientists
with area expertise are generally housed, the majority of articles published in the subfield's leading journals
are country- or area-focused, though increasingly incorporating at least some quantitative analysis or field
experiments. Moreover, books published in comparative politics tend to be overwhelmingly and disproportion-
ately focused on single countries or small-N studies confined to a single area (Köllner et al., 2018: 17). This
has been buttressed by the growing awareness that cutbacks in area studies training and research are de-
pleting much needed reservoirs of deep knowledge on areas where US policymakers have been confronting
new conflicts and crises. As Clowes and Bromberg (2015: 2) note: ‘The world saw the impact of inconsistent
funding and training, for example, in American adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq at the start of which the US
government scrambled to identify well-trained language experts and reliable local and regional information'.
More recently, problematic developments across the former Soviet Union – the Maidan crisis in Ukraine, the
annexation of Crimea by Russia, and the steep downturn in US–Russia relations – prompted Charles King
(2015) to point out the danger of ‘flying blind’ in an era where Title VIII funding is no longer available to sup-
port advanced language training and deep knowledge of a critically important part of the world. More broadly,
Robert Gallucci, the former President of the MacArthur Foundation, noted in a 2014 speech: ‘[T]his is a time
when policymakers need more help than ever to understand the world not as an abstract set of generalities
but as a finely-grained, complex, and unpredictable environment shaped by culture, language, religion, and
history'.
While resource constraints have also affected area studies in Europe, the value of country- or area-specific
research does not appear to have diminished. This may be in part because methodological debates have
been less acrimonious and stand-alone qualitative research has continued to be recognized as valuable in its
own right. In fact, across much of Europe, there are indications of a continued commitment to area studies
scholarship within the social sciences, with new strategies for continuing to develop area-focused training,
research, and scholarship. In fact, as the EU itself became more institutionalized and more responsive to
the challenges of globalization in a post-Cold War era, pre-existing Europe-wide associations have been bol-
stered while new ones have been set up to pool resources and organize scholarly activities across different
EU member countries. Examples of new associations include EASAS, the European Association for South
Asian Studies, which began organizing Europe-wide conferences on South Asian Studies in the middle of the
1990s, and AEGIS, the Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies, which was set up in 1991 to expand
research on Africa's response to globalization and provide academic and policy-relevant knowledge to the
Africanist institutions of the EU.2
In Britain, major schools set up long ago to study various regions of the world continue to draw distinguished
scholars and support country- or area-focused research. In addition to the aforementioned School of Global
and Area Studies at Oxford, the School of Oriental and Asian Studies (SOAS) at the University of London re-
mains a premier institution for the in-depth study of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, boasting the largest staff
of area experts (over 300) of any university in the world.3 At University College London, the School of Slavon-
ic and East European Studies (SSEES) remains the leading institution in the world focused on teaching about
Russia, the Baltics, and Central and Eastern Europe. There are also a host of British area studies associa-
tions for various countries and regions, many of which have joined the United Kingdom Council for Area Stud-
ies Associations, founded in 2003. In addition, a joint initiative by the Economic and Social Research Council
(ESRC), the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), and the Higher Education Funding Council for
England (HEFCE) has provided funding for five new collaborative ‘Centres for Excellence in language-based
Area Studies’ which are each housed at a lead institution and cover China, Russia, East Asia, Eastern Eu-
rope, and the Arabic-speaking world. This targeting of specific countries and regions may make it difficult in
the future to devote resources for research on other regions, but overall, the commitment in British academia
to area studies remains much more stable than is the case in the United States.
In Germany, too, area studies scholarship appears to have not only survived the end of the Cold War but
perhaps even progressed further, with expanded support for new graduate schools, research clusters, and

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collaborative networks devoted to various world regions. Since 2006, the German government has funded an
ongoing competition among state universities with the express aim of creating several ‘universities of excel-
lence'. Moreover, the German Council of Science and Humanities has also backed new programs to advance
area studies, giving impetus to such initiatives as the 2009 effort by the Federal Ministry of Education and
Research to enable a range of area studies centers, providing research networks to expand their capacities
to conduct research within and across various world regions. A related program has expanded the fellowship-
based collaborative research centers focused on South Asia, Latin America, China, and sub-Saharan Africa.
In addition, the German government has teamed up with private foundations to promote new think tanks and
funding lines for research on various key countries and world regions. Examples include the Mercator Insti-
tute for China Studies (MERICS) and the Volkswagen Foundation's funding initiative for research on Central
Asia and the Caucasus (Köllner et al., 2018: 12).
In Russia, the chaos of the post-communist transition took a toll on the production of knowledge on areas.
The break-up of the Soviet Union – and along with it the USSR Academy of Sciences and various other insti-
tutes – meant that research on areas became fragmented and severely underfunded. Sharp cuts in budgets
and salaries during the 1990s led thousands of Russian researchers to either leave their positions in acad-
emia and/or emigrate in search of positions in other countries (Schiermeier, 2018). The situation improved
markedly after the Russian economy began to rebound in 2000. In one global study of think tanks, sever-
al Russian area studies institutes rank among the top forty regional studies think tanks worldwide. Among
them are the venerable Institute for the Study of USA and Canada as well as the Institute of Oriental Studies,
which includes centers or departments focused on China, India, Japan, the Middle East, and Central Eurasia,
among others. And, among university-affiliated regional studies centers, Moscow State University's Institute
for Asia and Africa Studies is among the world's top thirty (McGann, 2019). More recently, the 2018 budget of
the Russian government saw a 25% increase in the amount earmarked for research and development (R&D),
while Russia climbed into the top ten in the number of research articles produced (Schiermeier, 2018). These
shifts mark an improvement of the broader environment in which area studies research is being conducted in
Russia now, at least compared to the early years of the post-Soviet transition.
The developing world has also begun to catch up in terms of both overall investments in knowledge produc-
tion and the generation of area and cross-area expertise. China has led the way and remains far ahead of
the rest of the developing world or emerging economies, both in terms of the total amount invested in R&D
and the rise in percentage of GDP invested in R&D, which doubled between 2001 and 2016 according to the
World Bank. India and Brazil spend far less on R&D, but have moved into the world's top ten in terms of total
expenditures on R&D. This does not necessarily mean that research on different parts of the world is flourish-
ing across the global south. But, certainly, there has been a growth in the scale of expert knowledge amassed
in some developing countries at least about their own regional ‘neighborhood'. The Yusof Ishak Institute in
Singapore, established in 1968 as the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), has greatly expanded
its visibility, activities, and resources in relation to research focused on Southeast Asia. Along similar lines,
the Africa Institute of South Africa (AISA), first established in 1960, was restructured and expanded in 2001
and now purports to ‘produce some of the finest research on contemporary African Affairs by having its ded-
icated and highly qualified researchers conduct field research every year throughout the African continent'.4
AISA has been rated among the top fifty best-managed global think tanks (McGann, 2019: 183). In addition,
while the economic trends that gave rise to the term ‘BRICs’ in 2001 are no longer evident (given the lower
growth rates in Brazil and Russia over the last decade), research on BRICS (now including South Africa) has
become a cottage industry in each of the member countries. Most notable among these is the BRICS Policy
Center in Brazil (attached to the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro), which has made it to the list
of the top-ten best university-affiliated think tanks (McGann, 2019: 202). There is also now a BRICS Think
Tank Council (BTTC) that was established in 2013 to boost cooperation on BRICS-focused research being
done at major institutes or centers in each of the countries. On the whole, while research on faraway regions
remains substantially under-developed and underfunded across the developing world, the growing scope for
intensive research focused on the ‘regional neighborhoods’ of particular emerging economies or rising pow-
ers have helped to greatly expand the production of area-based knowledge worldwide.
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The Concept of ‘Areas’ in Problem-Driven Research: Opportunities and Trade-

Offs
Area expertise within political science has been generally thought to refer to knowledge about one or more na-
tion-states presumed to occupy clearly demarcated geographic ‘areas'. This was not a problem for the kinds
of questions that political scientists most commonly delved into within a global order dominated by the Cold
War balance of power and by the pursuit of modernization by nation-states. Yet, within the actual organization
of area studies research, there were always indications that what counted as an ‘area’ was not ‘natural’ or
‘fixed'. One of these indications is the fact that, alongside research focused on whole spaces that sometimes
spanned entire continents, separate research communities and associations formed around the study of spe-
cific countries that were implicitly deemed worthy of focused attention. In the United States, for example, the
fields of Latin American Studies or African Studies came to be accompanied by the rise of ‘Sovietology’ as
a self-contained field during the Cold War – and now it is Chinese Studies that is the most rapidly growing
field devoted to the study of a single country. Likewise, in China, following the reorganization of the leading
area studies research institutes in the 1980s under the umbrella of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
(CASS), the region-based Institutes of European Studies and Asia-Pacific Studies (which now includes South
Asian Studies) coexist with the single-country focused Institutes of American Studies and Japanese Studies
(Sleeboom-Faulkner, 2007).
The very fact that some research communities are organized around a single ‘large’ or ‘important’ country,
while others are organized around spaces covering multiple religious and ethno-linguistic communities, is in-
dicative of a long-standing issue: the concept of an ‘area’ or ‘region', although often treated as self-evident, is
in fact a reflection of geopolitical realities, particularly as experienced by those with the resources to fund and
organize research in a given period. Simply put, what constitutes an ‘area’ is an imagined, socially construct-
ed reality reflecting a mix of contingent factors (Acharya, 2014). These include availability of resources tied
to policy imperatives, familiarity based on proximity or language, similarity in developmental levels, regional
alliances, and geographic features (particularly where whole continents coincided with ‘areas’ to be studied).
Nevertheless, ‘area’ boundaries that may have made sense for many of the questions and agendas in the
Cold War era came to acquire an enduring and global significance (Stevens et al., 2018: 6). Just as the QW-
ERTY keyboard has remained a fixture through all kinds of technological shifts, the basic organization of area
studies persists even though the end of the Cold War has given rise to a different set of questions and prior-
ities within shifting geopolitical contexts and resource environments. But this does not mean that the position
of area specialists has remained unchanged, particularly within political science.
One dilemma that has become increasingly apparent is how the construction of ‘areas’ might match up with
exhortations to be ‘problem-driven’ in designing research. True, certain ‘areas’ and ‘problems’ are well suited
to each other. This is obviously the case where a question is narrowly framed so as to be only relevant to
particular regions, as in a study of how sectarian divides affect political stability in the Middle East or of what
economic conditions may have helped strengthen the appeal of right-wing populist parties in Europe. There is
also a good match in the case of more broadly framed problems so long as the full range of variation happens
within a given geographic area as a result of the intrinsic heterogeneity of that area. In the latter scenario,
it makes sense to focus one's attention on that region while designing a comparative study to construct or
explore general causal inferences. For example, in his book on how contentious politics shaped authoritarian
state-formation in Southeast Asia, Dan Slater (2010: 7) notes: ‘While selecting cases from a single region
frequently entails selection bias, choosing cases in Southeast Asia helps avoid this inferential pitfall'.
Yet, in the post-Cold War era, scholars of comparative politics have been increasingly researching a host of
problems – from democratic transitions and the effects of globalization to the politics of economic reform and
the rise of populism – where the distribution of relevant patterns and outcomes cuts across countries and lo-
cales that are situated on different continents and have little in common in terms of history or culture. For such
broad questions, any qualitative study that purports to offer portable arguments will likely want to consider
how the places they are studying match up with the range of outcomes that exists across the full population of
relevant cases (Geddes, 2003). Therein lies a fundamental – and increasingly problematic – methodological
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trade-off with respect to the entrenched organization of institutions, research networks, journals, and asso-
ciations around fixed ‘areas'. The conversations that may take place among political scientists specializing
in a given area may be more ‘fluent’ given the common background knowledge and deep familiarity with lo-
cales within that area. But these conversations would not necessarily encompass the more widely sampled
observations and modes of empirical analysis that would be necessary to draw the attention of the discipline
of political science writ large. This is actually a manifestation of a familiar dilemma for political scientists with
area expertise: case selection principles derived from the basic logic of the comparative method yield very
different kinds of advantages than those that emerge from cases within a single familiar area on which one
has deep background knowledge. On the one hand, restricting one's analysis to a space that one claims to
have expertise on runs the risk of not having a representative sample of cases (Geddes, 2003). On the other
hand, attempts to expand case selection beyond an area on which one has more in-depth knowledge and
training comes with its own pitfalls, and there is no guarantee that the set of cases will be subject to the same
manner of treatment given the unevenness in language skills, background knowledge, and engagement with
scholarly networks.
Importantly, this methodological trade-off has a crucial practical dimension related to the enormous invest-
ment of time and effort required to acquire language proficiency, build a cross-disciplinary base of background
knowledge, and accumulate experience in conducting research in a specific country or region. Yet the kind
of skill-set required to establish credibility in the eyes of a multi-disciplinary area studies community is quite
different from that which will bring recognition and status from other scholars in political science, particularly
those that see the discipline's advancement as based mainly on demonstrating technical sophistication and/
or theory accumulation (Sil, 2018: 226). That is, area specialists in political science, particularly in the field
of comparative politics, have to balance the varying expectations of two very different kinds of audiences.
For the disciplinary audience, it may be better to prioritize methodological rigor by examining a representa-
tive sample of cases without the advantage of expert knowledge on each case (which risks losing one's area
studies audience); for the area studies audience, it would make sense to leverage the stock of skills and
knowledge acquired over years of study and research (which risks losing one's disciplinary audience).
Certainly, it is not inconceivable that, given one's inclination and the availability of plentiful resources (includ-
ing time), one could acquire expertise in new areas. One illustrious example of this is David Laitin, who was
trained as an Africanist but set out to build enough area expertise to conduct fieldwork for his study of identity
formation among Russian-speaking populations in four post-Soviet nations (Laitin, 1998). For most scholars,
however, this is a daunting feat – one that requires the luxury of being able to redirect substantial amounts of
time and energy away from regular professional obligations so as to invest anew in a new pocket of exper-
tise. This hardly seems like a worthwhile investment, particularly if it is solely for the purpose of analyzing one
additional case in the course of pursuing a single research project. This is perhaps why even those political
scientists who engage in small-N comparative studies tend to choose cases within areas where they already
possess the relevant expertise, particularly where a single language provides access to primary sources and
fieldwork opportunities throughout the area (Köllner et al., 2018). The two areas where this pattern is most ev-
ident is Latin America (where Spanish provides access to a range of cases, leaving aside Portuguese-speak-
ing Brazil) and the Middle East and North Africa region (where Arabic, despite the different dialects, provides
access to a range of predominantly Islamic societies). For example, James Mahoney's (2010) study of the
long-term impact of Spanish colonialism employs comparative-historical analysis across a small number of
cases from Spanish-speaking Latin America cases that share certain core similarities yet combine differently
with general causal forces to produce a range of trajectories for post-colonial development. Similarly, in Mid-
dle Eastern and North African Studies, Amaney Jamal (2007) has examined how top-down efforts affect the
scope and character of civic engagement in the West Bank under the Palestinian authority, with comparisons
to similar dynamics evident in civil-society formation in Morocco (and, in less detail, in Jordan and Egypt).
Such studies generate invaluable insights about their respective regions by leveraging deep knowledge and
expertise, including language skills. But their research questions are necessarily limited in scope, given the
focus on regionally specific attributes and outcomes.

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It is also worth noting that the advantages enjoyed by Arabic-speaking experts studying the Middle East or
Spanish-speaking scholars studying Latin America do not extend to those researching other areas such as
sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, and East and Southeast Asia. In cross-case studies within these latter
regions, mastery of a single foreign language would not go very far if primary sources or immersive fieldwork
are crucial to the design. Yet there are small-N studies where area expertise is assumed to be relevant and
necessary even without the use of the local language for each and every case study. For example, Anna
Grzymała-Busse's (2007) Rebuilding Leviathan offers a comparative analysis of nine countries within Central
and Eastern Europe in the process of analyzing different pathways to state reconstruction. This impressive
study is rightly credited for demonstrating deep expertise on the region of Central and Eastern Europe – but
without the author relying on language skills for each of the case studies. This is by no means a critique of
the work; it is simply an illustration of a tacit understanding that one can leverage ‘area expertise’ to support
cross-case comparisons within some regions (such as Eastern Europe or Southeast Asia) without necessar-
ily deploying language skills for each case as one might expect for the Middle East and Spanish-speaking
America. This point is also crucial to understanding the relationship between area studies and cross-regional
comparisons considered in the next section.
Re-positioning Area Studies, Advancing Cross-Area Studies

The challenge of balancing the standards and expectations of area studies communities with those of non-
area specialists in political science is not about to disappear anytime soon. This challenge can, however, be
managed through different strategies that yield distinctive payoffs – strategies that have in common a reliance
on some contextual knowledge of particular areas. This knowledge cannot by itself fortify the status of area
specialists within political science. It is also necessary for area specialists to take an active role in framing
the knowledge they generate in relation to evolving theoretical and methodological debates in the discipline.
This implies a need to be more explicit and self-conscious in describing the epistemological assumptions and
methodological principles through which qualitative observations from one or more areas are interpreted in
relation to general concepts and theories in political science.
One common approach has been to present qualitative area-focused scholarship in the form of case studies
within mixed-methods projects, usually alongside formal models and/or regression analyses (see Bergman,
Chapter 26, this Handbook). The proliferation of mixed-methods research since the 1990s has been extreme-
ly rapid and has had some unanticipated consequences, including shrinking the space available for single-
method qualitative research (Ahmed and Sil, 2012). At the same time, mixed-methods designs provide ‘cover’
for many scholars who remain deeply committed to studying particular areas and engaging area studies com-
munities. For them, even if qualitative research is the primary objective, incorporating regression analyses or
formal models can go a long way towards convincing non-area specialists to pay attention to the qualitative
findings. One type of mixed-methods research that has been gaining in popularity is the integration of qual-
itative research with field experiments (see Bassi, Chapter 22, this Handbook). In this approach, research
designs that most closely resemble laboratory experiments are seen as the most reliable path to improv-
ing causal inference; yet, in the field, area expertise is indispensable for supplying the contextual knowledge
required for strong designs (Dunning, 2012). However, mixed-methods research, even where it showcases
deep area expertise, is generally less likely to appeal to area studies communities than to other political sci-
entists (many of whom will know little about the area in question).
Thus, a second strategy may be preferable for political scientists who retain an abiding interest in engaging
a particular area of the world. This strategy involves framing the main findings of area-focused qualitative
research in a language associated with recognizable intellectual currents such as historical institutionalism
and, to a lesser extent, interpretive research. Historical institutionalism has been evolving since the 1990s
and has produced a sophisticated analytic toolbox – encompassing such notions as ‘process-tracing', ‘critical
junctures', ‘contingency', and ‘path dependence’ – for the design and presentation of qualitative research on a
host of topics across the subfields of political science (Fioretos et al., 2016; Berntzen, Chapter 23, this Hand-
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book). A somewhat smaller community of political scientists has gained recognition for the distinctive insights
it has generated through interpretive styles of research such as ethnography (e.g. Schaffer, 2016; Wedeen,
2010). While those identifying with historical institutionalism are more likely to be considered ‘mainstream’
within the discipline, both of these intellectual traditions have helped to preserve some space for area spe-
cialists doing stand-alone qualitative research within political science.
These strategies, however, do not address the question of how to reconcile the pursuit of area-based knowl-
edge with the analysis of phenomena typically manifested across broader expanses of time and space. For
such problems, small-N comparisons frequently require cases drawn from different areas, at least if they are
to capture the full range of variation and trace the effects of various causal mechanisms under different set-
tings. One example of this sort of problem is the study of the ‘resource curse'. Although the rentier states of
the Middle East represent a reasonable focal point for tracing the political and economic consequences of
oil rents, the top ten exporters of crude oil are situated on four separate continents within distinct institution-
al settings and political dynamics. Widening the range of comparable cases selected from different regions
allows for a more open-ended analysis of how the ‘resource curse', rather than invariably undermining institu-
tion-building in developing countries, can sometimes have the opposite effect depending on such intervening
factors as the position of exporters in relation to the ruling coalition (Saylor, 2018). Similarly, in the compara-
tive study of post-communist transitions, cases are frequently selected within the region of Central and East-
ern Europe. This makes sense for a host of questions including, for example, the analysis of market reforms
or constitutional changes related to accession to the EU by former communist countries. Yet, broader exam-
inations of the causes and consequences of different pathways followed by former communist regimes can
benefit from research designs that encompass countries in Central Asia, where post-communist politics has
had to contend with the rise of Islam, as well as the East Asian regimes, where ‘communist’ party-states re-
main entrenched but have sought to expand the private sector and promote greater integration into the global
economy (Chen and Sil, 2007).
To address such problems of broad scope, there is certainly the long-standing tradition of small-N analysis
designed around some version of Mill's methods.5 This approach emphasizes the logic of the comparative
method and the representativeness of selected cases. It does not, however, expect each of the case studies
to rely upon area expertise or take heed of area-specific scholarly debates. It is therefore worth highlighting
a distinctive variant of small-N comparative analysis that is not limited to a single area but still seeks to lever-
age the sensibilities of a trained area specialist. This is precisely the approach touted in a recent volume on
‘comparative area studies’ (CAS), which affirms the importance of continued investments in single-country or
single-area research while highlighting the benefits of cross-regional contextualized comparisons (Ahram et
al., 2018). The editors recognize that trade-offs between the pursuit of deep contextualized knowledge of an
area and the construction of broad causal generalizations can never be fully overcome. Nevertheless, they
contend, that there are distinctive intellectual gains to be had through research strategies that consciously
split the difference between context-sensitive narratives that are attentive to area-specific debates and causal
generalizations that depend on the quasi-experimental logic of the comparative method. In this approach, the
use of comparable cases from different areas allows a researcher to set up an array of causal configurations
that can yield portable inferences. At the same time, the sensibilities of an area specialist are crucial for rec-
ognizing the relevant context conditions and understanding how individual case studies relate to scholarly
discourses within the relevant area studies communities. Thus, even as it seeks to generate middle-range
theoretical propositions, CAS implies an active effort to identify which attributes of various spatial and tempo-
ral contexts matter in what ways for understanding how different kinds of mechanisms and processes produce
a range of outcomes (Köllner et al., 2018).
In practical terms, the CAS approach does not require that a researcher becomes an expert on every country
or area to be analyzed. And, it is certainly not reasonable to expect a researcher to keep learning new lan-
guages or finding new collaborators for each and every additional case in a small-N study. But, it is possible
and worthwhile for anyone trained as an area expert to study cases from a different area with an eye to re-
gionally specific context conditions and with an awareness of how contending intellectual traditions and his-
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toriographic complexities shape discourses among the relevant area studies communities. In fact, there are a
growing number of scholars who have taken on this challenge, and some of their work has been showcased
in summary fashion in the aforementioned volume (Ahram et al., 2018). These studies highlight the payoffs of
CAS in probing deeply into their cases and engaging area studies debates while also identifying portable con-
cepts and causal linkages through cross-regional comparative analysis. In the process, CAS also serves an
integrative function, expanding the channels of communication both between separate communities of area
specialists interested in similar problems and between these communities and the discipline of political sci-
ence writ large.
A related strategy of cross-area research is QCA, an approach that also appreciates the complexity of causal
configurations but is markedly more ambitious in seeking out broader logical inferences across a greater num-
ber of cases (Rihoux and Ragin, 2009; Berg-Schlosser, 2018). QCA follows the logic of Boolean algebra and
the principles of set theory while seeking to simultaneously increase the number of cases being analyzed
and the number of variables under consideration. The initial ‘crisp’ versions of QCA relied upon binary coding
of a set of variables (low/high, absent/present) across a number of cases. In response to criticisms that this
limited coding generates claims that are overly deterministic, fuzzy-set QCA has been designed to incorpo-
rate multidimensional and continuous variables that allow for a much wider range of potential configurations
(see Wagemann, Chapter 20, this Handbook). Given the interest in expanding the number of cases to cover
the full range of causal configurations, it becomes difficult for a researcher using QCA to conduct in-depth
process-tracing or ethnography for any single case (see Beach, Chapter 17, this Handbook). Moreover, giv-
en the focus on assigning values to discrete variables across different sets of cases, QCA researchers are
increasingly working with standardized algorithms and computer programs to analyze discrete matrices of
cases and variables. Even so, area-based knowledge provides crucial contextual information needed to iden-
tify the relevant variables across a given set of cases and to assign appropriate values to these variables for
each case. Thus, while QCA is not as dependent as CAS on the skill-set or sensibilities of an area specialist,
it does provide justification for continuing investment in area studies research, without which it is not possible
to identify plausible case-specific causal configurations.
Although the discussion of cross-regional comparison up to this point has implicitly treated the main units of
comparison as countries, it is also possible to ‘scale up’ or ‘scale down’ cross-regional qualitative research.
Scaling up implies comparing entire regions as a whole or comparing countries treated as representing the
regions in which they are situated. This mode of inter-regional comparison emphasizes the relevance of dis-
crete region-wide attributes and processes that can play a crucial role in mediating causal forces thought to
originate at the global or national levels. By decentering the nation-state and focusing on regions, inter-region-
al comparisons are in a position to shed light on how regional-level historical inheritances or transformational
processes might mediate between global and local forces and influence the trajectories of discrete clusters of
countries. Peter Katzenstein's (2005) A World of Regions, for example, makes a powerful case for identifying
and comparing regional orders within the larger international system. While such orders may be ‘porous’ vis-
à-vis the forces of globalization and internationalization, they still retain a regionally distinctive combination of
economic, cultural, and institutional features that shape the behaviors and relations among countries within a
given region.
Finally, scaling down to the local level offers the possibility of deploying what Snyder (2001) has labeled
the ‘subnational comparative method'. This approach encompasses within-country comparisons of cities or
provinces as well as between-country comparisons of like units situated in different countries. The latter vari-
ant forfeits the possibility of controlling for national-level historical, societal, or institutional attributes; but it
gains more traction in analyzing how similarities and differences in those attributes might produce similar pat-
terns of sub-national variation across different national settings. This fundamental design easily lends itself to
cross-regional studies, where comparisons can focus on similar sets of sub-national units situated in different
areas of the world. This is particularly useful for researching questions where the relevant sub-national dy-
namics are limited to countries that have certain common characteristics or face certain common challenges
even though they are located in different areas. For example, Heller (2012) has illuminated local variations
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in the efficacy of reforms designed to decentralize aspects of policymaking and expand the scope for grass-
roots civic engagement in Brazil, India, and South Africa (Heller, 2012). Similarly, Smith (2018) has generated
novel insights about the conditions that spur the emergence of separatist movements through context-sensi-
tive comparisons of groups and locales in states formed out of post-imperial partitions in different areas. Both
inter-regional and sub-national comparative studies bolster the argument that area expertise is an extremely
valuable asset for identifying the contextual knowledge needed to design and execute cross-regional com-
parative studies.
Conclusion: Reports of the Death of Area Studies Have Been Greatly Exagger-
ated
Long before questions arose about the fate of area studies in the post-Cold War era, there was ample evi-
dence to suggest that the pursuit of area-specific knowledge and the advancement of political science had
never constituted a zero-sum game. Key concepts – from ‘corporatism’ and ‘consociationalism’ to ‘develop-
mental state’ and ‘rentier state’ – became cornerstone of major research programs in political science after
initially having emerged out of area- or country-focused research by political scientists (Sil, 2018: 230). That
is, area specialists in political science, far from being on the margins of the discipline, had compiled an impres-
sive track record of introducing major conceptual and theoretical advances of the discipline. Nevertheless, the
post-Cold War era has seen the emergence of new challenges for area specialists in the social sciences – in
part related to resources and funding streams, in part related to methodological currents (particularly in the
United States) that tend to discount stand-alone qualitative analyses of single countries or areas. These con-
straints have greatly intensified the pressures and trade-offs for area specialists in political science, widening
the gap between the payoffs from the accumulation of area expertise and the rewards associated with adher-
ing to disciplinary ‘best practice'.
The result of these trends, however, is not an irreversible decline in area studies but rather an expansion of
the variety of research products that area specialists are able to offer. As we saw above, some have reap-
portioned their time and effort to incorporate quantitative analysis or mathematical modeling within mixed-
methods designs, while others have connected their area-specific research to recognized intellectual tradi-
tions such as historical institutionalism. We are also encountering scholars who have area expertise but are
exploring context-sensitive cross-regional comparisons. Importantly, the latter are not viewed as subsuming
or supplanting research produced by area specialists. In fact, any comparative approach that is attentive to
context conditions in various locales must necessarily rely upon area studies research and engage scholarly
debates within area studies communities. Thus, area-focused and cross-area qualitative research in the so-
cial sciences, rather than dueling with one another, are in a position to jointly affirm that their research output,
far from being esoteric or idiosyncratic, has much to tell us about how global, regional, national, and local
factors shape political outcomes worldwide.
Indeed, discussions along these lines are taking place – both across ‘horizontal’ channels linking scholars
embedded in different countries and area studies networks, as well as along ‘vertical’ channels linking various
pockets of area-focused research to disciplinary debates over concepts, theories, and methods. It is true that
shifting flows of resources and intellectual trends in various disciplines have affected the scope for area-spe-
cific training and field research in some places. At the same time, on a global scale, area studies research
remains active and fruitful, and there are now more centers for regional studies as well as more conversa-
tions among scholars based in different regions. Moreover, the real world keeps throwing up surprises that
require deep insight and contextual knowledge, making it abundantly clear to academics, policymakers, and
foundations that the scholarly study of different regions of the world cannot be scaled back to the degree that
some envisioned immediately after the Cold War. All of these developments taken together suggest that area
studies are more likely to keep adapting rather than simply peter out due to shifts in resource streams and
disciplinary fashions at any given time. At a minimum, it seems safe to say that reports of the death of area
studies have been greatly exaggerated.
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Notes
1 Website of the University of Oxford's School of Global and Area Studies (OSGA), available at
https://www.area-studies.ox.ac.uk/about-us (accessed February 20, 2019).
2 As noted on the website of AEGIS: https://www.aegis-eu.org/why-aegis (accessed February 25, 2018).
3 As per the website of SOAS: https://www.soas.ac.uk/about/ (accessed February 27, 2017).
4 See the website of the Africa Institute of South Africa (AISA), at http://www.ai.org.za/about-aisa-2 (accessed
February 25, 2019).
5 These refer to the methods of induction outlined by John Stuart Mill in his A System of Logic (1843).
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http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n18

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Big Data in Social Sciences
Contributors: Uwe Wagschal & Felix Ettensperger

Chapter Title: "Big Data in Social Sciences"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Big Data in Social Sciences

Uwe Wagschal Felix Ettensperger
Definition of Big Data

The application of big data in social and political sciences is still in its infancy. However, big data analysis is
no longer something fancy, but has reached all social science disciplines. In fact, the core idea of big data
is not new: scientists, researchers and operators have always been interested in more and better data. De-
spite the fact that governments, social media and private digital data companies have begun to produce huge
amounts of accessible data, interpretation and analysis of these data streams still constitutes a technical and
functional challenge. And even in the neighboring fields of economics, econometrics and finance – disciplines
long accustomed to huge amounts of real-time data, for example in stock market analysis – the application of
big data frameworks for huge-N analysis and automatically generated information is still considered as new
and innovative.
The most common definition of big data is based on the so-called three Vs. Gartner, a leading consulting
firm in this sector, defines it as follows: ‘Big data is high-volume, high-velocity and/or high-variety information
assets that demand cost-effective, innovative forms of information processing that enable enhanced insight,
decision making, and process automation'. This definition, however goes back to Doug Laney (2001), a con-
sultant who previously worked for another consultancy now owned by Gartner.
The first ‘V’ refers to the volume of big data. Due to new methods of data gathering from various sources,
the amount of data has increased vastly compared to former times when data collection was predominantly
‘small data'. Internet databases, data from social media and visualized data that can be gathered from videos
and other sources, have all led to the creation of larger data sets. A second aspect is the increased capacity
of hard drives and new technologies like cloud computing enabling the storage of immense data sets – not
surprisingly the size of some applications has reached petabytes.
The second ‘V’ refers to velocity. The speed of data has also increased enormously. Real-time applications
(for example, from social media, financial markets or public debates) are a new challenge to data analysis.
The importance of velocity can especially be seen at the stock markets: today, almost two-thirds of trades are
done by algorithms and automatized computing. Another aspect of big data is the analysis of communication
in real time, because real-time data also require faster storage of data.
Finally, the variety of data is a new aspect. ‘In the old days', data storage was organized in databases with
specific structures, for example, variables in the first row and time or cross-sectional identificators in the col-
umn. Basically, the type of data was numerical. In contrast, for many applications, big data is nowadays based
on new types like audio, video or text analysis. This requires new approaches for social scientists to analyze
this kind of data. Some new big data applications even refer to geographical identificators: for example, sur-
veys can be allocated to a geographical region via the IP address of the internet connection.
In the literature there are some other ‘Vs’ mentioned which supplement the original three dimensions. The
fourth ‘V’ is veracity, which concerns the uncertainty of data, especially possible inconsistencies and incom-
pleteness. The fifth ‘V’ is the validity of the data. Validity is related to veracity and is an old criterion of data
quality in statistics. Do the data really measure what should be measured? This is why validity is always a
concern when collecting data. With big data, the validity problem has increased since the measurement is
even further removed from the theoretical construct that the researcher is interested in. Data from the internet
are far more blurred and fluid. A sixth aspect is the visualization of data. The strive for good graphs in social
sciences is not new (Tufte, 1983), but new graphical tools like Shiny enable persistent data storage. Shiny
apps offer the possibility to display data in a very timely and elaborated manner.

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Finally, because big data offers opportunities for businesses, the literature mentions the ‘V’ for value. Data
and information are valuable resources in the 21st century. Companies like Facebook, Twitter, Google or
Cambridge Analytica (CA) use information about their customers, clients or targets for advertising purposes.
In the end, there is no production of ‘hard’ products, but the value added by these companies is a new ap-
proach to look at data differently. It is not only social media that create a huge and constant data stream: more
importantly, in the future there will be many new data streams contributing images (for example, videos and
photos) or signals from sensors (‘internet of things') to the growing set of available real-life data.
Interestingly, Mayer-Schönberger and Cukier (2013) argue that big data is not so much about causal modeling
and theory testing as it is about finding patterns and correlations within data. Researchers using big data are,
therefore, located not only in the traditional domain of testing theories and rejecting hypotheses, but simulta-
neously in a very different world regarding their quest for finding correlation patterns. For the task of pattern
detection, simple correlations and descriptive statistics can be used. In addition, more elaborated methods
like neural networks, clustering methods, machine learning (ML) algorithms and artificial intelligence can also
be employed.
boyd and Crawford offer a different definition:
We define Big Data as a cultural, technological, and scholarly phenomenon that rests on the inter-
play of:
1. Technology: maximizing computation power and algorithmic accuracy to gather,

analyze, link, and compare large data sets.
2. Analysis: drawing on large data sets to identify patterns in order to make eco-
nomic, social, technical, and legal claims.
3. Mythology: the widespread belief that large data sets offer a higher form of intel-
ligence and knowledge that can generate insights that were previously impossi-
ble, with the aura of truth, objectivity, and accuracy. (boyd and Crawford, 2012:
663)
Big data poses problems concerning the autonomy of individuals and the right to possess their own informa-
tion. China, for example, uses big data applications for the surveillance of citizens. The US National Security
Agency (NSA) and the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) have massively monitored
telecommunication and the internet worldwide since 2007. The NSA used a program called PRISM to retrieve
data from the internet. Partners of PRISM, among others, are Microsoft (with Skype), Google (with YouTube),
Facebook, Yahoo and Apple. The revelations of Edward Snowden showed an unprecedented surveillance
of citizens all over the world, violating their guaranteed civil rights. A specific profile can be constructed for
every internet user showing his specific preferences. However, some of these tech companies do not restrict
their usage of data to their own business purposes; Facebook and Twitter, for example, use the collected in-
formation to feed their clients with fitting information based on their preferences. During the Brexit campaign
and the election campaign of President Donald Trump, CA used available information to influence voters with
targeted information adjusted to their profiles. O'Neil (2016: 3) gives, in her instructive and informative article,
several examples for various threats and calls big data a ‘weapon[ ] of math destruction'. The examples point-
ed out before, clearly show that big data can be a serious danger for civil and political rights and, therefore,
for democracy itself.
However, big data offers huge possibilities to improve daily life and creates new opportunities concerning not
only science, but also politics. Mayer-Schönberger and Cukier (2013), for example, demonstrate how avian
flu could have been predicted earlier and contained faster by scanning for items used in the internet. Com-
bining the search data from Google with the data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on
the spread of the flu between 2003 and 2008, they were able to show a strong correlation of outbreak data
and specific search patterns. Search engines using big data and artificial intelligence are able to predict the

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best moment to buy a product, and in general, big data brings a competitive advantage for many companies.
The experiences made in some recent elections reveal that a good big data strategy can be an advantage for
political parties and candidates.
A Little History of Big Data

Governments, scientists and business have always been keen on more and better data. The nation building
of modern societies was in many cases accompanied by the foundation of national statistical bureaus. How-
ever, the beginning of data collection was basically driven by socio-economic purposes, like a population cen-
sus or improvement of taxation. This generated huge data sets as well as problems regarding data storage
and data analysis. The introduction of computers facilitated data collection and data analysis on a smaller
scale compared to today. At the beginning of the computerization era, large mainframes – which had much
less power than personal computers today – needed punch cards to proceed the commands. Big data appli-
cations are therefore nothing new; the difference lies in the increase in size and complexity. Innovations like
Hadoop, neural networks, artificial intelligence, elaborated cluster analysis and learning algorithms were big
data innovations, which helped to cope with both problems mentioned above.
In the social sciences, computer science was lagging behind the neighboring discipline of economics. Early
attempts had been made at implementing complicated econometric models to simulate the economy and the
effects of policymaking; however, it was sociologist Charles Tilly who first introduced the notion of big data in
his scientific article. He was quite skeptical about the possibility of huge data sets and big data applications
being able to explain historical and sociological developments. Citing the historian Lawrence Stone he con-
sidered the argument `that none of the big questions has actually yielded to the bludgeoning of the big-data
people, and that “in general the sophistication of the methodology has tended to exceed the reliability of the
data”’ (Stone, 1979: 13 as cited in Tilly, 1984: 369).
The developments in the field were driven from economics, finance and computer science. Around the year
2000, big data started to become a hot topic, but, after Laney had formulated his three ‘Vs’ (volume, velocity
and variety) definition in 2001, it still took some years for the sophisticated software, necessary to use big
data properly, to be developed. A first important step was the implementation of Hadoop by Yahoo in 2005,
which was a web crawler used to collect data from the internet. In the following years, the applications for
big data took off, creating new technologies and computer languages. Another important innovation was au-
tomatic data collection with the programing language ‘R’ which became a standard within social science to
collect data from Twitter, Facebook, speeches, articles and online comments. Content analysis and text min-
ing were taken to a higher level using a big data approach through which tremendous amounts of information
could be retrieved relatively easily (Munzert et al., 2015).
Big Data Frameworks

One important aspect of big data is its focus on huge amounts of data. The standard definition usually implies
that the quantity of data involved is no longer manageable by a single computer system and therefore requires
cloud computing, data servers or sophisticated networks processing the information with process manage-
ment systems like Hadoop. Technical advances are the main problem with this definition: what would have
counted as big data research in 2000 due to technical limitations in data storage and processing power, can
today be processed on modern computer systems without splitting the data into separated objects and using
various processing lines (boyd and Crawford, 2012). Although the continued improvements in computer hard-
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ware have to some extent slowed down in recent years, it can still be anticipated that more projects labeled
‘big data’ will eventually fall out of this narrow technical definition.
The sources of big data offer a second aspect for analysis. Many projects looking at data from social media
have been labeled ‘big data research’ because they use a source of information that clearly shows the char-
acteristics of a big data structure, with data sources far beyond the processing power of any single consumer
computational system. This usually does not indicate that the research itself is using data that are too big
to compute on a single device; it merely implies that data are taken out of a big data eco-system with huge
amounts of accessible data. Rodgers argues in ‘Foundations of Digital Methods':
As noted, digital methods make use of online methods, by which I refer to an array of techniques
from the computational and information sciences – crawling, scraping, indexing, ranking, and so forth
– that have been applied to and redeveloped for the Web. They refer to algorithms that determine
relevance and authority and thereby recommend information sources as in Google's famed PageR-
ank, but also boost all manner of items, from songs and ‘friends’ to potential ‘followers'. Many of
the algorithms are referred to as ‘social', meaning that they make use of user choices and activity
(purposive clicks such as liking), and may be contrasted with the ‘semantic', meaning that which is
categorized and matched (as in Google's Knowledge Graph). (Rodgers, 2017: 76)
A third aspect of big data research refers to the implications – the impacts and the outcomes of big data sys-
tems. While this is not big data research per se, but more likely research about big data, it might provide many
interesting aspects, which could be investigated in the field of political science. One interesting observation
regarding the usage of the ‘big data’ label is that all the types of research mentioned above have been labeled
‘big data research': a clear distinction is necessary in order not to conflate these very different approaches
and to express more accurately which type of research is used in each case. For some researchers (Mayer-
Schönberger and Cukier, 2013), big data research is a totally new way of looking at data. Causal explana-
tions lose ground, whereas pattern detection becomes more important. New clustering techniques, as well as
analyses of texts, photos and videos, ideally combined with other types of data, yield new insights. According
to Mayer-Schönberger and Cukier, ‘Correlations are useful in a small-data world, but in the context of big data
they really shine’ (Mayer-Schönberger and Cukier, 2013: 3). On first sight, this non-theorizing seems to be a
problem for social science. However, the empirical findings may outweigh these problems and stimulate an
inductive theory-building. Couldry puts it this way:
‘Big data’ is only possible on two basic conditions (which actually are composites of many more de-
tailed conditions): first, that data is collected continuously about the states of affairs in various do-
mains (including not just what individuals do and say, but the state of their bodies); second, that data
is aggregated and its patterns of correlation computed and ‘interpreted'. (Coudry, 2017: 235)
Semi-Automatic Approaches to Retrieving Data from Twitter and Facebook

It has been proclaimed that big data does not merely refer to vast data sets and sophisticated tools to manip-
ulate and analyze tremendous amounts of data, but it is also perceived as bringing about a transformation in
how we generate and process knowledge. Some see it as a change of equal importance as that of the inven-
tion of the industrial assembly line by Henry Ford (Burkholder, 1992; Baca, 2004; boyd and Crawford, 2012:
665).
Big data is without doubt transforming many aspects of business, governance and science. But the hype
around new technological options sometimes leads to a false impression of unmatched accuracy and ab-
solute objectivity in this new domain (boyd and Crawford 2012: 665–7). In all regards, especially concerning
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the validity of the underlying research design and the research question applied, big data contributions should
be checked with the same thoroughness as all other kinds of scientific research. Researchers, political lead-
ers and company executives should not be distracted by the bold claims about these new methods bringing
a general improvement in how data can be processed and evaluated.
Especially, examples from the interesting sub-field of social media research can be cited to illustrate the pit-
falls of big data related projects in general. Some significant problems regarding big data research are easily
demonstrated in relation to semi-automatically collected data from social media and other sources of high
volatility. The three main problems here are the selection of data, the process of collecting it and transform-
ing it into usable data and the overall coverage and representativeness of this kind of source. In this context,
semi-automatic means that data are specified as relevant and a certain research focus is set by the investi-
gating human specialist(s), while the retrieval of data is fully automated.
The decisions of researchers about how to process data from social media, how to select and filter it, as well
as how to view the extracted data in context, are as crucial as ever to gain meaningful results in this field.
In many social media-related research projects, search terms for queries, or at least the rules of aggregation
and analysis, are completely specified beforehand by the team of researchers. What to include and, more
importantly, what to leave out is often left to human judgment based on overly confident decisions done with
limited information. If it is not considered and evaluated carefully, a specific selection of data can easily lead
to the illusion of discovering solid evidence where relationships are indeed at best weak. Due to the sheer
size of available social media data, researchers are likely to encounter even the most marginal topics and
side issues and may easily overestimate the overall impact of these information chunks. Moreover, reviewing
only certain segments of information can be highly misleading and confirm pre-existing assumptions by ne-
glecting counter-evidence or the real ratios and volumes of the investigated content in relation to the overall
volume the data generated. All this can be considered as a form of confirmation bias (Nickerson, 1998). Re-
searchers also sometimes tend to over-interpret coincidentally appearing random patterns in data: ‘Too often,
Big Data enables the practice of apophenia: seeing patterns where none actually exist, simply because enor-
mous quantities of data can offer connections that radiate in all directions’ (boyd and Crawford, 2012: 668).
The technical sources of potential errors when retrieving data are also manifold: data queries must often be
repeated in certain intervals, and data sets must be accumulated over time, cleaned and compiled for further
processing. All these steps are prone to intentional or unintentional distortions, to errors and manipulations.
Due to the limitations of access via application programming interfaces (APIs) and other constraints in the
accessibility of data sources, research in the domain of social media research often works with constraint
samples of information. Companies like Facebook and Twitter limit or meter the amount of data that can be
retrieved in a single session (especially by non-business accounts) at any given time (Twitter, 2019). In the
end, information is their prime resource and they will not share it to the same extent as they are capable of
collecting and processing it. Retrieving User Timelines in Twitter by a standard API is usually limited to the
most recent 3,200 tweets from a single user, and if it is repeated later, the data foundation will probably have
changed. Paying premiums for unlimited access normally does not solve the need to extensively reformat,
combine and accumulate vast amounts of different data frames and to query data at many different times.
To make things worse, the growing role of bots and other malign-opinion entrepreneurs in social media can
further distort the picture. While finding out which accounts are used to strategically spread misinformation
and propaganda and what techniques are used to influence normal users can be fascinating, these disruptive
agents in social media can often lead to wrong impressions about the real magnitude of certain issues. Bots
publicizing huge amounts of negative or one-sided comments can distort trends not only for users looking for
confirmation of their attitudes, but also for researchers trying to evaluate the objective volume of content pub-
lished by human actors. Between 9–15% of all tweets come from bots, as recent research estimates indicate
(Varol et al., 2017).
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Social media data gained from sources like Twitter or Facebook are not representative of the general pop-
ulation. In fact, they are not even representative of the growing fraction of digital citizens. ‘Twitter does not
represent “all people”, and it is an error to assume “people” and “Twitter users” are synonymous: they are a
very particular sub-set’ (boyd and Crawford, 2012 : 669). Twitter metrics revealed that roughly 44% of all Twit-
ter accounts never actually tweet (Koh, 2014). Taking this into account, active Twitter users are not even a
perfect representation of the opinion and attitude of all Twitter users as many of them belong to the vast group
of silent listeners. As Twitter users only account for a small fraction of online users in general, putting too
much emphasis on social media analysis can be hugely misleading. Although the fraction of Facebook users
is comparably higher, the same limitations appear to be in place. Of course, ongoing generational change and
increasing digitalization will make online communication more widespread and will increase the importance
of the internet as well as data that can be derived from social media and online sources. However, the repre-
sentativeness of online data will remain an issue.
Researchers must be transparent and honest about all transformations they apply to their original data, and
should consider as well as report all its inherent limitations. They should be critical regarding the validity and
reliability of their research design and review it in detail. If certain topics of interest are selected, the observed
volume of content should be made transparent in relation to general trends and overall behavior of users.
Otherwise, big data research projects risk running into errors well known from conventional research, which
will lead to false positive results or erroneous conclusions due to the process of data selection.
Application of Big Data in Social Sciences

Many books written on big data point out that better policymaking and the wider detection of diseases and
different forms of fraud are supported by these new techniques. De Rosa noted: ‘The radical expansion of
digital data is transforming the global evidence base and will lead to improved knowledge, understanding and
decision making across the economy and politics’ (2017: 125). The following example, that of election fraud,
deals with the application of big data in social sciences. Election fraud was predominantly identified in au-
thoritarian and totalitarian countries. However, even in democratic countries, problems with free and fair elec-
tions have been observed, as in the 2000 US presidential election, with an official recount leading to litigation
and controversy surrounding anomalies within the electoral process. Election fraud can happen not only in
the process of counting votes but at various stages of the electoral process: registration of voters, electoral
districting, voting by mail, electronic voting machines, and other features, offer possibilities to influence the
election outcome. New instruments have been developed to detect election fraud, especially election foren-
sics: using larger data sets from election results, election forensics rely on big data foundations and statistical
analysis. Especially, the distribution of votes can indicate election fraud, and by using Benford's law (Mebane,
2006), or other statistical techniques, that fraud can be made visible. Benford's law focuses on the distribution
of the second and last digit of the counted votes. According to Benford, the distribution of the second and last
digit should follow a distinct distribution. With a special computer program in R (election forensics toolkit) it is
possible to check for these anomalies.
Real-Time Response Measurement as a Big Data Application

The following is another example of the potential of a big data application in the social sciences. The simulta-
neous measurement of direct responses to political debates, discussions and other forms of communication
have been of interest to social scientists since the mid 1940s when Paul Lazarsfeld started this kind of re-
search in the United States, first in the context of radio transmissions and later during the presidential debate
of 1952 (Levy, 1982; Lazarsfeld and Stanton, 1944). Surprisingly, technological advances measuring the im-

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pact of television debates during US election campaigns were rather scarce. For several decades, physical
dialers were used to measure the effects of political debates on the viewers and respondents – albeit several
different tools such as sliders, dialers or push buttons were tested. It was especially during the presidential
campaign of 2012 (boydstun et al., 2014) that new advances occurred and that researchers moved this kind
of research from the lab setting, where experiments and research of political debates had traditionally been
conducted, to environments more familiar to the audience. During the 2017 German federal election cam-
paign, a new instrument for real-time measurement, the Debat-O-Meter (Metz et al., 2016), was applied to the
debate between the two leading candidates, Angela Merkel and Martin Schulz, watched by roughly 16 million
spectators on five TV channels simultaneously. Before the German federal election of 2017, the Debat-O-Me-
ter team experimented with different GUIs (graphical user interfaces) like rubber bands, sliders, dialers and
push buttons. It was also used in TV debates like the third presidential debate between Trump and Hillary
Clinton, the first debate during the French presidential campaign in 2017 and the Brexit debate (see Figure
16.1). In the case of the Merkel–Schulz debate, the number of discussants varied between two and seven.
More than 44,000 spectators entered the website debatometer.com and roughly 28,000 users completed the
pre-surveys and the RTR (real-time response) evaluation. In the end, more than 15,000 post surveys were
completed. To these users an individual voting advice analysis (VAA) was provided. All in all, more than 1.52
million clicks were cast during the 90 minutes of the debate, resulting in votes in favor or against Chancellor
Angela Merkel or challenger Martin Schulz and their arguments. For the analysis, the geographical informa-
tion of the IP address was used to cross-check the location of the participants (mainly to avoid fraud from
abroad and check geographical representation).
Figure 16.1 Different graphical user interfaces of the Debat-O-Meter used in TV

debate
Source: Debat-O-Meter project (www.debatometer.com).
Who won the debate? According to the post survey it was close to a draw: 39% responded that Merkel won
the debate while 40.3% declared Martin Schulz the winner. This promising research revealed new ways to
measure the preferences of the electorate, especially the distribution within the group of undecided voters
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and party sympathizers. It was also possible to find correlations between attitudes of the participants and their
clicking behavior. In fact, four different data sources were combined for the analysis: a pre- and post-survey,
the RTR measures and geographical information from the IP address.
Major Techniques of Big Data Analysis
Data Mining and Related Techniques

As shown in previous examples, collecting and assembling data in automatic and semi-automatic ways is a
core task necessary to enable big data research. This initial data-gathering process is, however, not what is
commonly labeled ‘data mining'; it is not the collecting and assembling of vast amounts of data, but the sub-
sequent analytical process of finding relationships inside certain data sets. It is the task of scanning through
already collected data using statistical methods to find new relations and patterns in the data (Leskovec et
al., 2014). Data mining is thus somewhat of a misnomer (Han and Kamber, 1998: 6). Data mining is a very
unspecific and broad description of processes, involving a vast repertoire of different statistical methods. It is
by definition the ‘knowledge discovery in databases'. The difference between data mining and what is more
conventionally called data analysis lies mostly in their different intentions: data mining is done with the clear
objective to produce viable predictions based on available data, while data analysis tries conventionally to
explain and analyze effects inside the data.
Six different classes of tasks are generally associated with and applied to data mining: regression, clustering,
anomaly detection, summarization, classification and rule learning (Fayyad et al., 1996). One potential ex-
ample for a concrete technique is k-means clustering. It is a method used to discover different sub-groups in
data. Thus, it can show which variables are occurring simultaneously within certain groups of cases. Such a
clustering technique can identify different categories related by their corresponding variable patterns. It can
also be applied to identify similarities in cases. In a marketing setting for example, it can be used to identify
different types of customers and target them individually by specialized marketing and tailor-made advertise-
ments. In political science, it enables us to differentiate between different sets of voters, countries, actors or
institutions.
Data mining can also involve anomaly detection using techniques for finding and identifying statistical outliers
in a data set. These outliers can give an indication for data manipulation, for example, in election forensics
and for the detection of election fraud by looking at specific anomalies. It can also be used to identify online
bots or automated systems spreading huge amounts of polarizing data on social media based on their posting
behavior. Data-mining techniques are not necessarily complex, and summarizing vast amounts of data can
already provide an advantage in the market or in elections if competitors are operating without any big data
or data techniques at all. But as will be shown in the next section, big data also opens the door to much more
complex applications.
Big Data as a Pre-Condition for Artificial Intelligence

The processing of huge, accessible and rapidly collected libraries of big data in itself promises more detailed
insights into many disciplines, including economics, political science, sociology, medicine, biology and man-
agement (De Mauro et al., 2016). It can help to approach and better understand some of the pressing social
and economic challenges of our time. Yet, the full impact of big data can only be understood if viewed in re-
lation to the many new data science methods that are enabled and advanced through big data: ML, artificial
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intelligence, neural networks and advanced clustering methods. ML algorithms and deep neural networks can
learn to identify patterns by processing, and ‘learning’ from, vast amounts of previously collected data (Hastie
et al., 2009: 2). By adapting their internal weights and nodes to huge amounts of training data, these algo-
rithms and networks can become extremely efficient and reliable in identifying cases and assigning them to
learned categories, even in environments where cues are very subtle and human observers and other statis-
tical methods would struggle to identify patterns and associations due to the sheer amount of data. The pos-
sible applications of this new technology are (almost) infinite: a team of biomedical engineers and ML experts
programed a deep learning framework based on deep neural networks that can identify genetic diseases with
astonishing accuracy (~96%) by analyzing only portrait photos of patients. Characteristic reference points in
each face, the ‘variables’ in this approach, are trained with 17,000 photos including cues for 216 different rare
genetic conditions to acquire an understanding of which individual combinations of facial characteristics are
corresponding to certain rare genetic conditions (Gurovich et al., 2019).
In another example, ML combined with text-mining techniques were used to identify the author of anonymous
written content by comparing associations in language and word usage of known authors to the unknown
source (Chakrabarty, 2019). In medicine and biology, deep convolutional networks can figure out how com-
plex proteins fold and thus produce new tailor-made medicine to interact precisely with these proteins (Wang
et al., 2016). Teams of ML specialists developed ML tools to identify icebergs in satellite photos in order to
advance automatic alarm systems that make sea routes safer by preventing dangerous collisions (Mazur et
al., 2017). In conflict studies, training an algorithm with social, economic, political and demographic data of
previous years provides insights on how to predict the conflict propensity of certain regions (Colaresi and
Mahmood, 2017). As a final example, advanced deep networks can learn from thousands of games of Go to
master this ancient Asian board game and reach levels of perfection that are unachievable for humans (Silver
et al., 2016).
In all these examples, the foundation for training a network or algorithm is a suitable amount of data. De-
pending on the complexity of the research question, a minimum of a few hundred cases can sometimes be
sufficient to develop a viable and relatively successful ML framework. But their capacity to surpass other sta-
tistical techniques and even humans in pattern recognition, and to reach exceptionally high accuracy in cer-
tain applications, is strongly connected to the amount of utilizable data. It is not unusual for ML frameworks
to incorporate millions of cases with hundreds or thousands of different variables. Unlike other methods, ML
approaches can be easily up-scaled (Hastie et al., 2009; Goodfellow et al., 2016). A high number of variables
does not have to be counterbalanced by a certain number or ratio of cases, nor is there an existing upper
input limit for elements used aside from computational limits that can arise during this process. One of the
few limitations of ML and artificial intelligence research is the processing power on the hardware side. Es-
pecially, artificial neural networks (ANNs) require more processing power than simpler learning algorithms,
but promise better results in the form of more complex learning patterns, which can lead to amazing break-
throughs in artificial intelligence.
The reason why big companies are at the forefront of new discoveries in artificial intelligence is that they can
combine huge processing power with enormous amounts of data collected from their customers, their search
engines or online platforms. The amount of data necessary to make ANNs smart is staggering, but by open-
ing up ever more data sources and connecting ever more devices and gadgets to our daily life, we can now
be relatively certain that big data is about to fundamentally change many aspects of human life.
Problems of Big Data and Critical Assessment

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The Case of Cambridge Analytica

The influential role of CA during the 2016 US election campaign and also during the Brexit referendum in the
same year, highlights some of the fundamental dangers resulting from the application of big data. Although
the real impact of CA's data-driven approach is highly disputed among experts and hard to measure (Hersh,
2015; González, 2017: 10–11), initial evidence suggests that the impact of such actors on voting behavior
can be far-reaching and constitutes a considerable and growing challenge for democracies in the decades to
come.
Roberto González observed for the 2016 presidential election that myths are abundant in regard to CA and
their role in the 2016 campaign. Along with other observers, González went so far as to claim that:
Cambridge Analytica, played a pivotal role in Donald Trump's victory by formulating new algorithmic
techniques to influence the electorate during the final months of the 2016 US presidential campaign.
[…] Some described Cambridge Analytica's tools as ‘mind-reading software', a ‘weaponized AI [arti-
ficial intelligence] propaganda machine’ that ‘turned the world upside down’ by saturating voters with
carefully crafted messages. (González, 2017: 9)
Evaluating the aspects of the 2016 election comprehensively, many researchers came to the conclusion that
CA's (self-)description as a pivotal instrument for the success of the Trump campaign was exaggerated. Yet,
several political scientists are warning us not to underestimate the role of these new agents in the realm of
‘electoral management’ for future campaigns.
So, how can companies like CA effectively influence millions of voters and help to secure narrow wins in
crucial battleground states? By building on the Republican Party's own data-collection efforts, it appears that
CA established individual profiles, including about 5,000 individual data points, on more than 200 million US
citizens (Bartlett, 2018). Building on this data foundation, the company managed to model and predict how
‘persuadable’ individual voters are and how to target them efficiently with tailor-made advertisements (Bartlett,
2018: 14). Some interesting connections within the data were discovered in this process. For example, an-
alysts found that a preference for cars made in the United States was already a good first indication for a
potential Trump voter. Of course, evaluating all 5,000 data points in the combined dataset allowed a much
better identification of individual voter traits and to tailor content much more precisely to the emotional needs
and expectations of specific groups of recipients. By harnessing this big-data-driven approach, political en-
trepreneurs suddenly gained an effective tool to identify and mobilize swing voters and convince them by us-
ing arguments customized to their personality and activating powerful emotional triggers (Cadwalladr, 2017).
Although they denied the use of psychometric profiling, it is very evident that they repeatedly used this tech-
nique to determine voter preferences and to improve their voter targeting (Bartlett, 2018: 14). The consecutive
claim that CA was able to pinpoint 20 million potential swing voters in crucial states by developing psycho-
logical profiles is therefore highly probable (González, 2017: 9). Thus, by targeting the right group of persons
in the right kind of states, it is likely that CA had an important impact on the election, despite the fact they
engaged late in the presidential race and worked with very limited time and resources. By targeting only vot-
ers that are susceptible to a certain message, these big data techniques can help to make campaigns much
more efficient, and by avoiding voters that are extremely unlikely to change their mind, they can help to avoid
wasting limited resources on futile attempts at swaying certain demographic and sociological groups.
It is not only in the United States that the impact of big data-driven campaigns can be witnessed. It has
emerged that Nigel Farage, then leader of UKIP (UK Independence Party), was also involved with CA. He
was introduced to the firm and its techniques by Robert Mercer, a stakeholder of CA, back in 2016. There is
growing evidence that CA provided, at minimum, expert advice to the ‘Leave Campaign’ and provided infor-
mation on how to target uncertain voters in the Brexit campaign via Facebook (Cadwalladr, 2017).

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Although CA has closed its doors and the real impact of the company remains disputed, the rise of new com-
petitors on the market of ‘election management’ and ‘data-driven political consulting’ is well on its way. Win-
ning elections in democracies will in the future depend to an increasing degree on who can learn more about
potential voters and effectively use big data techniques to target and mobilize them. But the legal and political
limitations that these actors and companies face in their quest to collect and use information will determine
how much big data may shape democracy in the 21st century.
Developing the Perfect Big Data Dystopia? The Chinese Social Credit System
In 2014, the Chinese government started one of the most colossal and controversial social experiments of
our time. By the year 2020, the currently developed and now step-by-step implemented unified Social Credit
System is supposed to be in place, ready for a comprehensive launch to ‘improve’ the ‘social management’ of
all Chinese citizens (Meissner, 2017: 6). It is in fact a universal big data-based ranking system incorporating
thousands of different data sources traceable from public activities of the entire Chinese public. It covers and
affects almost all aspects of daily life. On the long list of alleged benefits that the government cites for this new
system, the following points are especially important: the improvement of social cohesion and integrity, the
promotion of honesty in governmental affairs, the positive influence on commercial integrity and the alleged
positive influence on judicial credibility. A cure-all for social problems, as it seems (Hoffmann, 2017; Ohlberg
et al., 2017: 5).
Remarkably, the initiation and the planning phase of the system was barely noticed by Western governments
and largely overlooked by many outside observers until very recently. The news coverage about this system
has only gathered momentum lately, along with the advancing technical implementation of measures in cer-
tain parts of the country. It is currently tested in over 70 different settings – some elements by commercial
actors and some by local governments, mostly concentrated around flagship projects in cities like Shanghai,
Wuhan, Zhengzhou or Rongcheng (Ohlberg et al., 2017: 6; Kostka, 2018: 2). Up to now, most implementa-
tions are focused on testing parts of the system's performance and applicability (Ohlberg et al., 2017). Some
aspects of the system have attracted the attention of Western media – especially, some errors and curiosities
surrounding the tests have been reported. For example, a CCTV camera and automated detection system
repeatedly identified a Chinese businesswoman as a jaywalker because her face was printed in commercials
on Shanghai city buses. The bus activated the automated face recognition system for pedestrians crossing
the road while traffic lights were at red (Shen, 2018). Despite some minor setbacks and an increasingly unlike-
ly implementation by 2020, the Chinese government leaves little doubt about their unwavering determination
in eventually implementing this giant big data project comprehensively for every citizen and every region of
China (Meissner, 2017: 8).
How does the Social Credit System work? In the current test projects in Shanghai and Rongcheng every cit-
izen starts with an equal score of 1,000 points. By collecting data from companies, banks, online shopping
platforms, search engines, online games, CCTV cameras (for pedestrian and car-driving behavior), social me-
dia, official police databases, judicial process files and myriad other sources, all relevant events or activities of
the individual citizen are considered, evaluated and finally scored. Each activity can increase or decrease the
corresponding rating. Minor and major traffic offenses, fines and legal decisions are factored in to determine
the score. Even repeatedly complaining in social media about grievances in the country may lead to the loss
of points. Especially harsh is the treatment for political offenses in collision with party policy, which has re-
portedly led to a collapse of social scores down to the lowest rating possible. The implications if social scores
fall below a certain threshold can be far-reaching: for example, you can be denied high-speed train tickets
and international business flights; loans and credits may be denied by banks; and visa applications can be
delayed or denied. A low score may also drastically reduce the chance to secure a job in a state-run company
or as a state employee. Lists of offenders were even made public in several instances and used for shaming
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individuals (Ohlberg et al., 2017: 10). International companies operating in China are forced to participate in
data sharing, just like all Chinese companies are generally required to share their data whenever necessary.
From a Western perspective, it is hard not to perceive this system as an accumulation of Orwellian dystopias
and as a massive threat to any kind of privacy. Interestingly, in the Chinese public, as far as it can be mea-
sured with studies so far, the response to existing commercial and state-run types of social credit systems
(SCSs) has been far less critical and mostly framed around the benefits of such a comprehensive system.
Genia Kostka noted that ‘[r]ather than perceiving them as instruments of surveillance, they see them as a way
to protect consumers from food scandals or financial fraud – and to access benefits connected to a high so-
cial credit score’ (Kostka, 2018). Respondents in anonymous online surveys reported approval rates of up to
80% for SCSs, and even reported to have more trust in state-run systems that in commercially run schemes
(ibid.: 2018: 22). Some respondents noted concerns regarding fairness and transparency in the system, but
approved of the general idea to improve social cohesion by implementing these measures. Of course, people
might be reluctant to report concerns with the existing system due to a real or perceived threat of potential
repercussions. However, there was not a big difference between these online gathered attitudes and respons-
es in safe, private personal interviews (ibid.: 2018: 23). Together with other evidence of rather lukewarm op-
position to the SCSs, it can be stated that the Chinese public does not fundamentally oppose the approaching
implementation of these systems on any larger scale.
Looking at it from the Chinese Communist Party's ideological point of view, it fits well into pre-existing con-
cepts of social management, reaching back all the way to the Mao era (Hoffmann, 2017: 4). Of course, the
implications for state-critical activists, human rights lawyers and NGOs operating on the edge of what the
party and government may consider legitimate could be severe, as these measures constitute another set of
tools for potential sanctions and repercussions.
Besides the obvious implications on privacy, the implementation of such a system further raises questions
about the process of judging the behavior of 1.3 billion citizens. Gathering big data alone is not sufficient to
evaluate and judge the behavior of all citizens. Due to the enormous amounts of collected information, in-
cidents can no longer be principally evaluated by human observers; the whole process must be highly au-
tomated and supported by artificial intelligence to correctly identify misbehavior as shown in the case of the
Shanghai jaywalking case. Because automated systems and ML are heavily used to evaluate the behavior of
individual citizens, it raises the question of how much control should and can be delegated to machines and
neural networks in identifying misbehavior and how prone this system is to error and unfairness.
Finally, there are very impactful long-term global implications if the Chinese government manages to establish
a ‘successful’ big data-driven universal SCS, because it could easily become a blueprint for many other
states. In this context, big data can be seen as a tool to secure state authority and power. China's Social
Credit System may be only the first step in bringing us closer to a ‘Brave New World'.
Perspectives
Big data analysis is on the verge of transforming many fields of academic research. The interpretation of vast
data sets and automated sources of data, once considered to be a procedure predominantly applied in natur-
al sciences, has recently begun to open up new frontiers in economics and social sciences as well. New big
data publications have shown innovative solutions to previously unanswerable questions and the great poten-
tial of these methods for future research. Complex and long-duration phenomena can finally be approached
and analyzed by powerful toolkits of computation and data management. For political and social scientists
unlocking the power of big data in their field can provide fascinating new possibilities for the discovery and
observation of once undetectable effects, the creation of new hypotheses and the examination and study of
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vast pools of previously inaccessible data. New developments also concern the area of new methods, like
artificial intelligence or ML. So far, the social sciences have not responded to these developments in their
curricula. It is obviously necessary to enhance software education for social scientists in general to adapt to
this new development (Munzert et al., 2015: 383). Concerning the veracity and validity of data, more checks
will be required by experts who understand the technical and political implications of this technology. Big data
in the hands of state and non-state actors will fundamentally change political developments and threaten or
stabilize regimes as well as entire political systems. Social bots and fake news will shape public perception
and shift debates. It is essential for the field of political research to engage with these developments early and
profoundly.
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Case Studies and Process Tracing
Contributors: Derek Beach

Chapter Title: "Case Studies and Process Tracing"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Case Studies and Process Tracing

Derek Beach
Process tracing is an in-depth case study method for making within-case inferences about the operation of
causal mechanisms that link causes and outcomes. While originally developed as an adjunct tool in psycho-
logical experiments to gain clues about potential causal mechanisms, process tracing has developed into a
key case study method within the social sciences. The strength of process tracing methods, if properly con-
ducted, is that they enable strong causal inferences to be made about how causal processes work in real-
world cases. The downsides of process tracing include not only the large amount of analytical resources that
are required to conduct it properly, but also the limited ability to generalize about mechanisms beyond small
sets of relatively homogeneous cases.
This chapter first explores the foundational ontological and epistemological underpinnings of process tracing
as a case-based method. This is followed by a discussion of the three core elements of process tracing: theo-
ries of causal mechanisms, empirical analysis through observable traces left in cases and case selection and
generalization.
The Foundations of Case-Based Methods

Process tracing as a form of within-case causal research can be categorized as being a ‘bottom-up’ approach
because the analytical point of departure is what is happening within an individual case. In case-based ap-
proaches, detailed process tracing is the ‘gold standard’ because it enables us to make direct causal infer-
ences about the process linking causes and outcomes. Causal inferences are made about what is happening
within a case, using the traces left by the operation of a causal mechanism to infer that an underlying theo-
rized mechanism was present in the given case. Yet it is by no means certain that the mechanism we found
operative in one case works in the same manner in other cases because mechanisms are often very sen-
sitive to contextual conditions (Falleti and Lynch, 2009; Goertz and Mahoney, 2009; Beach and Pedersen,
2019). Therefore, process tracing can be thought of as a form of ‘bottom-up’ analytical strategy in relation to
making causal inferences within a population of cases because individual cases are the core unit of analysis.
In contrast, variance-based approaches – such as experiments – that build on counterfactual comparisons
(potential outcomes) can be categorized as ‘top-down’ because they enable the assessment of mean causal
effects across a population (or sample thereof) of cases, but they, per definition, do not shed much light on
what is going on within any individual case because evidence takes the form of evaluating the difference that
variation in the independent variable (cause) makes for values of the dependent variable (outcome), by com-
paring cases where everything else is held constant. In variance-based approaches, a controlled experiment
is the ‘gold standard'. The foundational differences between case- and variance-based approaches are sum-
marized in Table 17.1.
Table 17.1 Foundational assumptions of case- and variance-based approaches

Case-based approaches Variance-based approaches
Analytical point of depar- Population-level (or samples thereof)
Individual cases (bottom-up approach)
ture (top-down approach)
Understanding of causa- Counterfactual, probabilistic, sym-
Mechanistic, deterministic, asymmetric
tion metric (usually)
Method at the top of evi- Detailed process tracing (combined with
Controlled experiments
dential hierarchy bounded comparisons)
It is important to note that despite many differences between within-case analysis using process tracing and
cross-case analysis using variance-based approaches, logically the level at which causes are operative is
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always within a single case. A drug used to treat a sickness is operative in a single patient; it does not have
causal effects across patients unless it can be administered to groups. Similarly, an increase in the number
of veto players can produce deadlock and joint decision-traps within a political system, but a reform in one
country would not produce deadlock across different countries unless there are diffusion effects or other in-
fluences across cases. One can potentially learn about the effect that the increase in veto players have by
comparing a case where this took place with one where it was absent, where all other things are equal. But
at the end of the day, causation always occurs within cases.
At its core, the types of causal claims that can be analysed with process tracing differ fundamentally from
variance-based approaches. Variance-based approaches assess counterfactuals across cases, ideally using
an experimental design in which there are no other differences between two groups of cases other than expo-
sure to the cause. Because causal claims are made across cases, ontologically probabilistic claims are made
about mean causal effects. In contrast, process tracing is used to study mechanistic causal claims about the
causal process that links a cause (or set of causes) with an outcome within a case (Machamer et al., 2000;
Illari and Williamson, 2011; Beach and Pedersen, 2019). A ‘mechanism explanation for some happening that
perplexes us is explanatory precisely in virtue of its capacity to enable us to understand how the parts of some
system actually conspire to produce that happening’ (Waskan, 2011: 393). Viewing causation in mechanism-
based terms means that we explain why something occurred by analysing the productive causal processes
that link a cause (or set of causes) with an outcome.
Within a case, a causal relationship logically has either happened or not. This means that ontologically deter-
ministic claims are made, understood as the claim that within a given case, a mechanism either links a cause
and outcome or it does not Bhaskar, 1978; Mahoney, 2008. Ontological determinism is often misunderstood
because scholars often conflate the ontological (nature of things) with epistemological issues (how we can
learn about causal relationships). Epistemological determinism would mean that we could gain 100% certain
knowledge about causal relationships, which is naturally an impossibility outside of trivial facts. In process
tracing, we combine ontological determinism (something happens within a case) and epistemological proba-
bilism (we have varying degrees of confidence in the validity of a causal claim) (Beach and Pedersen, 2019).
The conclusions of process tracing research take the form of ‘in case X, there is considerable evidence that
mechanism Y operated as we had theorized'. Note that we do not claim that we confirm or disconfirm a theory
with 100% confidence; instead, depending on how much confirming or disconfirming mechanistic evidence is
present, our confidence may be higher or lower.
The Three Elements of Process Tracing

At its core, process tracing can be broken down into three elements: the process we are tracing (mecha-
nisms), the evidence we use to trace it (mechanistic evidence) and whether we can make mechanistic claims
across bounded populations of cases (case selection and generalization). In this section, we discuss how re-
cent work on process tracing has tackled these three questions.
What is the Process?

When research is causally oriented, the process traced is a causal mechanism. This, of course, raises the
question of how we can define the nature of causal mechanisms. Let us first discuss what causal mechanisms
are not. Causal mechanisms are not causes, but instead are the processes that are triggered by causes and
that link them with outcomes in a productive relationship.
Mechanisms are not merely series of events that occur in-between the occurrence of a cause and an out-
come. A sequence of events tells us who did what and when, but it does not tell us why they did it, and most
importantly, why the events were linked in a causal sense. Describing a series of events can provide a plau-
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sible descriptive narrative about what happened, but it does not shed light on the underlying causal linkage
between a cause and an outcome.
Intervening variables are also not mechanisms. Treating a mechanism as an intervening variable means that
the ‘mechanism’ is transformed from a productive process into a counterfactual claim. This has two problems.
First, analytically, if we want to study a counterfactual we have to assess the difference that variation makes
for the outcome, meaning that we are no longer tracing how a mechanism works within a case, but instead are
comparing variations across cases that are completely similar with the exception of the intervening variable
being present or absent (Runhardt, 2015). This is, of course, an impossibility, meaning that there will always
be a number of other differences between the cases that could plausibly account for the difference, turning
process tracing into a poor little brother of ‘proper’ scientific research using experiments. Second, even if we
could find the two most similar cases that vary only on the intervening variable, by comparing instead of trac-
ing, we lose focus on the process that was actually operative within a case (Machamer, 2004: 31; Groff, 2011;
Waskan, 2011). Even the perfect experiment tells us nothing about how a cause is linked to the outcome;
only that variation in the treatment has an average causal effect on outcomes. In the words of Bogen, ‘How
can it make any difference to any of this whether certain things that did not happen would have or might have
resulted if other things that did not actually happen had happened?’ (2005: 415). The essence of mechanis-
tic explanations is that we shift the analytical focus from causes and outcomes to the hypothesized causal
process in-between.
Unfortunately, even among scholars who take process tracing seriously, there is disagreement about the na-
ture of causal mechanisms. There are two overall positions: a minimalist position that works with mechanistic
‘sketches’ that do not unpack in detail the workings of the mechanisms, and the productive account that un-
packs a mechanism into constituent parts, composed of entities engaging in activities that link a cause (or set
of causes) with an outcome in a productive relationship. Both positions are relevant for process tracing, but
which one we should work with depends on the research situation. Early in a project, it can make sense to op-
erate with a minimalist understanding, where mechanisms remain relatively black-boxed as mere ‘sketches’
in which the parts and the causal logics linking them are not specified. When there is considerable uncertainty
about whether there is a mechanism linking a cause (or set of causes) and an outcome, or there are multiple
plausible mechanisms that might link them, it makes sense to engage in a form of plausibility probe to see
whether there is any evidence of a link before engaging in a detailed tracing of a full-fledged mechanism. In
contrast, tracing a full-fledged mechanism makes sense when one has a strong hunch that a particular mech-
anism might be operative and one wants to test more rigorously whether the mechanism is operative, or when
there is strong evidence of a causal relationship and one wants to find what mechanism is linking the causes
and outcome.
Despite having a superficial resemblance to the intervening variable understanding of mechanisms, scholars
who use a minimalist definition understand mechanisms as what links causes and outcomes. However, the
causal arrow between a cause and an outcome is not unpacked in any detail, either empirically or theoretical-
ly. Typically, scholars operating with a minimalist understanding are more focused on empirical analysis than
understanding in more detail how a process works. They concentrate, therefore, on searching for some form
of within-case, mechanistic evidence of a link, understood as the within-case observables that could have
been left by a causal mechanism operating within a case. Some scholars in political science use terms like
‘causal process observations’ or ‘diagnostic evidence’ to refer to the within-case traces of mechanisms (e.g.
Brady and Collier, 2011; Bennett and Checkel, 2014: 7).
Theories of mechanisms in the minimalist understanding are typically theorized at a relatively high level of
abstraction. The theoretical causal process that binds the cause, the mechanism and the outcome is not un-
packed in any detail. This means that the theorized mechanistic explanation is either: (1) superficial because
both the parts of the process itself and the causal logics linking them are not specified at all, or (2) it is in-
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complete because the causal logics that link parts of the process are not specified (Craver and Darden, 2013:
83–95).
A superficial, minimalist mechanism is typically depicted in the form of Cause → Causal Mechanism (M1) →
Outcome, whereas an incomplete mechanism scheme would include more parts (e.g. Cause → part 1 → part
2 → Outcome), but where the causal logics linking parts together are not described, but instead are merely
depicted as arrows that are assumed to link parts together in a relationship of conditional dependence. In
both instances, the theorized minimalist mechanism does not provide us with enough information to answer
fully the ‘how does it work?’ question (Craver and Darden, 2013: 90–1).
An example of a theorized ‘minimalist’ mechanism can be found in Nina Tannenwald's (1999) article on the
impact of norms on US decision-making. She theorizes that norms against the non-use of atomic weapons
(cause) (a nuclear ‘taboo') contributed to US decision-makers’ avoidance of using them (outcome), but the
mechanism remains firmly within a theoretical grey-box because no causal mechanism is detailed whereby
the cause is linked to the outcome. The closest she gets to unwrapping causal mechanisms in the conclusion
of the article is where she mentions three plausible links between norms and non-use in the form of minimalist
‘one-liners': e.g. constraints imposed by individual decision-makers’ personal moral convictions, domestic or
world opinion (Tannenwald, 1999: 462). Yet these brief descriptions do not describe the causal process that
links norms with non-use; i.e., how does the existence of the taboo actually produce behavioural changes?
The analytical result of not unpacking the mechanism in any detail theoretically means that the mechanistic
evidence that we gain from a minimalist process tracing case study does not enable strong within-case causal
inferences to be made. But early in a research process, given that there can be many different plausible
mechanisms linking a cause and outcome, it makes sense to explore whether there is any within-case mech-
anistic evidence of particular causal processes before one engages in more encompassing, step-by-step trac-
ing of mechanisms. When combined as a two-stage case study research design, the initial minimalist process
tracing study acts as a form of plausibility probe of rough mechanism ‘sketches', intended to narrow down the
range of possible causal mechanisms, followed by more detailed process tracing of the mechanism(s) in a
given case. Theorizing mechanisms in a minimalist fashion can also be appropriate as a follow-up to a num-
ber of successful process tracing case studies to see whether the same mechanism is operative in multiple
cases (see below).
At its core, the productive account means that the core elements of the causal mechanisms are unpacked
theoretically and studied empirically in the form of the traces that the activities associated with parts of the
process leave within cases. Mechanisms in this understanding are defined as systems of interlocking parts
that transmit causal powers or forces between a cause (or a set of causes) to an outcome (examples of this
understanding include Machamer et al., 2000; Machamer, 2004; Beach and Pedersen, 2019). In the produc-
tive account, we are operating at a lower level of analytical abstraction because we are trying to capture how
actual causal processes play out within cases. The level of abstraction can range from very detailed, case-
specific models of processes to more abstract processes that can in theory be present within a bounded pop-
ulation of cases.
The ambition is to unpack explicitly the causal process that occurs in-between a cause (or set of causes) and
an outcome and trace each of its constituent parts empirically. Here the goal is to dig deeper into how things
work, but by tracing each part of the mechanism empirically using mechanistic evidence, and in particular ob-
serving the empirical fingerprints left by the activities of entities in each part of the process, we are arguably
able to make stronger causal inferences about how causal processes actually work in real-world cases (Rus-
so and Williamson, 2007; Illari, 2011). In comparison, in the ‘minimalist’ understanding we have less direct
mechanistic evidence because we have not made the process explicit, resulting in weaker inferences about
the operation of a causal process.

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When mechanistic explanations are viewed as systems, they are understood in a holistic way where the ef-
fects of the mechanism are more than the sum of its parts. Parts have no independent existence (i.e. they are
not variables) in relation to producing an outcome; instead, they are integral parts of a system that transmits
causal forces to the outcome. Theorized as a system, there is often a complex interrelationship between the
parts of the mechanisms, where the effects of individual parts often only manifest themselves fully together
with the effects of other parts. In the words of Cartwright, ‘There are any number of systems whose princi-
pals cannot be changed one at a time without either destroying the system or changing it into a system of a
different kind’ (2007: 239). This means that a mechanism-as-system explanation cannot be reduced to coun-
terfactual dependencies.
Each of the parts of the mechanism can be described in terms of entities that engage in activities (Machamer
et al., 2000; Machamer, 2004). Entities are the factors (actors, organizations or structures) engaging in ac-
tivities, whereas the activities are the manifestations of the causal powers of the entities in each part, or in
other words, what transmits causal forces or powers through a mechanism. Given the focus on the productive
nature of mechanisms, activities that link parts are the main analytical focus.
Returning to the Tannenwald example above, the minimalist mechanism theorized by Tannenwald that linked
individual moral convictions and behaviour could be unpacked theoretically by detailing parts of the process
and the causal logics linking them. Here, we would first have to develop further the causal logics underpinning
the links between parts of the process, making explicit what activities link parts and why. For example, we
could draw on theories that focus on the constraining impact of norm-based speech acts. Using this causal
logic, the mechanism could then be depicted as in Table 17.2. The theorized mechanism has two parts: (1) a
believer (entity) in the taboo uses a speech act (activity) to attempt to shame proponents of use, and (2) the
proponents (entity) are silenced (activity) because they are unable to deploy counterarguments because of
their normative costs (clash with taboo).
Table 17.2 ‘Unpacked’ causal mechanism of nuclear taboo

Cause Part 1 Part 2 Outcome
Norm against use → believer in taboo uses → proponents of use are silenced because → non-use
of nuclear weapons speech act to shame pro- they are unable to deploy counter argu- of nuclear
within group ponents of use ments that clash with taboo weapons
Mechanistic Evidence as Traces of Mechanisms

How can we trace mechanisms within cases? While many accounts of process tracing merely suggest that
we go out and collect observations, this tells us little about what actually constitutes relevant evidence in rela-
tion to tracing mechanisms in case studies. Because most existing terms in the social science process tracing
literature like ‘causal process observations’ are imprecise about what we are tracing and how we can trace it,
in this chapter I utilize the term ‘mechanistic evidence’ from the natural sciences to refer to the overall type of
evidence that can be used to learn about the operation of causal mechanisms (Russo and Williamson, 2007).
Mechanistic evidence can be defined as any type of empirical fingerprint that has probative value in relation
to determining whether an activity is associated with a part of a mechanism. When we are working with a
minimalist sketch of a mechanism, the activities still need to be considered, because otherwise we have no
idea what relevant traces could be when we have no clue about what we are tracing.
There are four distinguishable types of mechanistic evidence: pattern, sequence, trace and account. Pattern
evidence relates to predictions of statistical patterns in the empirical record. For example, if we are testing a

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causal theory of racial discrimination in a case dealing with employment, then statistical differences in patterns
of employment could actually be relevant evidence upon which we could make inferences. Sequence evi-
dence deals with the temporal and spatial chronology of events that are predicted by a hypothesized causal
mechanism. Trace evidence is evidence whose mere existence provides proof. For example, if we were test-
ing a theory about lobbying, the existence of some record of a meeting being held between a decision-maker
and a lobbyist would be proof that they had met. Finally, account evidence deals with the content of empirical
material, be it minutes that detail what was discussed in a meeting, an oral account of what took place in a
meeting or in the form of a discourse present in speeches or other material.
Bayesian reasoning can provide us with a set of logical tools for evaluating what finding particular pieces of
mechanistic evidence tells us about our theories of causal mechanisms. As used here, empirical material acts
as evidence that can either increase or decrease our confidence in a hypothesis being valid. Updating our
confidence in a hypothesis about a causal mechanism (or a part thereof) operating in a case is a function of:
(1) our prior confidence based on existing knowledge, (2) the confirming or disconfirming power of evidence
in theory and (3) whether we can trust the sources for particular observations (empirical evaluation). After we
have collected new mechanistic evidence, we update our degree of confidence in the presence of the causal
mechanism and how it worked within a particular case (termed posterior probability).
We need to ask two sets of Bayesian-inspired questions in order to make inferences about whether an activity
was present or not in a case. First, at the theoretical level, we need to evaluate whether an activity has to
leave a particular type of empirical fingerprint (theoretical certainty), and if found, whether there are alternative
explanations for finding it (theoretical uniqueness). Theoretical certainty relates to the disconfirming power of
evidence, whereas theoretical uniqueness deals with the confirming power. One common misunderstanding
in social science applications of Bayesian reasoning in process tracing is that theoretical uniqueness of evi-
dence is always relative to rival or competing theories that explain the outcome (e.g. Bennett, 2014; Fairfield
and Charman, 2017: 366–8). However, what we are talking about here are alternative explanations for finding
a particular piece of evidence – not alternative explanations of the outcome.
These ‘predictions’ are still not evidence; therefore it is more proper to use the term proposition about pro-
posed empirical fingerprints. We only have actual mechanistic evidence when we also evaluate the actual
sources of the observations (or lack thereof) of the propositions. At the empirical level, we have to ask our-
selves whether a particular observation matches what we expected to find theoretically, whether we had ac-
cess (if not found) and if found, whether we can trust it. We might only have very untrustworthy sources for
observing the fingerprint, even though the fingerprint was in theory very confirming if found. In this instance,
the actually found mechanistic evidence would not enable strong confirmation because we could not trust the
source. Alternatively, we could be in the situation where we had a very theoretically certain fingerprint, but we
did not have access to an empirical record that would enable us to observe whether it was actually present or
not (e.g. because we did not have access to an archive). Here, absence of evidence would not be evidence
of absence.
Therefore, the overall probative value of evidence can be summarized as in Figure 17.1. At the theoretical
level, we ask ourselves about the evidence-generating process in relation to a particular activity, speculating
about what types of fingerprints may be left in a given case in theory. At the empirical level, one needs to con-
sider a range of source-critical questions relating to access to sources, and whether we can trust particular
sources (e.g. an interview with a stakeholder).
Figure 17.1 A two-stage evidence-evaluation framework for turning empirical

material into evidence of mechanisms in process tracing

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Source: Beach and Pedersen (2019).
Returning to the Tannenwald (1999) example, a proposition about an empirical fingerprint in her article was
that she expected to find ‘taboo talk', defined as ‘non-cost-benefit-type reasoning along the lines of “this is
simply wrong” in and of itself because of who we are, what our values are, “we just don't do things like this”,
“because it isn't done by anyone”, and so on’ (1999: 440). She then goes on to argue that the fingerprint
is not theoretically certain because when norms really matter, they will not manifest themselves openly (i.e.
taboo talk would then not be expected to be found despite norms really mattering). However, she claims that
it is theoretically unique, writing that ‘Taboo talk is not just “cheap talk” as realists might imagine’ (1999: 440),
suggesting that there is research that suggests that when people make normative statements like taboo talk,
this gives insight into their underlying motives. Unfortunately, in the article she does not engage in the em-
pirical evaluation of what finding particular observations in sources mean. For instance, she claims that one
example of taboo talk is ‘Dean Rusk, at the time assistant secretary of state for the Far East … [who] wrote
that “We would have worn the mark of Cain for generations to come”’ (Tannenwald, 1999: 445). However,
given that the quote is found in an autobiographical work written some time later, it might also be a post-hoc
justification instead of reflecting an actual statement that he made during a decision-making process about
using nuclear weapons. Therefore, while this piece of mechanistic evidence might in theory be confirming,
because we cannot trust the source, it provides precious little confirmation of the existence of the part of the
theorized causal mechanism.
Good process tracing should therefore explicitly link an activity with actual sources by explicitly evaluating
what inferences of mechanistic evidence in theory and empirically are possible. This can be done in table
form, as depicted in Table 17.3.
Table 17.3 Template for transparent evaluation of mechanistic evidence in process tracing
Theoretical level – part of a causal • Description of activity associated with a part of a causal
mechanism mechanism
Proposition level – empirical finger-

• Description of proposition about empirical fingerprints
print of activity, and theoretical eval-
• Theoretical evaluation of proposition: do we have to find it
uation (certainty and uniqueness)

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(theoretical certainty), and if found, are there alternative ex-

planations for finding the proposition (theoretical unique-
ness)?
• Description of actual source of observation (e.g. statement

Actual sources and source-critical by actor in interview, or extract from archival document)
evaluation • Empirical evaluation of observation: what does the obser-
vation mean in context? Can we trust it?
Case Selection and Generalization

This section first discusses how we can select appropriate cases, followed by an elaboration of the challenges
regarding generalizing about causal mechanisms given their contextual sensitivity.
The first task is to select cases that are appropriate for engaging in process tracing. If we are interested in
tracing a causal mechanism linking a cause or set of causes and an outcome, we logically want to trace it
in cases where it could have been present, at least in theory. Tracing a non-existent mechanism in a case
where we a priori knew it was not present because the cause that triggers it is not present cannot tell us any-
thing about how the mechanism works. Guidelines for case selection that are appropriate for variance-based
designs – where per definition we need to investigate negative cases (absence of cause) to assess whether
variation makes a difference – are therefore not relevant for a case-based method like process tracing.
Selecting appropriate cases for process tracing requires that we first map a population of cases by scoring
them according to whether the cause (or set of causes) that is theorized to trigger a mechanism and the out-
come are present, along with contextual conditions that can potentially affect how the process works. Mapping
a population involves scoring cases on values of the cause(s), outcome and relevant contextual conditions.
Contextual conditions can be defined as any factor that could impact on how a process works. For example,
the degree of ethnic heterogeneity in a country can conceivably impact how societal conflicts play out.
Mapping cases on the cause(s), outcome and potentially relevant contextual conditions can be done using
qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) (e.g. Ragin, 2000; Schneider and Rohlfing, 2013, 2016), or by hand
using a table in the form of a similarity graph (Berg-Schlosser, 2012: 111–59), as depicted in Table 17.4. Here,
case scores for all potentially relevant conditions are assessed to determine the level of similarity between
cases. Case membership is depicted as either present (+) or absent (−). Levels of similarity – or what Berg-
Schlosser terms ‘Boolean distance’ – are determined by the number of conditions shared by cases with the
same outcome. These procedures can be simplified by using a simple spreadsheet that compares the num-
ber of conditions shared across cases to find the one that has the most commonalities with other cases.
Once we have mapped cases, we are able to distinguish between four types of cases:(1) typical cases where
the hypothesized cause, outcome and contextual conditions are all present; (2) deviant consistency cases,
where the known cause and contextual conditions are present but the outcome is not present; (3) deviant
coverage cases, where the cause(s) is not present but the outcome is; and (4) irrelevant cases where neither
the cause or outcome are present (Schneider and Rohlfing, 2013, 2016). Critical for distinguishing between
types of cases in case-based research are the qualitative differences-in-kind in concepts that demarcate the
presence or absence of causal and contextual conditions. These differences-in-kind between cases that are
members of a set of a condition or not are depicted as thresholds in Figure 17.2. Cases within cell I are typical
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cases that are in the set of both the cause(s) and known contextual conditions and the outcome.
Figure 17.2 Four types of cases in process tracing

Outcome pre- I - Typical cases (theory-testing or -building
II - Deviant case coverage
sent process tracing)
Outcome not IV - Deviant case consistency (theoretical revision
III - Irrelevant cases
present process tracing)
Cause(s) and/or contextual condi- Cause(s) and known contextual conditions pre-
tions not present sent
In process tracing, typical cases are used for building and testing theories about mechanisms, whereas de-
viant consistency cases shed light on why a process did not work as expected, e.g. there was an omitted
contextual condition that has to be present for the mechanism to work. While relevant for other case-based
and variance-based methods, deviant coverage and irrelevant cases tell us nothing about the mechanisms
linking causes and outcomes, and therefore have limited use for process tracing.
What typical cases should we select when there are multiple cases that share the cause(s) and outcome?
When we are uncertain about what contextual conditions have to be present for a given mechanism, we can
start by selecting a typical case where as many as possible relevant contextual conditions are present.
Alternatively, when there are empirical and/or theoretical reasons to believe that there is considerable mech-
anistic heterogeneity in the population, it can make sense to select a case that is similar to other typical cases
on as many contextual conditions as possible. For example, if we are engaging in theory-building, we would
not want initially to develop a theorized mechanism using a case that differs from other typical cases on many
contextual conditions because we could reasonably expect that the found mechanism would not travel to
many other cases. This is depicted in Table 17.4, where a comparison of similarity focusing on contextual
conditions (C1, C2, C3) is depicted within a small population of cases. Here case 3 has the most similarities
with cases 1 and 2, and then case 4. In contrast, case 4 only has one similarity with cases 1 and 2. If we had
to choose only one case for process tracing, it makes sense to select case number 3. If we have two cases
to select, it would make more sense to select either case 1 or 2, and then case 4 in order to explore whether
differences in C2 and C3 impact on how the mechanism works.
Table 17.4 Mapping cases using a similarity graph

Case no. Cause Contextual conditions # of similarities with case 3
C1 C2 C3
1 + + + + 2
2 + + + + 2
3 + + + −
4 + + − − 2
If we then find the mechanism in a typical case, we cannot automatically infer to other cases where fewer
or more contextual conditions are present. We would then want to study another case with other contextu-
al conditions present, gradually becoming more confident about what conditions have to be present for the
mechanism to function through repeated case studies using the snowballing-outwards case selection strate-

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gy discussed later in this chapter.
When there is residual uncertainty either because of theoretical or empirical reasons about where the exact
threshold of a condition (either cause, contextual or outcome) is, it is advisable to only select typical cases
that are widely accepted by case experts as being within the set of the concept; i.e. they are almost ‘ideal-
typical’ cases where there are clear substantive and theoretical arguments for set membership that can be
documented in a transparent fashion (Goertz and Mahoney, 2012: 133).
Cases within quadrant IV in Figure 17.2 are used in theoretical revision process tracing, in which a mecha-
nism is traced until it breaks down in order to detect either omitted contextual conditions when a cause (or set
of causes) was theorized to be sufficient, or omitted causal conditions when a cause (or set of causes) is not
assumed to be sufficient. If we theorize that a cause is a sufficient cause of an outcome, deviant cases where
the cause is present but where the outcome is not present are useful to investigate the contextual conditions
that have to be present to trigger the mechanism that will produce the outcome. If the cause is not theorized to
be sufficient, deviant cases within quadrant IV can be used to detect omitted causal conditions that together
with cause would be sufficient to produce the outcome. In both instances, we only employ this type of design
after we have positive results when tracing a mechanism in one or several typical cases within quadrant I.
The reasoning behind this suggestion is that there is no reason to investigate mechanism breakdown before
we are relatively confident about the actual existence of a mechanism in one or more typical cases and have
some knowledge about how it operates. If we do not know much about how a mechanism operates, it would
be very difficult to investigate why it broke down in a deviant consistency case.
Once we are confident about what is going on in typical cases, investigating deviant consistency cases is
very important for developing better mechanism-based explanations. Using an analogy, once we are certain
about the mechanisms that enable airplanes to fly, we would want to investigate very closely any accidents
to develop a better understanding of the contextual conditions under which planes can fly safely, for obvious
reasons.
The results of process tracing case studies either shed light on how a given causal mechanism operates with-
in a case, or tell us that no mechanism was operative in the case despite our insistent probing. How then can
we generalize our findings about mechanisms to other cases without engaging in process tracing in all other
cases? The literature on causal mechanisms frequently points out that the ways mechanisms unfold in a spe-
cific case are sensitive to the context which surrounds them (Steel, 2008; Falleti and Lynch, 2009). Contextual
conditions are sometimes termed ‘scope’ conditions in the literature, but the terms mean the same thing. In
this chapter, contextual conditions are defined as all ‘[…] relevant aspects of a setting (analytical, temporal,
spatial, or institutional)’ (Falleti and Lynch, 2009: 1152) in which the analysis is embedded in and which might
have an impact on the constitutive parts of a mechanism.
Even when the same causes and outcome are present, different contextual conditions can create differences
in the mechanisms linking them together (Steel, 2008; Falleti and Lynch, 2009). This means that two cases
that look causally homogeneous based on sharing similar causal conditions and an outcome might be het-
erogeneous at the mechanism level because of contextual differences. These differences can be defined as
mechanistic heterogeneity, which can both mean that in two (or more) cases, the same cause triggers differ-
ent processes, thereby resulting in different outcomes, or it can mean that the same cause is linked to the
same outcome through different processes. Different processes can either be the whole mechanism that is
completely different, or only one or more parts that diverge between two cases.
A real-world example of mechanistic heterogeneity produced by differences in context can be found in White
(2009). He describes a mechanism that links a cause (education of mothers in nutrition) with an outcome (im-
proved nutritional outcomes for children) that was found to have worked in a case (the Tamil Nadu Integrated

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Nutrition Project in India). The unpacked mechanism can be described as: Cause (mother participates in pro-
gramme) → (1) mother receives nutritional counselling → (2) exposure results in knowledge acquisition →
(3) knowledge used to change child nutrition → Outcome (improved nutritional outcomes) (based on White,
2009: 4–5). Based on the success of the programme in the Tamil Nadu case in India, it was then attempted
to use it in Bangladesh. However, the mechanism did not function as expected in the different context; in-
stead it broke down. The reason for this was a key contextual difference. In Bangladesh, mothers were not
the key decision-makers in households, with men doing the shopping, and mother-in-laws in joint households
(sizeable minority) acting as decision-makers about what food went onto the table. The mechanism therefore
‘worked’ until part 3, but because of a contextual difference, it broke down in the Bangladesh case.
Note that the problem of mechanistic heterogeneity cannot just be resolved by raising the level of abstraction
of the theorized mechanism. Of course, logically the higher the level of abstraction of a theorized mechanism,
the greater our ability to generalize about the mechanism across cases, other things equal. There can be dif-
ferent levels of abstraction of theorized mechanisms, ranging from mid-range mechanisms where the process
is described in quite abstract terms but where we can still identify interlocking parts composed of entities en-
gaging in activities, over contingent mechanisms at quite low levels of abstraction, to detailed, case-specific
mechanisms that describe a causal process in a particular case. But to qualify as a mechanism-based ex-
planation (i.e. the productive account), we have to be able to answer the ‘how does it work?’ question, which
requires that the causal arrow in-between causes and outcomes has to be elucidated in enough detail so that
the critical parts of the process are made clear in terms of entities engaging in activities that link one part to
the next (Craver and Darden, 2013: 31).
Unfortunately, existing guidelines for generalization of case study findings – be they variance-based (Gerring
and Seawright, 2007) or case-based (Schneider and Rohlfing, 2013) –are blind to the risk of mechanistic het-
erogeneity. The basic logic in existing guidelines is that generalizations from one case to others deal with
using the within-case evidence of the causal effect/association gained from the studied case(s) to make us
more/less confident in the average causal effect (variance-based) or invariant association (case-based) in the
rest of the population. Therefore, most of the literature that is relevant for generalizing about mechanisms is
still trapped in thinking about cross-case causal relationships, be they causal effects in variance-based ap-
proaches, or invariant claims about necessity or sufficiency in case-based approaches.
Given the sensitivity of mechanisms to context, we should be averse to making any cross-case generalizing
claims about similar mechanisms being present in other cases to be studied until we have tested whether it is
reasonable to expect similar mechanisms operative in other cases in the population. This can be done using
a snowballing-outwards strategy for multiple case studies, in which we first start with in-depth process tracing
in the ‘most similar’ typical case (see above). This is then followed by selecting cases with more differences
until the outer bounds of the operation of a given causal mechanism are found, incrementally enlarging or
restricting the boundaries of our generalizing inferences about what mechanisms are operative.
There are many potential sources of mechanistic heterogeneity that can be lurking in what otherwise looks at
the level of conditions/outcomes like a causally homogenous set of cases (for more, see Beach and Peder-
sen, 2019). Here I illustrate the risks of two potential sources: known/unknown omitted contextual conditions,
and differences of degrees in concepts.
First, unknown conditions are the product of exclusion before the cross-case analysis because we either did
not know about them or the literature suggested they were not relevant for a cross-case relationship. Known
conditions are ones that are ignored when selecting cases because the cross-case analysis found they did
not matter for the identified causal effect/invariant association. However, while unknown/known conditions
might not matter for a cross-case relationship, given the contextual sensitivity of mechanisms, we cannot as-
sume that they do not also matter at the level of mechanisms. Therefore, testing for unknown conditions can

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involve engaging in process tracing of two cases that appear to be identical to see whether there might be an
unknown contextual condition that differs and that impacts on how the mechanism works. Testing for the im-
pact of known conditions can be done by returning to the original data set (e.g. a QCA truth table or similarity
graph) and selecting cases that are progressively more different on selected contextual conditions to explore
whether their presence/absence makes a difference for the mechanisms.
Second, mechanistic heterogeneity can also be lurking behind differences-of-degree in concepts; be they in
the form of interval-scale variables or fuzzy-set concepts. In the following, I focus on the problem of differ-
ences-in-degree in fuzzy-set concepts, but it is important to note that the problem is even greater when using
ordinal/interval scale variables as the basis for mapping cases and generalizing because qualitative thresh-
olds are not included. Therefore, we would first have to recalibrate the variable to include a categorical differ-
ence before we could proceed further, in effect transforming the variable into a fuzzy-set concept.
The main analytic idea behind fuzzy-sets is that they enable us to capture both differences-of-kind and dif-
ferences-in-degree in a single measure. The key categorical difference-in-kind – i.e. qualitative threshold – is
the 0.5 fuzzy-set value, which determines whether a case is a member in a given set or not. Above or be-
low this 0.5 crossover point, the membership of cases can range from fully in (1) to fully out of the set (0)
with the option of introducing fine-grained gradations in-between to account for partial (non-)membership of
cases. Following this, the causal rationale at the cross-case level is that the categorical point of difference at
0.5 establishes the threshold at which a concept develops or changes its causal character due to its change
in conceptual status, e.g. switching from a unified to a divided government, or from public support to lack of
public support. Differences-of-degree, on the other side, are usually conceived as having a linear effect, i.e. a
partial-set value of 0.6 in a condition is expected to result in a partial outcome of 0.6, whereas a full member-
ship in a condition should fully produce the outcome (e.g. Schneider and Rohlfing, 2013: 581; 2016: 548).
However, when we move to the level of mechanisms, it is by no means certain that these differences-of-de-
gree mean the same thing in causal terms as they do at the level of causes/outcomes. It is not a far stretch to
imagine that a mechanism might operate differently when a cause has a value of 0.6 in relation to full mem-
bership (1). One real-world example of this can be found in Samford's (2010) study on trade liberalization in
Latin America. His case narratives of a set of cases that QCA told him were causally similar illustrate that
very different processes were at work in Peru (1990–95) and Uruguay (1972–85) although both are part of
the found conjunction of causes (hyperinflation and unconstrained executive power). The condition inflation
played a different causal role in the processes operative in the two cases, a fact which might be expected
given that the inflation rate in Peru was at 7,481% while Uruguay's rate was only(!) 58%.
Therefore, the snowballing-outwards selection strategy of selecting multiple cases to explore whether mecha-
nistic heterogeneity is present should also explore whether differences-of-degree mask important categorical
differences in which mechanisms are operative in different cases. One way to reduce the analytical costs of
conducting multiple process tracing case studies is to focus only on critical parts of the identified mechanism.
Determining critical stages of a mechanism can be evaluated by asking whether there are parts of the process
that are particularly crucial from a causal perspective, and where we have theoretical reasons to expect that
the processes might most plausibly differ across cases (Steel, 2008: 88–92). An alternative means to lighten
the burden of engaging in a snowballing-outwards case selection strategy is to develop ‘signatures’ of a par-
ticular process that can be tested across a number of cases.
Using Process-Tracing in Practice

The four different variants of process tracing are depicted in Table 17.5. All four variants can be used both in
a minimalist version in which the mechanism is not really unpacked, and a more in-depth version aiming to
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trace more detailed mechanisms that are viewed as systems composed of entities engaging in activities that
bind parts of the process together.
Table 17.5 Four variants of process tracing

Theoretical re-
Theory-testing process Theory-building Explaining outcome
vision process
tracing process tracing process tracing
tracing
Is hypothesized causal What is the causal Why did the
What mechanistic ex-
Research mechanism present and mechanism between mechanism
planation accounts for
purpose does it function as theo- the cause and outbreak-down in-
historical outcome?
rized? come? case?
Analytical
Theory-focused Case-focused
focus
Theory-testing process tracing starts with conceptualizing a plausible hypothetical causal mechanism based
on existing theorization and empirical research. Theorized causal mechanisms then need to be operational-
ized in terms of developing propositions about potential empirical fingerprints that might have been left in a
given case by the activities of a mechanism (or its parts). The predictions about mechanistic evidence should
be as clear as possible, making it easier to determine whether they are then actually found in the subsequent
case study or not. The researcher then collects and assesses the available empirical record to determine
whether there is mechanistic evidence suggesting that the mechanism was present and worked as theorized,
or whether the theory needs to be modified. If the predicted evidence is found, we can then infer that the hy-
pothesized causal mechanism is present in the case and worked as we theorized. If evidence is not found for
a given part (or for the overall mechanism if the minimalist understanding is used), the researcher should en-
gage in a round of theory-building, using the insights gained from the empirical analysis of what went wrong
as inspiration for building theories of new parts of the mechanism.
Theory-building process tracing is an empirics-first form of research that in its purest form starts with empiri-
cal material and uses a structured analysis of this material to build a plausible hypothetical causal mechanism
whereby a cause (or set of causes) is linked with an outcome that can be present in multiple cases, mean-
ing it can be generalized beyond the single case. In effect, it involves using empirical material to answer the
question ‘how did we get here?'. Theory-building process tracing is utilized primarily when we know that there
might be a relationship between a cause and an outcome, but we are in the dark regarding potential mech-
anisms linking the two. In reality, theory-building process tracing is usually an iterative and creative process
that goes back and forth between empirical probing and theorization.
After key theoretical concepts (causes and outcome) are defined and operationalized, theory-building pro-
ceeds to investigate the empirical material in the case, using empirical material as clues about the possible
empirical fingerprints of an underlying causal mechanism. This involves an intensive and wide-ranging search
of the empirical record, with material collected without knowing what it is evidence for. Here it can also be
helpful to develop a descriptive narrative of what happened in the case to shed light on potential mechanisms.
The next step involves inferring that the found observable empirical material is actual evidence that reflects
the empirical fingerprints left by the operation of a plausible causal mechanism in the case. Tentative hunches
about potential mechanisms (and their parts in the productive account) are made based on the first round of
empirical probing, after which the researcher proceeds to evaluate whether any of the collected material is
actually evidence of the tentative mechanism (or parts of the mechanism). This evaluation of evidence pro-
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ceeds in a slightly different fashion than in theory testing, given that it is not relevant to discuss the theoretical
or empirical certainty of evidence because it has already been found; instead one only evaluates uniqueness
in relation to the tentative hypothesized mechanism or its parts.
Evidence does not speak for itself. Often theory-building has a strong testing element, in that scholars seek
inspiration from existing theoretical work and previous observations for what to look for. Here existing theory
can be thought of as a form of grid to detect systematic patterns in empirical material, enabling inferences
about predicted evidence to be made. In addition, one can look to research on mechanisms on similar re-
search topics for inspiration for what parts of the mechanism might look like. In other situations, the search
for mechanisms is based upon hunches drawn from puzzles that are unaccountable for in existing work.
Theoretical revision process tracing involves a combination of tracing a mechanism in a deviant consistency
case (see above), where a mechanism should have been operative but where it broke down, and using the
information garnered about where in the process the mechanism broke down to engage in a focused compar-
ison of what differs between a typical case where the mechanism worked and the studied deviant consistency
case. The goal is to uncover unknown omitted conditions that have to be present for the mechanism to func-
tion properly.
Explaining outcome process tracing is an iterative research strategy that aims to trace causal mechanisms
in order to produce a comprehensive explanation of a particular outcome. Cases here are not ‘cases of’ a
particular causal relationship; instead they are viewed holistically as a particular historical outcome such as
the peaceful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Research in explaining outcomes uses abductive analysis
as a way of building explanations, where there is a continual and creative juxtaposition between empirical ma-
terial and theories. The types of theoretical explanations constructed often are eclectic combinations, viewing
theories as heuristic tools. There are two different starting points for explaining outcome process tracing: ei-
ther theory or empirics. The theory-first path follows the steps described above under theory testing, where
an existing cause (or set of causes) and the associated mechanisms are tested to see whether they can ac-
count for the outcome. In most research situations, a single existing cause and mechanism cannot provide a
sufficient explanation of an outcome, resulting in a second stage of research where either a testing or building
path can be chosen, informed by the results of the first empirical analysis. If the testing path is chosen again,
this would involve testing another theorized cause and associated mechanism as a supplemental explanation
to see whether together they can account for the ‘big and important’ things going on in the case. Alternatively,
the theory-building path can be chosen in the second iteration, using empirical evidence to build a new mech-
anism that can account for the elements of the outcome that were unaccounted for using the first mechanism,
following the steps discussed above under theory-building. In both paths, theorized mechanisms and empiri-
cal tests are treated more pragmatically as heuristic devices to understand important events.
Conclusion
This chapter described the three core elements of process tracing as a case-based social science method.
Process tracing methods have developed considerably in the past two decades, but much work remains to be
done. There is still considerable debate about how we should select cases and generalize about mechanisms
(e.g. Mikkelsen, 2017; Beach and Pedersen, 2018; Rohlfing and Schneider, 2018). There is also considerable
debate about whether the probative value of mechanistic evidence (‘causal process observations') should be
quantified or not (Humphreys and Jacobs, 2015; Fairfield and Charman, 2017; Beach and Pedersen, 2019.
There is even debate about what we actually are tracing (e.g. Runhardt, 2015; Beach and Pedersen, 2019).
Given these disagreements, it is vital to make clear exactly what interpretation of process tracing one is using
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and why. As with everything in life, different methodological choices involve tradeoffs.
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• case studies
• traces
• mechanisms
• outcomes
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n20

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Causation
Contributors: Michael Baumgartner

Chapter Title: "Causation"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
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Causation
Michael Baumgartner
A History of Disagreement
Causation is one of the most basic concepts regulating our interaction with the world. It is omnipresent both
in science and in every-day life. Correspondingly, it is among the oldest topics in Western philosophical and
scientific theorizing. Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Hobbes, Galileo, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Newton, Hume,
Kant, Mill, Reichenbach – just to name some of the most prominent figures – have devoted important parts
of their work to this topic. A multitude of different theories of causation, many of which are incompatible, have
been proposed over the centuries. Even to this day, conflicting theories continue to co-exist – ultimately be-
cause they are embedded in, and draw their justification from, incompatible background metaphysics and
ontologies, which are notoriously difficult to reconcile (see also Moses, Chapter 27, this Handbook). In con-
sequence, despite in-depth and centuries-old investigations into the topic, no consensus has been reached
on the most fundamental question: what is causation? Is it an objective feature of our world or is it something
we, as observers, project onto the world? Is it something that actually governs what occurs around us or is
it a concept that merely facilitates theorizing about those occurrences? Is it a matter of the instantiation of
regularities or laws, or of counterfactual dependence, or of probability-raising, or of manipulability, or of mech-
anisms? Does it only obtain between occurrences in space and time or does it also obtain between absences
of such occurrences? And more specifically, is it a transitive relation or not; is it a deterministic relation or not?
It is beyond the scope of this chapter to review the abundance of different answers that have been given
to these questions over time. Instead, I focus on establishing the importance of developing explicit theories
of causation rendering transparent the understanding of causation presupposed in a given research context.
Moreover, the chapter provides systematic introductions to those theories with most conceptual and method-
ological impact for political science: the regularity theory, the probabilistic theory, the counterfactual theory,
the interventionist theory, and the mechanistic theory. Where appropriate, the historical roots of these theories
will be discussed, but my focus will be on their modern versions. An overview of the history of theorizing about
causation is provided in Beebee et al. (2009: part I). The chapter ends with an outlook identifying method-
ological frameworks suitable for uncovering causation as defined by the discussed theories.
Purpose of a Theory of Causation

Despite the omnipresence of causation in every-day life and science, it is far from pre-theoretically (i.e. in-
tuitively) clear under what conditions a causal relation obtains. Even in the most commonplace of scenarios
it easily happens that our causal judgements are unclear, unstable, and inconsistent. To illustrate, consider
Case 1:
Case 1. Angelo lives in Rome and goes on vacation. His neighbor agrees to water Angelo's plants,
but repeatedly forgets to do so. When Angelo returns two weeks later, his plants are dead.
When asked to identify the causes of the plants’ death, most people will, presumably, point to the neighbor's
negligence and contend that the ultimate cause of death was insufficient water supply. Of course, insufficient
water supply did not only result from the neighbor's negligence but also from the fact that everybody else,
including, say, the Pope did not water regularly. Yet, even though it is uncontroversial that, had the Pope wa-
tered the plants, they would have survived, many people will deny that the Pope's inaction is another cause of
death. How are these discrepancies in the ascription of causal efficacy justifiable? One important difference
between the neighbor and the Pope is that only the former has agreed to tend the plants. Yet, while the vi-
olation of the agreement is a reason to hold the neighbor and not the Pope morally accountable, it does not
seem to be a reason to ascribe causal efficacy to the neighbor's but not the Pope's inaction. After all, either
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one could have secured sufficient water supply; and causation is a relation that obtains in the world indepen-
dently of judgements of moral accountability – or so it seems. But then, either the neighbor's and the Pope's
(and everybody else's) inactivity caused the plants to die or neither of them did.
The list of unclear candidate causes connected to Case 1 can easily be extended. Is Angelo's failure to give
the plants to his (reliable) mother prior to departure also a cause of their death? Or what about Angelo's pur-
chase of the plants; or Angelo's birth? There is a case to be made that, had he not been born, he would not
have bought the plants, which, subsequently, would have been bought by some plant enthusiast. I leave it to
the reader to contemplate possible answers to these questions. What matters for our purposes is that, even
though Case 1 describes a most commonplace scenario, causally analyzing it in a consistent manner is far
from trivial. And the difficulties are not due to lacking empirical evidence. We can safely assume that we have
enough evidence on the neighbor's, the Pope's, and the mother's watering behaviors and on possible alter-
native plant buyers to determine exactly what would have happened in relevant contrast scenarios. That does
not help us to decide, for example, whether we should ascribe causal relevance to inaction, or whether we
should take causation to be a transitive relation and count Angelo's birth among the causes. These, and many
others, are conceptual decisions that need to be taken before the question of what the available evidence
entails for causal relations even arises. It is the purpose of a theory of causation to take those conceptual
decisions, render them transparent in an explicit definition of causation and, thereby, provide a framework
against the background of which empirical research into thus defined causation becomes possible.
A theory of causation provides necessary and sufficient conditions for a dependency to be of causal nature, or
differently, it specifies the truth conditions of claims of the form ‘x causes y'. This is accomplished by replacing
P with suitable analysis conditions in schema (Φ), where ‘iff’ is short for ‘if, and only if':
x causes y iff P.(Φ)
Causation is not a technical term of art that can be stipulatively defined in any way we please, rather, it is
widely used in every-day and scientific language. A theory that wants to be taken seriously must take that
existing usage into account and aim for a P that reproduces standardly accepted pre-theoretic causal judge-
ments. However, as these judgements tend to be inconsistent, no (consistent) theory can possibly reproduce
all of them. At best, a theory can do justice to a maximally large consistent proper subset of pre-theoretic
causal judgements. The selection of these subsets can vary from theory to theory and there is no fact of the
matter as to what is the true selection. Rather, the selection must be justified based on considerations con-
cerning the purposes a particular theory is intended to serve. In that light, the position of causal pluralism, that
is, the view that different theories of causation do not contradict one another but capture different concepts
or variants of causation, has seen a rise in popularity in recent years (e.g. Psillos, 2010). Correspondingly,
which theory to choose in a given research context depends on the exigencies of that context, which are de-
termined, for instance, by the investigated research questions or by the nature of the available data.
Dimensions of Variance between Different Theories

Theories of causation differ along various dimensions. This section discusses the most important ones.
Reductionism vs. Non-Reductionism

All theorizing about the world – in any domain – needs to start with some conceptual inventory that is pre-
supposed as being clear. The concepts in that inventory are called fundamental. The most general divide
between different theories of causation concerns the question of whether the concept of causation should be
considered one of those fundamental ones or not. A theory, subject to which causation is fundamental, holds
that it is impossible to define causation without recourse to some ‘causally loaded’ concept or other, meaning
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that it is impossible to substitute P in schema (Φ) by conditions that are entirely free of causal connotations.
Such a theory is called non-reductionist, for it contends that it is impossible to reduce causation to non-causa-
tion. By contrast, a reductionist theory maintains that causation is not fundamental, that is, causation can be
defined in terms of entirely non-causal concepts – it can be reduced to non-causation. Hence, a reductionist
theory substitutes P by conditions without any causal connotations whatsoever.
Overall, the divide between reductionism and non-reductionism partitions the currently available theories of
causation in roughly two equal halves.
The Ontology of Causation

The second dimension of variance concerns the ontology of causation, that is, the question of what types of
entities can stand in causal relations. The answers to that question are influenced by two conflicting intuitions.
On the one hand, it seems that causes and effects are entities that occur in time and space. For example,
elections are causes of policy changes or peasant revolts are causes of social revolutions. Causes and their
effects are items we can point to. On the other hand, absences and omissions are often causally interpreted
as well, even though their characteristic feature is that they do not occur in time and space. For instance, the
absence of water causes plants to die or the absence of political participation causes popular anger.
Corresponding to these two intuitions, there are two main candidate ontologies of causation: according to the
first, causes and effects are events (e.g. Davidson, 1967), according to the second they are facts (e.g. Mellor,
1995). There exist many theories of both events and facts, which cannot be reviewed here (cf. Casati and
Varzi, 2015). What matters for our purposes is that events and facts constitute categorically different entities:
events are spatiotemporally located concrete entities, facts are non-spatiotemporally located abstract entities.
Obama's election as the first African-American president is an event that occurred on November 4, 2008, in
the United States, whereas the fact that Obama was elected as the first African-American president is not
located in the year 2008 in the United States, rather it is a fact in contemporary Europe just as it will be a fact
in Australia 100 years from now.
The categorical difference between events and facts yields that event and fact ontologies cannot be combined
in one theory of causation. Either a theory takes causes and effects to be events or to be facts (not both).
Yet, neither ontology is clearly preferable; there are persuasive arguments for and against both ontologies (cf.
Ehring, 2009). For that reason it has become customary to bracket the question as to the ontology of causa-
tion by remaining as non-committal as possible with regard to the nature of causes and effects. This is accom-
plished by referring to causes and effects simply as variables, factors, or values of variables/factors. Random
variables and factors are flexible modeling devices that can be used to represent any types of entities. On
the upside, theories of causation that are formulated in terms of variables or factors can easily be adapted for
different ontologies; on the downside, what such theories have to say about causation becomes relative to
the choice of variables/factors, which introduces a subjective element into causal analyses (cf. Halpern and
Hitchcock, 2010).
General vs. Singular Causation

Two kinds of causation must be distinguished: one on the type level, general or type causation (often also
called causal relevance), and one on the token level, singular or token causation (often also called actual cau-
sation). An example of the first kind is ‘printing money causes inflation'; an example of the second is ‘Turkey's
money printing in 2018 causes Turkey's inflation in 2018'. General causation relates types (of events or facts)

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that can be instantiated repeatedly and on various occasions by corresponding tokens, which themselves are
related in terms of singular causation. General causation is the kind of causation that is traced in scientific
theory-building and causal modeling and that figures in scientific laws. Knowledge of general causation is
needed for prediction. Singular causation, by contrast, is traced in the course of explaining some event or fact
of interest. Knowledge of singular causation is needed for retrodiction.
Plainly, general and singular causation are not independent. If some type, A, is causally relevant to another
type, B, there exists a token α of type A (in the right circumstances) that is a singular cause of a token β of
type B; and if a token, α, is a singular cause of another token, β, there exists a type-level structure featuring
the corresponding type A as the general cause of B. Accordingly, theories of general and singular causation
are not independent either. The standard approach in theory development, therefore, is to first define either
general or singular causation – as so-called primary analysandum – and to then spell out the other kind of
causation in terms of the primary analysandum. As we shall see below, some theories take general causation
to be primary, others opt for singular causation.
Relational Properties of Causation

Causation, both on type and on token level, is usually analyzed as a relation ‘… is causally relevant to …’ or
‘… is a singular cause of …', where the dots are filled by the corresponding causes and effects. Every relation
can be characterized by the following relational properties: symmetry, reflexivity, and transitivity. To properly
understand a relation, clarifying its relational properties is crucial.
Some relational properties of causation are uncontroversial. For instance, general and singular causation are
neither reflexive nor symmetric. That is, a cause is normally neither caused by its own effects nor by itself.
Standardly, it is even assumed that, on the token level, there are no causal feedbacks at all. Token causes
and effects are distinct entities such that the former temporally precede the latter. The tax raise at time t1
causes firms to lay off people at a later time t2, but at t2 the tax raise has already happened, such that the
lay-offs cannot cause the initial tax raise. However, feedbacks may occur on the type level. Tax raises may
be causally relevant to lay-offs, which cause the need to generate more revenue for social security, which,
in turn, is causally relevant to further tax raises. That is, on the type level it is possible that a cause, via a
sequence of intermediate links, is causally relevant to itself, thereby closing a causal cycle.
Concerning the third relational property, transitivity, matters are much less clear. While it certainly often holds
that a cause, A, not only brings about its direct effect, B, but also (indirectly) causes B's effects, the question
as to the transitivity of causation is whether causal influence is always propagated along causal chains. Does
it hold generally that, if A is a cause of B and B is a cause of C, then A is also a cause of C? Here again,
there are conflicting intuitions. On the one hand, more often than not, our objectives when interacting with the
world cannot be caused directly by one suitable intervention; rather, our ultimate objectives are typically far
remote from what we can cause directly. This holds in particular in politics. If our objective is, say, to reduce
the unemployment rate, all we can do is to bring certain monetary, fiscal, or educational policy changes under
way, which, via many intermediate links, may ultimately reduce unemployment. We would not induce these
policy changes (with often unwanted side effects) if we were not convinced that they will cause the desired
objective. Hence, much of our interaction with the world is driven by the assumption that we can rely on our
actions not only having direct effects but also far remote indirect ones – which amounts to the assumption
that causation is transitive.
Yet, in the face of certain concrete examples, the intuition that causation is transitive becomes shaky. To illus-
trate, consider Case 2:

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Case 2. Walter is a candidate in a presidential race. But his poll numbers are going down. In a na-
tionally televised debate, he intensifies his populist campaign pledges. In the next poll, his numbers
are going up again.
Walter fuels his populism as a reaction to his sinking polls, and populism tends to be conducive to rising polls.
That is, there is a causal chain from sinking polls to intensified populism and on to rising polls. If causation is
transitive, it follows that sinking polls cause rising polls, which seems highly counterintuitive. There are some
authors arguing that transitivity can be maintained even in light of examples like Case 2 (e.g. Lewis, 2000),
others contend that such examples prove that intuitions as to the transitivity of causation are misguided (e.g.
Hitchcock, 2001). Correspondingly, there are theories of causation providing transitive notions of causation,
while others define causation in such a way that transitivity does not hold.
Realism vs. Anti-Realism

Another dimension of variance between theories of causation is their stance on the question whether the
causal relation is a real constituent of the world. While it is beyond doubt that causes, effects, and their be-
havior patterns exist, it is a matter of controversy whether there additionally exists a causal bond connecting
them and governing their behavior. The position of causal realism maintains that not only the entities related
by the causal relation exist in the world, but also the relation itself; causes and effects are connected by a real
causal bond (e.g. Tooley, 1987). By contrast, the position of causal anti-realism contends that only the causal-
ly related entities and their behavior patterns exist, not the causal relation itself; there are no causal bonds
(Hume, 1748). Certain theories of causation endorse causal realism, others subscribe to causal anti-realism.
According to an anti-realist theory, causation boils down to the regularities, the correlations, or other sorts of
dependencies obtaining between the behaviors of causes and effects. To be causally related is nothing over
and above behaving in a certain (yet to be specified) manner. Subject to a realist theory, causation is more
than a certain behavior pattern. To be causally related means to be tied together by a causal bond.
The difference between realism and anti-realism is not just of philosophical interest. It has a direct bearing on
what counts as empirical evidence for causation. To establish causation, the anti-realist only has to demon-
strate the existence of the required behavior pattern in the data – and behavior patterns are exactly what is
contained in ordinary data. By contrast, the realist has to furnish evidence for the existence of the relevant
type of causal bond. But contrary to behavior patterns, such bonds are not directly visible or measurable,
meaning that ordinary data will not contain direct evidence on causal bonds. Instead, the existence of bonds
must be indirectly inferred from the (behavioral) information contained in data.
In light of the fact that causation as defined by an anti-realist theory is more directly accessible in data, the
theories with the most relevance in empirical science are of the anti-realist type. The only theory with realist
leanings resorted to in political science is the mechanist theory.
Production vs. Difference-Making

The contrast between realist and anti-realist theories closely aligns with the contrast between so-called pro-
duction and difference-making theories. On the one hand, a production theory contends that the characteristic
feature of causes is their capacity or disposition to produce the effect, where production is taken to be a fun-
damental (i.e. non-reducible) causal notion expressing the physical bringing about of an effect, say, via the
transfer of energy or momentum (e.g. Dowe, 2000). On the other hand, a difference-making theory maintains
that the characteristic feature of causes is that they are difference-makers of their effects, which is to be un-
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derstood in terms of the non-causal notion of association: A is a difference-maker of B iff there (possibly) exist
homogenous scenarios in which a difference in A is associated with a difference in B (e.g. Woodward, 2003).
Production theories tend to subscribe to realism, difference-making theories to anti-realism. Correspondingly,

causation as defined in difference-making terms can be more easily traced in data. While difference-making
relations can likewise be investigated on coarse-grained macro and fine-grained micro levels, tracing produc-
tion relations requires zooming in on the micro level in order to determine what is happening between causes
and effects.
Determinism
Until the development of quantum mechanics, causation was generally believed to satisfy the principle of de-
terminism: whenever the same types of causes occur, the same types of effects occur as well – in slogan
form, ‘same causes, same effects'. Of course it had always been recognized that determinism is often not
apparent in data. For example, although regular watering causes plant growth, some regularly watered plants
die nonetheless. However, such indeterminacies were taken to be a result of insufficient control over back-
ground influences generating noise, meaning that scenarios with seemingly alike causes but different effects
do not actually feature the exact same causes. Our world is of such enormous causal complexity that it is
often impossible to ensure that nothing interferes with a cause or that all background conditions necessary
for a cause to be efficacious are instantiated. But other things being equal, ceteris paribus, causation is a
deterministic dependence relation.
By contrast, various so-called no-hidden-variables theorems in quantum mechanics suggest that indetermi-
nacies in data are not always due to noise but – at least on the level of fundamental particles – a result of
the inherent indeterministic nature of the physical processes themselves (Albert, 1992). Hence, according to
the standard interpretation of the mathematical machinery of quantum mechanics, the principle of determin-
ism is false. Yet, even though quantum mechanics is one of the most successful scientific theories currently
available, the indeterministic interpretation of its mathematical formalism failed to convince many friends of
determinism that the principle of determinism must be abandoned – for two main reasons. First, there also
exist deterministic interpretations of the quantum mechanical machinery, e.g. Bohm's interpretation (Albert,
1992: chapter 7). Second, even if it should turn out that there exist inherently indeterministic processes on the
fundamental level, there are many open questions with respect to the causal interpretability of these process-
es (e.g. Healey, 2009).
Therefore, quantum mechanics notwithstanding, many current theories of causation either explicitly endorse
the principle of determinism or remain non-committal as to its validity. The possibility of fundamental indeter-
minism induced by quantum mechanics has been the main motivation behind the development of probabilistic
theories of causation.
Main Theories
This section reviews the theories of causation with the highest relevance for social and political science.
Regularity Theory
So-called regularity theories of causation have the longest tradition among theories that continue to be devel-

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oped today. They date back to Hume (1748). The most influential modern regularity theory is due to Mackie
(1974) – with refinements by Graßhoff and May (2001) and Baumgartner (2013). Concerning the theoretical
dimensions of variance, regularity theories make the following analytical choices. Their primary analysandum
is general causation, which they reductively define in terms of redundancy-free regularities obtaining among
factors taking on specific values: such as ‘whenever factor A takes value i (A=i), factor B takes value j (B=j)'.
Moreover, they subscribe to anti-realism and assume that causation is a deterministic form of dependence
that is not transitive. Finally, they contend that the characteristic feature of causes is that they are difference-
makers of their effects.
Factors analyzed by regularity theories can either be crisp-set, taking two possible values 0 and 1, fuzzy-
set, taking continuous values from the unit interval [0,1], or multi-value, taking an open (but finite) number of
non-negative integers as possible values. For simplicity of exposition, I focus on crisp-set factors here, which
allows for conveniently abbreviating the explicit ‘Factor = value’ notation. As is conventional in Boolean al-
gebra, I use ‘A’ as shorthand for A=1 and ‘a’ for A=0. Modern regularity theories moreover borrow much of
the formal machinery from Boolean algebra, in particular, the operations of conjunction, A*B (expressing ‘A=1
and B=1'), disjunction, A + B (‘A=1 or B=1'), implication, A → B (‘if A=1, then B=1'), and equivalence A ↔ B
(‘A=1 if, and only if, B=1') (see also Wagemann, Chapter 20, this Handbook).
The implication operator allows for formally expressing regularities, more specifically, it allows for defining the
notions of sufficiency and necessity, which are the two core Boolean dependencies exploited by regularity
theories: A is sufficient for B iff A → B (i.e. whenever A is given, B is given); A is necessary for B iff B → A (i.e.
whenever B is given, A is given). Many of these Boolean dependencies, however, have nothing to do with
causation. For example, the sinking of a (properly functioning) barometer is sufficient for weather changes but
it does not cause the weather; or whenever there is an election, votes are cast; so casting votes is neces-
sary for the election – but it does not cause the election. Still, some Boolean dependencies are in fact due to
underlying causal dependencies: rainfall is sufficient for wet streets and also a cause thereof, or winning an
election is necessary for being sworn into office and also a cause thereof.
That means the crucial problem to be solved by a regularity theory is to filter out those Boolean dependencies
that are due to underlying causal dependencies and are, hence, amenable to a causal interpretation. The
main reason why most structures of Boolean dependencies do not reflect causation is that they tend to con-
tain redundancies, whereas structures of causal dependencies do not feature redundant elements. Every part
of a causal structure makes a difference to the behavior of that structure in at least one context. Accordingly,
to filter out the causally interpretable Boolean dependencies, they need to be freed of redundancies. Only
those elements of sufficient and necessary conditions can be causally relevant which are indispensable to
account for a scrutinized outcome in at least one context. Or in Mackie's words, causes are at least INUS
conditions, viz. Insufficient but Non-redundant parts of Unnecessary but Sufficient conditions (1974: 62).
Whatever can be removed from sufficient and necessary conditions without affecting their sufficiency and ne-
cessity is not a difference-maker and, hence, not a cause. The causally interesting sufficient and necessary
conditions are minimal in the sense that they do not contain sufficient and necessary proper parts, respec-
tively. Minimally sufficient and minimally necessary conditions can be combined in so-called minimal theories,
which constitute the heart of contemporary regularity theories: a minimal theory of an outcome B is a mini-
mally necessary disjunction of minimally sufficient conditions of B.2 An example might be:
A * e + C * d↔B(1)
(1) being a minimal theory of B entails that A*e and C*d, but neither A, e, C, nor d alone, are sufficient for B,
and that A*e + C*d, but neither A*e nor C*d alone, are necessary for B.
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Minimal theories directly mirror the complexity of causes (conjunctural causation) –causes do not bring about
their effects in isolation but only in conjunction with other causes – as well as the principle of equifinality –
outcomes can be caused along various alternative paths. Moreover, although minimal theories as (1) have a
main operator (‘↔') that is symmetric, to the effect that both sides of (1) are mutually sufficient and necessary
for one another, the fact that (1) features two minimally sufficient conditions of B yields that it nonetheless
identifies a direction of determination: both A*e and C*d determine B, but B neither determines A*e nor C*d.
Hence, A*e and C*d are the (alternative) causes of B, and not vice versa.
Still, to define causal relevance by means of minimal theories, an additional constraint is needed, for not all
minimal theories faithfully reflect causation. The reason is that complete redundancy elimination is relative
to the set of analyzed factors F, meaning that factor values contained in minimal theories relative to some
F may fail to be part of a minimal theory relative to a superset of F (Baumgartner, 2013). In other words, by
expanding factor sets, factor values that appear to be non-redundant to account for an outcome can turn out
to be redundant after all. Therefore, only factor values that are not rendered redundant by expanding factor
sets are causally relevant.
These considerations yield the following substitution instance of schema (Φ):
(R)A is a type-level cause of B iff A is part of a minimal theory of B relative to a factor set F and
remains part of a minimal theory of B across all expansions of F.
The main problem of (R) is that, since Boolean dependencies expressed in minimal theories are inherently
deterministic, (R) incorporates determinism at its very core. But it may turn out that some of the indeterminism
typically encountered in data is not due to noise but to the fact that some causal relations are inherently in-
deterministic. Hence, (R) is a viable theory only for contexts where causation can safely be assumed to be
deterministic. While that assumption is dubious for certain micro-level areas explored by physics, it seems
innocuous for macro-level areas investigated in social and political sciences.
Probabilistic Theory
The restriction of regularity theories to deterministic contexts has prompted probabilistic theories to abandon
the assumption that causation is deterministic. Still, like regularity theories, probabilistic accounts are differ-
ence-making theories that are committed to causal anti-realism, and they do not entail that causation is tran-
sitive. Apart from that, there is much variance within the probabilistic framework. Some probabilistic theories
take general causation to be the primary analysandum (Eells, 1991), others take singular causation to be
primary (Glynn, 2011), still others contend that both general and singular causation can be analyzed in one
go (Suppes, 1970). There are reductionist accounts (Suppes, 1970; Glynn, 2011), and non-reductionist ones
(Eells, 1991). In what follows, I focus on theories that primarily analyze general causation and sketch the main
ideas behind one reductionist and one non-reductionist account.
Like regularity theories, probabilistic theories remain non-committal with respect to the ontology of causation
by referring to causes and effects as variables or factors taking values. For simplicity, I continue to concentrate
on the case of binary factors and to employ the Boolean shorthand notation introduced in the previous section.
Probabilistic theories reject the regularity theoretic requirement that causes are parts of sufficient conditions
of their effects. Instead, A can count as a cause of B if A merely raises the probability of B, where A is said to
raise the probability of B iff the probability of B conditional on A is higher than the probability of B conditional
on not-A, viz. a, or formally:

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P(B | A) > P(B | a)(2)
However, not all cases of probability-raising are also cases of causation, for several reasons. First, probability-
raising is symmetric: if A raises the probability of B, then B also raises the probability of A. But causation is
not symmetric. There are various ways to address that problem. For instance, in complex networks of prob-
abilistic (in-)dependencies, so-called Bayesian networks, it is possible to infer the direction of causation from
substructures featuring multiple independent paths to the same effect, so-called unshielded colliders (Spirtes
et al., 2000: chapter 5). Another way to distinguish between causes and effects is via their temporal order:
causes precede their effects. This can be formally captured by time indexing probabilistically related factor
values, to the effect that the probability-raiser At′ precedes the raised Bt:
P (B t | At') > P (B t | at'), where t' < t(3)

Second, many cases of temporally ordered probability-raising in the vein of (3) are not due to a causal depen-
dence between At′ and Bt but to a common cause of At′ and Bt. For example, the sinking of a barometer at t′
raises the probability of rain at a later time t without causing it. This probabilistic dependence is the result of
an approaching low-pressure system at a time t″ before t′ causing the barometer to sink on one path and the
rain on another. Accordingly, conditional on the low-pressure system, a sinking barometer no longer raises
the probability of rain; in other words, given that a low-pressure system is approaching, additional information
about the behavior of a barometer has no bearing on the rain probability. More generally, the set of common
causes, C, of two parallel effects, A and B, neutralizes or screens off the probabilistic dependence between A
and B in the following sense (Reichenbach, 1956) (where ‘*’ again stands for conjunction):
P(B | A * C) = P(B | a * C)(4)
Relations of temporally ordered probability-raising only track causation if they are not screened off by an-
tecedently instantiated factors. This idea is captured in the following reductionist theory (Suppes, 1970):
(P1)At′ is a type-level cause of Bt, where t′ < t, iff At′ raises the probability of Bt and there does not
exist a set Ct″, where t ″ < t ′, that screens off the probabilistic dependence between At′ and Bt.
(P1) has two problems. First, not all causes raise the probability of their effects; some in fact lower it. To cite
a classical example, wind gusts lower the probability that golfers make a hole-in-one. Nonetheless, it can
happen that wind gusts deflect balls in such a way that they end up in the hole in one shot after all (e.g. by
luckily bouncing off trees). Being essential contributors to the trajectories of such balls, the wind gusts are
causes of the holes-in-one, even though they lower their probability. So, causes must not be required to be
probability-raisers of their effects, rather, it suffices that a cause At′ is a probability-changer of its effect Bt in
the following sense:
P (B t | At') ≠ P(Bt | at'), where t' < t(5)

The second problem of (P1) stems from the fact that probabilities are typically determined via relative fre-
quencies in a studied population. Probabilistic dependencies inferred from relative frequencies in the whole
population, however, may be reversed or neutralized in subpopulations, which is a very common phenome-
non in statistics known as Simpson's Paradox. To use another classical example, it can happen that, in the
whole population of applicants to some university, X, the frequency of admission among male applicants is
significantly higher than among female applicants, while in the subpopulations of X's faculties, the admission
rates among men and women are exactly equal (for illustrations see Eells, 1991, 62–80). Such frequency
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distributions could be the result of men more often applying to faculties that are easier to get into. But un-
equal ratios could reappear in even more fine-grained subpopulations; for instance, it could turn out that men
are more frequently admitted than women to each of X's departments. It is thus unclear whether being male
should be regarded as a probability-changer of being admitted to university X or not.
Many representatives of probabilistic theories of causation have taken such paradoxical frequency distrib-
utions to show that rigorous constraints must be imposed on populations suitable for inferring probability-
changing relations, in particular, that such populations must be required to be homogeneous in causally rele-
vant respects. More specifically, a probability-changing relation between At′ and Bt that tracks causation must
obtain in a causal context, K, in which all causes of Bt not on a causal path from At′ to Bt are constant. This
leads to the following non-reductionist theory (Eells, 1991: 86, 106):
(P2)At′ is a type-level cause of Bt, where t′ < t, iff there exists a causal context K such that, in K, At′
changes the probability of Bt and there does not exist a set Ct ″, where t ″ < t ′, that screens off the
probabilistic dependence between At′ and Bt.
(P2) is non-reductionist because it does not define causal relevance in non-causal terms but in terms of
causal contexts. Applying (P2) to concrete cases, say, in the course of identifying the causes of some out-
come, B, hence, presupposes substantive prior causal knowledge about B's causes. Overall, (P2) avoids the
problems of (P1), but it does so at the price of abandoning the project of defining causation in non-causal
terms.
Counterfactual Theory
A theoretical framework not prepared to give up reductionism is the so-called counterfactual one. Like reg-
ularity theories, counterfactual theories have their roots in suggestions by Hume (1748). Lewis (1973; 2000)
developed Hume's ideas into a full-blown theory. Further refining Lewis’ account is a field of ongoing research,
incorporating various techniques from structural equation modeling (e.g. Halpern, 2016). As the technicality
of these latest proposals is beyond the scope of this chapter, I will subsequently concentrate on Lewis's origi-
nal theory. It is a reductionist difference-making theory that subscribes to anti-realism and assumes causation
to be deterministic. Contrary to the previously discussed theories, it stipulates that causation is transitive, it
focuses on singular causation as primary analysandum, and it takes a determinate stance on the ontology of
causation by assuming that causes and effects are spatiotemporally located events. In order not to confuse
events with factors, I refer to events using Greek lower-case letters α, β, etc.
The main idea behind a counterfactual theory is to define singular causation between two occurring events, α
and β, in terms of the truth of a counterfactual conditional of the form ‘had α not occurred, β would not have
occurred'. Or more concretely, Turkey's money printing in 2018 is a cause of Turkey's inflation in 2018 if it is
true that, had Turkey not printed money in 2018, there would have been no inflation in Turkey in 2018. Even
though such counterfactual claims are very commonplace, it is difficult to state precisely under what condi-
tions they are true. The main problem is that they refer to non-actual scenarios, meaning their truth cannot be
determined by observing or conducting experiments. Their truth also does not depend on different scenarios
of the same type that actually occurred (on different occasions). For example, that Turkey did not print money
in 2014 and did not have an inflation in that year does not tell us what would have happened in 2018, had
there been no money printing.
To render the truth conditions of counterfactual statements precise, it is standard to draw on so-called possible

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world semantics, which was developed in modal logic to explicate the meanings of claims about possibility
and necessity. A possible world, w, can be thought of as a (hypothetical) maximal state of affairs such that
every state of affairs is either included in w or precluded by w. There is a possible world in which McCain (and
not Obama) becomes president in 2008, Italy is in Africa (and not in Europe), Caesar (and not Armstrong) is
the first man on the moon, Archduke Ferdinand is not assassinated but lives to be 80 years old, etc. Impor-
tantly, all possible worlds can be compared as to how similar or distant they are relative to one another, and
there exists one distinguished possible world, the actual world, including all the states of affairs that obtain in
the world we live in. Moreover, a possible world, w, is said to be an α-world if the event α occurs in w, and a
non-α-world otherwise.
Relative to that theoretical background, Lewis (1973) determines that the statement ‘had α not occurred, β
would not have occurred’ (where α and β are events in the actual world) is true iff some non-α-world where
β does not occur is more similar to the actual world than any non-α-world where β occurs, or differently, iff it
takes less of a departure from actuality to suppress α and β together than to just suppress α. If that counter-
factual statement is true, α and β are said to be counterfactually dependent, and α is a cause of β.
Before this account can be applied to identifying token-level causes, the conditions under which a
non-α-world, w, counts as similar to the actual world need to be clarified. Such similarity, according to Lewis,
does not require that w is governed by the same laws of nature as the actual world. The reason is that if world
similarity would require sameness of laws, α not occurring in w would presuppose that the causes of α are
also absent from w, as well as their causes, and so forth. In that case, thus, a multitude of states of affairs
in w would be different from the actual world, meaning that the latter would be very dissimilar from w. More-
over, not only effects would counterfactually depend on their causes, but also causes on their effects, for if α
causes β, the most similar non-β-world with the same laws would also be a non-α-world. To avoid these con-
sequences, Lewis stipulates that a non-α-world, w, counts as similar to the actual world if all states of affairs
in w coincide with the actual world up until the occurrence of α, at which moment a law of nature of the actual
world is broken in w by a so-called divergence miracle suppressing α in w. If, and only if, after that miracle, β
does not occur in w, α and β are counterfactually dependent.
Counterfactual dependence is sufficient but not necessary for causation because counterfactual dependence
is not transitive. To ensure that causation is transitive, Lewis (1973) defines causation to be the transitive clo-
sure of counterfactual dependence:
(C)α is a token-level cause of β, where α and β are events in the actual world, iff there exists a se-
quence of events α, σ1, …, σn, β, with n ≥ 0, such that each event in the sequence counterfactually
depends on its predecessor.
As indicated above, (C) is the object of ongoing refinement efforts because it is subject to various types
of counterexamples, for instance, cases of overdetermination or preemption. To illustrate overdetermination,
consider this case:
Case 3. President X issues an executive order. Two judges, independently of one another, overrule
that order, which subsequently is suspended. (Each overruling is individually sufficient for the sus-
pension.)
It seems (pre-theoretically) clear that the rulings of both judges cause the suspension of the order. However,
there is no sequence of counterfactual dependencies from either of the rulings to the order's suspension: had
the first judge not overruled, the order would still have been suspended, due to the second judge's ruling, and
vice versa. That is, (C) erroneously entails that the suspension of the order is caused by neither overruling.

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While recent modifications of (C) can adequately handle many of these types of counterexamples, the more
fundamental problem remains that possible worlds are not epistemically accessible to us. Determining what
would have happened, had certain events been suppressed by a miracle is, to a large degree, a matter of
speculation. On the face of it, anything might happen in worlds that feature miracles.
Interventionist Theory
The so-called interventionist framework provides another non-reductionist approach to defining causation. In-
terventionist theories have a lot of intuitive appeal and enjoy growing popularity. They tie the notion of causa-
tion directly to the way we commonly discover causation: by suitably manipulating factors of interest. Causes
are those factors that can be manipulated in such a way that other factors, the effects, vary as well. While
some theories in that framework anchor causation in human agency (e.g. Menzies and Price, 1993) and, as a
result, are subject to anthropocentricity worries, the most compelling interventionist theories define causation
in terms of a technical notion of an intervention that is independent of human agency (e.g. Woodward, 2003;
Pearl, 2009). This section focuses on the currently most widely used interventionist theory, which is due to
Woodward (2003).
Woodward chooses general causation as primary analysandum, develops an anti-realist difference-making

theory and neither assumes causation to be deterministic nor transitive. He also remains non-committal with
respect to the ontology of causation by referring to causes and effects as variables or factors – in contrast
to, say, regularity theories that take causes and effects to be factor values. The difference between factors
and factor values seems small but is substantial. A factor, A, is causally relevant for a factor, B, (according to
Woodward) iff at least one of A's values can make a difference to at least one of B's values, but in order for
A=1 to be causally relevant to B=1, not any value of A but the specific value, 1, must be the difference-maker
for the specific value 1 of B. Put differently, a theory analyzing causation between factors applies to cases
such as ‘the electoral system is causally relevant for women's representation in parliament', while a theory
opting for factor values applies to ‘a PR electoral system is causally relevant for high women's representation
in parliament'. Hence, in what follows I no longer use the Boolean shorthand notation according to which up-
per-case letters A, B, etc. stand for factor values; rather, they now stand for variables or factors (simpliciter).
The basic idea behind Woodward's interventionist theory is to first specify an ideal test setup, T, such that in-
terventions occurring in T can recover all and only the causal relationships, and to then define A to be causally
relevant to B iff that causal relation can be recovered in a T-test. The crucial requirement that T has to comply
with in order to serve its designated purpose is non-confounding. That is, if the causal relevance of A for B
is investigated in T, it must be ensured that no uncontrolled causes of B other than the ones on a path from
A to B, viz. no off-path causes of B, are operative in the background. If A is intervened on while some latent
off-path cause produces B, the resulting data is confounded and A erroneously appears to make a difference
to B. Hence, all off-path causes must be homogenized, that is, held fixed in a T-test.
Furthermore, rigorous constraints must be imposed on the way A is intervened on. If the manipulation of A
also influences B on a separate path (such that A and B are parallel effects of that manipulation), the result-
ing co-variation of A and B is confounded and cannot be taken as evidence for the causal relevance of A
for B. Likewise, the manipulation of A must not itself be the effect of an off-path cause of B, for that, again,
would introduce confounding. In that light, Woodward defines the following technical notion of an intervention
(Woodward 2003, 98): an intervention on A with respect to B is a surgical cause of A –meaning A is its only
direct effect – that sets A to one specific value and is independent of all off-path causes of B.
Against that background, Woodward's (2003) interventionist theory then amounts to the following substitution
instance of schema (Φ):
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(I)A is a type-level cause of B iff there exists a possible intervention on A with respect to B that is
associated with a change in B when all off-path causes of B are held fixed.
Some features of that theory deserve separate emphasis. First, it is non-reductionist because it defines cau-
sation in terms of interventions, which are certain designated causes. According to (I), determining whether A
is a cause of B requires some prior causal knowledge about the causes of A and B, not however, about the
relationship between A and B itself (i.e. the theory is not circular). That means (I) can only be brought to bear
when that required causal knowledge is available. An interventionist theory cannot analyze causal phenome-
na from scratch.
Second, even though the notion of an intervention is commonly associated with human action, Woodward's
technical definition of the term carries no such connotations whatsoever. Any surgical cause of A, whether
the result of human action in an experiment or occurring beyond the range of human action, can count as
an intervention. That means, in particular, that an interventionist theory can be applied both in experimental
research contexts and in purely observational ones. If observational data contain information about a surgical
cause of some test factor, A, (I) can be brought to bear.
Third, for A to count as a cause of B, (I) does not require that A co-varies with B as a result of an actual inter-
vention, rather, it suffices that there exists a possible intervention inducing a co-variation of A and B. Whenev-
er no intervention on A actually occurs, the question thus arises whether such an intervention is possible and
what would happen to B were such an intervention to occur. Answering those questions calls for recourse to
possible world semantics, which, in turn, has led to interventionist theories being characterized as (type-level)
variants of counterfactual theories.
The main problem of (I) stems from the fact that it not only treats recoverability by an interventionist T-test
as sufficient for causation –which it uncontroversially is – but also as necessary for it. (I) entails that, if it is
impossible to surgically cause A (i.e. to intervene on A), A is causally inert. Given the enormous causal com-
plexity of the world, it might well be quite common for factors to be interconnected with so many other factors
that they cannot be caused surgically. That such factors do not cause anything does not seem adequate.
Mechanistic Theory
Finally, contrary to all previously discussed theories, mechanistic theories subscribe to causal realism, that is,
to the thesis that not only causes and effects exist in the world but also the relation connecting them. There
are two types of mechanistic theories: process theories (e.g. Dowe, 2000) and complex systems theories
(e.g. Glennan, 1996). Process theories define causation in terms of the transmission of energy or momentum
from causes to effects. They are tailor-made to account for causation in physical systems and are only of mi-
nor relevance for social and political science. Accordingly, this section focuses on complex systems theories,
which contend that causes are connected to their effects via a mechanism – a complex system of interacting
parts – accounting for the production of the effect by the cause. According to this approach, the character-
istic feature of causes is not that they are difference-makers of their effects but that they produce them. As
production is a causally loaded notion, resulting theories are non-reductionist. Mechanistic theories typically
remain non-committal as to whether causation is transitive or deterministic. By contrast, they take a decisive
stance on the ontology of causation: causes and effects are spatiotemporally located entities, that is, events.
Correspondingly, their primary analysandum is singular causation.
The conceptual core of a mechanistic theory is the notion of a mechanism. As indicated above, complex sys-
tems approaches do not interpret that notion in a narrow physical sense. Rather, any complex system featur-
ing suitably arranged and interacting parts can count as a mechanism. The following is the most frequently
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cited characterization of a mechanism in the wide sense; it is due to Machamer et al.:
Mechanisms are entities and activities organized such that they are productive of regular changes
from start or set-up to finish or termination conditions. (Machamer et al., 2000: 3)
The deliberately unspecific terms ‘entities’ and ‘activities’ referring to the constituents of a mechanism can be
specified for various fields of application. For instance, Little stipulates that social mechanisms are ‘constitut-
ed by the purposive actions of agents within constraints’ (2011: 273).
Against that background, Glennan (1996) puts forward the following substitution instance of schema (Φ):
(M)α is a token-level cause of β, where α and β are non-fundamental events, iff there exists a mech-
anism connecting α and β.
In other words, α and β are causally related iff there is a sequence of intermediary events, each of which is
caused (produced) by its predecessor and causes (produces) its successor. The causal relations among the
elements of that sequence are again to be analyzed in terms of the existence of intermediary mechanisms,
and so forth. That is, (M) non-reductively spells out causation between upper-level events in terms of causa-
tion between lower-level events, giving rise to a regress that continues until a fundamental level is reached
where nothing intermediary exists any longer – if such a level exists at all; or, if no fundamental level exists,
the regress continues ad infinitum. In any case, causation between events on a fundamental level cannot
be understood in the vein of (M), which is why Glennan restricts the applicability of (M) to non-fundamental
events. Causation between fundamental events must then either be analyzed on the basis of another theory
of causation or treated as fundamental.
As all other non-reductionist theories, (M) can only be applied if a significant amount of prior causal knowledge
is already available. While other non-reductionist theories, however, presuppose clarity on causation in the
background (i.e. outside) of a scrutinized causal relation, (M) presupposes knowledge about what is going on
in between candidate causes and effects (i.e. inside of a causal relation).
Methodological Perspectives
I end this chapter by briefly connecting the above theories to available methods of causal inference and dis-
covery. As documented in this part of the Handbook, there exists a multitude of methods. Many of them are
tailored to uncover causation as defined by different theories. Given the vast amount of available method-
ological frameworks, I cannot render explicit for all of them what variant of causation they trace. Hence, with-
out claim to completeness, the following paragraph links every theory discussed in this chapter to exemplary
methods designed to uncover causation as defined by that theory.
Regularity theoretic causation can be uncovered by configurational comparative methods (e.g. Ragin, 2008;
Baumgartner and Ambühl, 2018). Bayesian network methods (e.g. Spirtes et al., 2000) and regression ana-
lytic methods (e.g. Gelman and Hill, 2007) trace the probabilistic variant of causation. The potential outcomes
framework and structural equation modeling (e.g. Morgan and Winship, 2007; Halpern, 2016) provide useful
tools to search for causation in the sense of counterfactual theories. Interventionist causation can be uncov-
ered by experimental methods or by interventionist variants of Bayesian network methods or structural equa-
tion modeling (e.g. Pearl, 2009). And a paradigmatic framework to examine mechanistic causation is process
tracing (e.g. Beach and Pedersen, 2013).
According to the position of causal pluralism, the theories of causation discussed in this chapter define differ-
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ent concepts of causation by doing justice to divergent (and often incompatible) properties pre-theoretically
ascribed to causation. There is no fact of the matter as to which is the true theory. Causal pluralism yields
methodological pluralism. Methods tracking causation as defined by different theories have different search
targets and, consequently, cannot be meaningfully pitted against each other. There is no fact of the matter
which of them is more truth-conducive, rather, they complement one another. The same, however, does not
hold for methods targeting the same variant of causation. Such methods can and must be rigorously bench-
marked against each other. If one of them turns out to more correctly and completely uncover the relevant
variant of causation it is strictly superior.
The choice of theory and the choice of method mutually constrain each other and are constrained by the exi-
gencies of a given research context. If causally analyzed data are of a correlational nature, a method is called
for that can process correlational data and causation must be understood in terms of a theory that connects
correlational dependencies to causation. Appropriate choices in such a context are a probabilistic theory and
a method from the Bayesian network or regression analytic framework. If a study is examining the complexity
of the type-level causal structure underlying a phenomenon of interest, a theory and corresponding method
are needed that are capable of reproducing conjunctural causation, equifinality, and causal sequentiality. In
that case, a regularity theory might be chosen along with a pertinent configurational comparative method. Al-
ternatively, if enough prior knowledge on how to intervene on an investigated phenomenon is available, the
interventionist framework is a safe choice. Or if a study aims to explain the occurrence of some token-level ef-
fect, suitable choices might be a counterfactual theory in combination with the potential outcomes framework
or process tracing underwritten by a mechanistic theory.
Notes
1 I thank the Trond Mohn Foundation (grant no. 811886) for generous support of this research.
2 The complete definition of the notion of a minimal theory is beyond the scope of this article (for the latest
definition see Baumgartner and Falk, 2019).
References
Albert, D. Z. (1992). Quantum Mechanics and Experience. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Baumgartner, M. (2013). A regularity theoretic approach to actual causation. Erkenntnis 78(Suppl 1), 85–109.
Baumgartner, M. and M. Ambühl (2018). Causal modeling with multi-value and fuzzy-set Coincidence Analy-
sis. Political Science Research and Methods. doi: 10.1017/psrm.2018.45 accessed 17 December, 2019.
Baumgartner, M. and C. Falk (2019). Boolean difference-making: A modern regularity theory of causation.
British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, doi: 10.1093/bjps/axz047
Beach, D. and R. Pedersen (2013). Process Tracing Methods: Foundation and Guidelines. Ann Arbor: Uni-
versity of Michigan Press.
Beebee, H., C. Hitchcock, and P. Menzies (eds.) (2009). The Oxford Handbook of Causation. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
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Glennan, S. S. (1996). Mechanisms and the nature of causation. Erkenntnis 44, 49–71.
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Issues in Causation, pp. 85–114. Paderborn: Mentis.
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Halpern, J. Y. and C. Hitchcock (2010). Actual causation and the art of modelling. In R. Dechter, H. Geffner,
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don: College Publications.
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Oxford Handbook of Causation. pp. 673–686. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hitchcock, C. (2001). The intransitivity of causation revealed in equations and graphs. Journal of Philosophy
98(6), 273–299.
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Lewis, D. (2000). Causation as influence. Journal of Philosophy 97(4), 182–197.
Little, D. (2011). Causal mechanisms in the social realm. In P. M. Illari, F. Russo, and J. Williamson (eds.),
Causality in the Sciences, pp. 273–295. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Machamer, P. K., L. Darden, and C. F. Craver (2000). Thinking about mechanisms. Philosophy of Science
67(1), 1–25.
Mackie, J. L. (1974). The Cement of the Universe: A Study of Causation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Mellor, D. H. (1995). The Facts of Causation. London: Routledge.
Menzies, P. and H. Price (1993). Causation as a secondary quality. British Journal for the Philosophy of Sci-
ence 44(2), 187–203.
Morgan, S. L. and C. Winship (2007). Counterfactuals and Causal Inference: Methods and Principles for So-
cial Research. Analytical Methods for Social Research series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pearl, J. (2009). Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference (
2nd ed.
). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Us: Studies of Analytical Metaphysics, pp. 131–151. New Jersey: World Scientific Publishers.
Ragin, C. C. (2008). Redesigning Social Inquiry: Fuzzy Sets and Beyond. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Reichenbach, H. (1956). The Direction of Time. Berkeley: University of California Press.
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2nd ed.
). Cambridge: MIT Press.
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• causation
• theories
• plants
• planting
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n21

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Concept Regulation in Political Science
Contributors: Zachary Elkins

Chapter Title: "Concept Regulation in Political Science"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Concept Regulation in Political Science

Zachary Elkins
Introduction
In the early 1970s, a group of enterprising political scientists began to plot the future of their discipline. Their
primary frustration was one of vocabulary; specifically, the lack of a standardized set of terms for political
things. This frustration is undoubtedly a common one among scientists (or anyone seeking knowledge). Lan-
guage and thinking are inextricably linked; we use words to think and think to use words. Why should we
be surprised, then, at the many intellectual disagreements that are ‘just’ semantic? One solution to this state
of affairs is to record common usage of the central terms of the debate. A debatable endpoint of such an
exercise would be to legislate common meanings of terms, preferably with the backing – however implicit
– of an authoritative body. Giovanni Sartori was at the center of just such a movement in Political Science,
and he and collaborators championed the idea of a more conscious and attentative approach to concepts.
Their group constituted the first Research Committee (Research Committee-01) of the nascent International
Political Science Association (IPSA). And what better mission for a global learned society than to coordinate
language and develop international standards in this way? As we shall see, Sartori and others in this ‘con-
ceptualist movement’ were successful over the next 50 years in accelerating interest in the systematic study
and use of concepts, if not in legislating their meaning. Concept analysis is now a central part of the Political
Science toolbox.
It is important, of course, to situate Sartori and friends within the larger trajectory of what we might call ‘con-
cept regulation’ in the sciences and humanities. Intellectual history is studded with similarly heroic attempts
to structure, represent, and standardize knowledge. Even ordinary (‘folk') language, in many societies, has
undergone some sort of regulation. It is almost quaint to imagine a time in which human beings would deign
to use words without reference to their ‘correct', or at least official usage as established by a published dic-
tionary. Often, this regulation is the intellectual product of a driven and dedicated maven. And sadly, these
public-spirited, library-bound souls were often not fully appreciated during their lifetimes. Noah Webster de-
voted 25 lonely years to the construction of a new American dictionary. He apparently did not garner much
acclaim or affection among his contemporaries (Lepore, 2006), but the impact of his work, for those of us in
the United States, on the meaning of words, our choice of words, and how we spell them is nothing short of
seismic. And surely we can say something similar about the Académie française, the board of governors of
the Oxford English Dictionary, and so on.
But the scientific fields are no different, and perhaps even more suited to regulation. Leibniz, for one, recog-
nized the value of a shared sense of terms, and pondered the development of a systematic language in which
scientists could reason through their observations of the natural world together (Loemker, 1969). Within do-
mains of study, certain entrepreneurs have succeeded in establishing conceptual schemes. Think, of course,
of Linnaeus’ Systema Naturæ (1735); his taxonomy and Latin vocabulary still dominates our thinking about
the natural world, even as other conceptual schemes to classify organisms evolved. And then there is the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association (2013),
which in its various editions has (in)famously catalogued the ‘pathologies’ of the mind for nearly 70 years.
It makes sense to review these efforts and insights of concept entrepreneurs across fields of study, in part to
understand the consequences of regulation itself. No one would doubt the trade-offs and challenges involved
in any regulation of human thought, and the costs and benefits are on display in each of these disciplines.
Moreover, nothing about concept formation is unique to Political Science, and insights from cognitive psychol-
ogy, philosophy, and any of the substantive fields of inquiry are enlightening. Nowhere is the study of concept
regulation more alive than in the fertile field of information science. The last two decades has ushered a clear
sense of how one might proceed in the realm of concept regulation. I think here about the use of formal ‘on-
tologies’ in the merging of data and concepts. ‘Ontology’ in this usage is not the philosophical study of being,
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but the information-science sense of a formalized set of concepts in a domain, as well as their properties and
relationships with other concepts. What do these advances mean for concept monitors in Political Science?
The second half of this chapter turns to these new tools of ontology formation and analysis, which I illustrate
in the domain of comparative constitutional law.
The First 50 Years

Modern concept regulation, at least in Political Science, might be said to have started in 1970 with the publi-
cation in the American Political Science Review of Giovanni Sartori's seminal article ‘Concept misinformation
in comparative politics', and the launch of the IPSA and that organization's flagship committee (Research
Committee-01) on concepts.1 One can go back further, of course. Weber is a logical antecedent, not to men-
tion a generation or two of German scholars such as Reinhart Koselleck who helped to fashion an entire field
of ‘Conceptual History’ (Begriffsgeschichte). But within Political Science, Sartori and his many followers pro-
ceeded to illustrate and define what it means to do ‘systematic’ concept analysis. Pick up an article or book
on political science and you are likely to find a section (or chapter) on (something like) ‘conceptualization and
measurement'. These concept narratives often have an informal quality, at least in contrast to the more coor-
dinated concept regulation that would go on in other fields (say, formal taxonomies in biology or the medical
sciences). But as we shall see, the concerns of these narratives fit logically with advances in information tech-
nology in which scholars digitalize (and, thus, formalize) ontologies to represent knowledge and to connect
concepts to data. These formal methodologies of concept structuration – whatever form they take – very likely
will occupy concept regulators over the next 50 years. An introduction to these approaches constitutes the
second part of this chapter. But first, we must understand what it means to do ‘concept analysis’ in political
science.
The Art and Science of Concept Reconstruction (and what is a concept, any-
way?)
If the point of concept analysis is to understand and communicate the meaning of terms, it would be the height
of hypocrisy not to begin with the ‘C’ word. And what better way to understand the science of concept analy-
sis than to turn that analysis on itself? The concept of ‘concept’ is probably hazy for most. Ask students (or
anybody) for the meaning of a concept, or even an example of one, and you are likely to be met with stony si-
lence. As it happens, the question leads to a rewarding classroom discussion – as most conceptual questions
do.2 And like all conceptual questions, the answer will probably not be decided by fiat, since we are interested
in understanding the multiplicity (if there is such) in meanings. Indeed, we should subject the term to the same
grueling treatment that Sartori would reserve for other troublesome concepts in political science (e.g., power,
institution, democracy). By way of example, Sartori's 1984 book Social Science Concepts includes separate
chapters in which he and his collaborators reconstructed a set of important concepts. Another notable exam-
ple is a special issue of the newsletter of the Comparative Politics section of the American Political Science
Association (APSA), in which leading comparativists marched through some 20 concepts that have troubled
the discipline for years (APSA-CP, 2009). This is not to mention the many articles and monographs that re-
construct concepts of various kinds, such as Weyland's (2001) on populism or Gerring's (1997) on ideology,
and so on. Most of these works, it is probably fair to say, borrow in some way from the special attention given
to concept analysis in the 1970s.
All this is to say that we should subject the concept of concept3 to the Sartorian concept-reconstruction
process, which involves exploring the intension and extension of terms as well as their semantic field. The
intension (or connotation) of a concept refers to its meaning, and extension (or denotation) to the application
of the concept to cases (or, instances of the concept). The ‘semantic field’ is one of the resonant labels from
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Sartori's (1984) work and refers to the network of concepts that are related to the concept under study. En-
tities in the semantic field might be synonyms, antonyms, broader variants (hypernyms), narrower variants
(hyponyms), concepts that share one or more attributes, etc. Essentially, the semantic field is what one might
hope to find in the entry in an exceptionally comprehensive and narrated thesaurus. Clearly, if one were to
deconstruct (and reconstruct) a concept, mapping the semantic field while simultaneously exploring the inten-
sion and extension of both the central concept and its field mates makes for a useful process of disambigua-
tion.
One way to understand the meaning – both the intension and extension – of the term concept is to understand
its cognitive utility. Concepts help us to navigate the blinding amount of stimuli by lumping ‘things’ into cat-
egories, which we then call an ‘instance’ of that category. So, if we could understand leaders such as Juan
Perón and Donald Trump as instances of populism (or some other category), we might move about the politi-
cal world with more cognitive ease. Similarly, if I know that a piece of music is classified as jazz or, say, punk,
I can know whether or not I can listen to it without distracting my writing. Notice that concept and category are
more or less interchangeable here. Indeed, it seems to many that one can swap the two without significant
loss in meaning (Murphy, 2004). For that matter, we might include class, classification, and taxon(omy) as
near-enough synonyms, in the spirit of mapping the semantic field.
Once we start thinking about concepts as categories, or ‘data containers’ (Sartori, 1970), their use becomes
more clear – and more data oriented. David Collier perfected an ingenious catch-phrase – ‘what is that a case
of?’ – which he used to encourage students to think more conceptually (and categorically). He used it period-
ically, and to great effect. If an unwitting student expressed interest in some particular political phenomenon
– say, the Chiapas uprising – the Collier treatment would follow: ‘interesting … but, what is that a case of?'.
Categorizing is the first step in concept development and that particular Collierism has very likely led many
students to think more conceptually.
Accordingly, a common summary definition of a concept is a ‘mental representation'. Suppose that we think
of a mental representation as an idea that stands for something in the world. As such, a defining attribute is
that a concept is abstract as opposed to concrete (observable or perceived). This is also to say that a con-
cept is invented (constructed), as opposed to given. Hence the term construct, which we might also view as
synonymous with concept, but one that reminds us that the mental representation is invented (not given) (see
Moses, Chapter 27, this Handbook). Although here we must consider the possibility that some concepts are
natural, or basic, that is, that some concepts seem almost to be hard-wired as opposed to learned or invented,
the evidence for such a claim would seem to be the appearance of very similar concepts across a large set
of societies that are removed from one another. Research in child development and across cultures explores
exactly this possibility of socially constructed, or learned, concepts as against something more innate. Rosch
(1973), for example, found that some concepts and categories are more ‘natural’ than others. Specifically, the
important insight from Rosch is that some levels of abstraction are more ‘basic’ than others (more below).
This abstract/concrete distinction leads to the concern of reification – that is, that one's mental representation
may be mistaken for a thing unto itself. And here we must appreciate both the appeal and danger of concepts.
Naming something can be a remarkably powerful act. Contrary to popular opinion, a rose by any other name
does not smell just as sweet, except in blind anonymous tests. Just ask any recipient of one on Valentine's
Day; the category of things called rose carries all sorts of constructed meaning independent of the physical
plant. Similarly, if we are to call Donald Trump a populist, we have imputed all sorts of associations that may
or may not hold. Categorizing the world with official labels is undoubtedly one reason that some have been
skeptical of the DSM. Some wonder whether certain behaviors are actually disorders at all. bereavement syn-
drome (that emotional state brought on by grief) is now properly named and, apparently, a disorder, at least
as of the latest edition of the DSM. Concerned practitioners and researchers in the field of health raise real
questions about whether in the naming of symptoms we are medicalizing and exaggerating common and ex-
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pected human behaviors.
Of course, group identity (whether along race, ethnicity, nationality, or any other marker) is one of the powerful
and controversial forms of reification. Some ways of categorizing people seem to be ‘basic', in the sense of
Rosch, but others are quite obviously products of scientific thinking. I recall a survey of street vendors in Lima,
Peru, in which interviewers inquired about the respondent's satisfaction with being a member of the informal
sector. If respondents had not considered themselves as part of that particular class of ‘informal workers',
they did now! Certainly, human beings classify each other in any number of ways, but it is worth recalling
that these labels and categories are just that – human inventions. Still, while reification can strike somewhat
pathological and prejudicial notes, it is worth understanding that it is that exact rhetorical and cognitive power
that makes for successful scientific theorizing and conceptualization. Hence the power of concepts. And with
great power comes great responsibility.
Classical Versus Prototypical Views

An important distinction among concepts has to do with the problem of borders and gradations across cate-
gories. In the ‘classical’ view of categorization (Murphy, 2004), categories are defined by characteristics that
are necessary and jointly sufficient for membership. For example, parliamentary democracies may be defined
as those in which the executive is elected and removed by the legislature (call this defining feature ‘assembly
confidence'). This view of concepts (sometimes associated with the logic of the excluded middle) admits of
no borderline cases, and each member of the category is treated as a full instance of the concept, with no
significant distinctions drawn among members. Of course, the Linnaean taxonomy of the natural world follows
this approach (thus, the duck-billed platypus is admitted a full-fledged mammal on account of its mammary
glands despite all sorts of attributes that are more characteristic of non-mammals).
The modern view of concepts, associated closely with the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Eleanor Rosch,
has led to a more probabilistic view of concepts. So, Wittgenstein's (1953) idea of family resemblance threat-
ens the idea that there is any common (much less necessary) attribute of category members. parliamentary
systems, then, might be a family of systems whose members share a substantial number of characteristics
(e.g., executive decree power, minimal legislative oversight of the executive, a figure-head for head of state),
but vary in the degree in which they exhibit these attributes. Rosch's (1973) large body of experimental work
showed that most of us possess prototypical views of concepts (a chair is a highly typical instance of furni-
ture, a bookcase less so, and a piano even less). Again, then, the idea is that in-group items are differentiat-
ed with respect to their degree of belonging to the group. More recently, David Collier's (Collier and Mahon,
1993; Collier and Levitsky, 1997) elaboration on classical versus radial sub-typing and his application of these
ideas to central political science concepts such as democracy introduced many of us to these more graded
approaches to categorization. Collier's work has left political scientists with a distinct appreciation for partial
membership in classification, though he stopped short of recommending particular measurement instruments
with which to assign scores.
The Idea of Concept Regulation

But ‘all is not well in the land of concepts', begins Gerring (2001: 36), in an evaluation of the state of affairs.
And indeed, frustration with the inattention and even resistance to shared meaning and understanding in po-
litical science motivated at least some conceptualists to act. Sartori, Riggs, and Teune – the ringleaders of
the conceptualist movement in the 1970s – were very much of this opinion. The group's manifesto may well
be their manuscript of 1975, appropriately entitled Tower of Babel (the Sartori chapter of which is republished

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in Collier and Gerring, 2009). Sartori's weighty chapter is sprinkled with warnings about the mounting trend
toward non-cumulative research and debate, something that he sees in stark contrast to practices in the nat-
ural sciences and economics. He worries that ‘the soft sciences are sliding – if unawares – toward a vicious
cycle of incommunicability and frivolous verbalism’ (Sartori, 1975 [2009]: 63). I should say that others before
him had been similarly frustrated. Charles Titus (1931) – who would develop his own symbolic language for
political concepts – reported his frustration at turning up 145 different definitions of the concept state. Titus
described Political Science as a ‘guessing game', in which ‘we are spending much of our time guessing what
the sender means when he uses even technical words’ (1931: 45), He goes on:
Take, for example, our own situation. Do you know what I mean by the words and terms which I have
been using? Or have you been guessing? Do you know whether you have successfully guessed the
meanings I have tried to put into the terms used? What assurance have I that you, individually or
collectively, have been successful in your guesses? (Titus, 1931: 45–6)
Plus ça change…, as they say. But, as Sartori later saw it in 1975, things were only getting worse due to three
trends in scholarship – trends that have probably only escalated, or at least morphed, since then. One was
the sharp decline of classical languages. Scholars were (are) no longer conversant in Latin or Greek. The
problem for Sartori was not that they could not agree upon a lingua franca for naming (à la the Latin names in
the biological taxonomy), but rather that the etymological roots of the vocabulary of modern languages were
now obscured. So, in his example, we may not appreciate that consensus and cooperation – two terms in
need of disambiguation – have their respective roots in ‘feeling’ as against ‘working’ together. There is, of
course, much more to say here regarding the rise and fall of the world's languages. One phenomenon that
has evolved since the Tower of Babel is that English seems to have penetrated international scholarship and
become effectively the lingua franca in the sciences and social sciences (although it is notable that rich in-
tellectual and scientific discussion continues across languages). How this trend affects concept regulation is
interesting to ponder. It may be, of course, that heretofore heterogeneity in language has led not only to con-
cept proliferation (and redundancy) but also to conceptual innovation. Undoubtedly, scholarship has been well
served by rich concepts developed in other modern languages, especially German, which are often preserved
as intranslatables.4
Sartori was also concerned – at least with respect to mutual intelligibility – with what he saw as a de-contex-
tualized and ahistoric approach to Political Science evident in the ‘behavioral revolution'. He worried that a
concept such as coercion that might be understood in reference to a particular prototypical experience, would
no longer register among scholars operating with a more general approach. Relatedly, Sartori saw the schol-
arly disciplines increasing in their specialization and, as a result, losing a common discourse. He notes that
‘words such as “structure” and “culture” are used in philosophy, ethnology, anthropology, psychology, sociol-
ogy, and Political Science in a way which is chaotic, wasteful, and frequently conducive to cross-disciplinary
bastards’ (Sartori, 1975 [2009]: 62–3). Finally, he observes what he describes as a ‘frenzy of novitism', in
which scholars are encouraged to invent new terms, without any real consultation with established usage. We
should note that Sartori is not decrying any of these trends. Some of them, such as disciplinary specializa-
tion, he sees as distinctly positive developments. The point is that they throw up challenges to intersubjective
agreement on terms, hence the rationale for concept regulation.
Regulating (or legislating or rationalizing) concepts has a pejorative and perhaps futile sense to it, as one
might expect of any efforts at social control. Some may see the effort as stifling the natural creativity and flu-
idity of speech. Virginia Woolf (quoted at length in Gerring, 2001: 36) mounted a full-throated defense of this
position,5 but a sentence here provides a flavor: ‘[words] hate anything that stamps them with one meaning
or confines them to one attitude, for it is their nature to change’ (Gerring, 2001: 36). Suffice it to say that Woolf
was not concerned about cumulative theorizing and would decidedly not have been a card-carrying mem-

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ber of the IPSA's Research Committee-01. But there is something of this appreciation of the indeterminacy
and dynamism of ordinary language that permeates any of the work on concept regulation. Sartori himself
makes clear that their effort was decidedly not about defining terms by fiat. And Calise and Lowi, in one of
the more ambitious and creative efforts at concept rationalization in recent years recognize their ‘need to set
aside any pretense of having the ultimate word(ing), even though such an attitude may run contrary to the
objective of all lexicographers as well as the ambition of most scholars’ (2010: 4). But one can find examples
of seemingly quixotic efforts to regulate political science language. An extreme version might be that of the
aforequoted Charles Titus, who in the late 1920s carried out an imaginative test experience with a synthetic
language, in which he endeavored to replace many important political concepts with symbols. So, for exam-
ple, in his dictionary, the Greek letters alpha, beta, and gamma would stand for assumptions, methods, and
‘control programs', respectively. ‘A’ would indicate a human activity, ‘C’ a written constitution, and so on. Titus
imagined this to be something like chemistry's periodic table, or the basic operating notation in mathematics.
Titus's system may be on the extreme end of concept regulation, and has an heroic, Esperanto-like feel to it.
However, one can easily imagine a very modest adoption of his system by formal theorists, in the interest of
standardized notation.
The conceptualist movement of Sartori was decidedly not heavy handed, but it too was founded on the belief
that one cannot capitulate to poetic license. Sartori, for his part, conceptualizes the debate as one of Heracli-
tus versus Descartes. Is it, he asks, that phenomena are ‘unbounded, continuous, and in endless flux’ (Sar-
tori, 1975 [2009]: 92) or that scholars can only gain any traction and understanding of a phenomenon if they
can put some bounds on how they describe it. Sartori falls unambivalently into the Cartesian camp. Indeed,
he asserts that ‘wherever we have arrived, as mental animals, in controlling the world of nature, we owe it to
the Cartesian approach’ (1975 [2009]: 92).
But the interesting question is what to do? When Gerring (2001: 37–9) muses on the options, he considers (in
my paraphasing): (1) doing nothing; (2) maximizing concreteness; (3) defining terms carefully; and (4) con-
textualizing every reference. The Sartori prescription may be an extended version of (3) and (4). It is a heavily
analytical approach combined with an appreciation for precedent. The first, and core, Sartorian measure is
something of a non-proliferation treaty. That is, an injunction against neologisms (anti-novitism, Sartori calls
it). The second, and highly interdependent, injunction is that scholars consult and describe the semantic field,
especially when introducing a new term. Mapping related terms in the semantic field, it follows, might remind
us to reduce, reuse, and recycle our terms. I think of these measures as something like the sign that hung out-
side the computer room of the Berkeley Political Science department in the 1990s, which read: ‘(1) Absolutely
no food or drinks allowed; (2) If you do bring in food or drink, be careful'. Like a steaming cup of coffee next
to one's keyboard, neologisms are one of the joys of scholarship, and one in which Sartori himself indulged.
But more so than anti-novitism and semantic mapping, Sartori's prescription is toward a more conscious and
analytical approach to concept formation and consumption. His various books demonstrate a clear method-
ology and language for how to talk about concepts, analyze them, and develop them. He thought about his
rules as ‘attention sharpeners’ – methods of inducing more self-conscious conceptualization practices.
Sartori, of course, understood the power of institutions and of coordination. In this sense, he saw the newly
formed IPSA research committee as a powerful way to promote this more conscious approach to concepts.
‘My hope', he writes, ‘is that [IPSA's RC-01] will provide – as a joint endeavor – the missing linkage, or the
missing bridge, between specialists in logic, methodology, and the philosophy of science on the one hand,
and social science practitioners on the other’ (Sartori, 1975 [2009]: 93). And perhaps the commitee has be-
come such a link, to some extent. But certainly, the committee's publications – inter alia, those by Sartori –
were impactful and led a fair number of influential scholars to take conceptualization seriously and incorpo-
rate a conscious approach to concepts as an integral part of their work.

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The Next 50 Years

Many political scientists, then, have become quite self-conscious about their use of concepts. But one task
that scholars have not attempted is that of mapping – in any comprehensive or formal sense – the use of
terms across the discipline (as in biology). Nor have political scientists attempted, understandably, to legislate
or standardize vocabulary. Some interesting formalizations have evolved, notably the aforementioned Calise
and Lowi (2010). But technology for such coordination has evolved, in part as a method for attaching con-
cepts to data, which is a primary incentive for coordination, along with the goal of representing knowledge.
These methods are an integral part of the current information infrastructure online. Here, I introduce and de-
scribe these methods and illustrate their relevance for Political Scientists in the context of constitutional law.
The Domain of Constitutional Text

Consider the study of national constitutions, historically a core concern of political science, and one that has
undergone significant changes in data collection in recent years. Conceptual/classificatory questions are le-
gion in this field. For example: some may see a national executive that is selected by the people to serve for
a fixed term and label the system that enshrines those attributes as ‘presidentialist', while another observer
might look to still other properties, such as veto power or nominating power, and categorize the system quite
differently.
Those who study institutional and constitutional forms engage periodically in these classification exercises.
For example, the authors of the Comparative Constitutions Project (CCP) (Elkins et al., (2005 [2019]), have
identified, excavated, and interpreted each national ‘constitution’ that has come into force since 1789. They, of
course, have their own conceptual preferences, which they have used to develop a survey instrument to read
and interpret constitutions in order to record the content of the documents. These authors’ conceptual scheme
– starting with the identification of what, exactly, a country's Constitution is – represents merely their view of
the world, albeit a view informed by scholars who have come before them. After all, the classification of con-
stitutional elements goes back at least as far as Aristotle, who put together a ‘dataset’ of the constitutions of
Greek city-states (Politics, especially Books IV and VI). My working assumption is that other researchers read
texts differently from the way CCP Scholars. do, and would record different properties about them (more on
this assumption below). Still, projects such as the CCP that gain scholarly currency may inadvertently have
the effect of discouraging the elaboration of alternative schemes. Ideally, CCP interpretations and concepts
should speak to and with the voices of others. So, for example, other scholars should be able to see that CCP
Scholars. recorded Article 38, section 1(1) of the Cape Verdean Constitution of 1982 as expressing, among
other things, the right to privacy. That particular section reads: ‘The right to personal identity, to civil rights, to
a name, honor, and reputation, and to personal and family privacy shall be guaranteed’ (Cape Verde [1980]
Article 38(1)).
In this case, right to privacy is a concept that CCP Scholars. find useful for capturing an element of that clause,
but other researchers might find additional or other, perhaps more refined, concepts just as relevant. Indeed,
the field of human rights has been particularly fertile, with respect to concepts. And so it may be that the Cape
Verdean clause speaks to evolving concepts such as the right to be forgotten (Rosen, 2012), or even the right
to the city (Harvey, 2008). And, of course, the clause is a manifestation of multiple other concepts even in
CCP taxonomy itself.
Relationships Among Conceptual Schemes

In order to understand how different conceptual schemes can ‘converse', we need to understand how the
schemes might vary, exactly. It is only then that we can understand how to translate and share them. It seems
possible that these schemes could vary in any number of ways, but consider three kinds of relationships

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among datasets in the constitutional domain, each of them related to the data on constitutional elements
(such as the CCP) in roughly three orders of proximity (see Table 19.1).
Table 19.1 Selected datasets in the constitutional domain

Distance from Unit of analy-
Topic(s) Data source
CCP* sis
• Gender
• Minority incorpora- • Lambert and Scribner (2009)
tion • Koenig and Tsutsui (2019)
• Rights • Versteeg (n.d.) (2014)
First order Constitution
• Judicial authority • Brinks and Blass (2018)
• Judicial indepen- • Ríos-Figueroa and Staton (2012)
dence • Shugart and Carey (1992)
• Executive power
• Amendability
• Ginsburg and Melton (2015)
• Environment
• Boyd (2011)
• Judicial councils
• Garoupa and Ginsburg (2009)
• Constitutions c.,
• van Maarseveen and van der
1975
Tang (1978)
• Constitutions c.,
• Harutyunyan et al. (1998)
1998
• Various • Carrubba et al. (2012)

Judicial deci- • Free speech • Keck (2015)
Second order
sions • Gender • Women's Link Worldwide (2019)
• Rights • Cichowski and Chrun (2017)
• Development • World Development Indicators

Third order Country
• Political authority • Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem)
• Minority status
• Human rights en- • Minorities at Risk (MAR)
forcement • Cingranelli et al. (2014)
• Ethnic power rela- • Wimmer et al. (2009)
tions
* Comparative Constitutions Project
Source: Own elaboration.

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First-Order Extensions and Refinements

In the first category, consider those projects in which scholars are essentially observing and coding the same
thing, albeit with different purposes, different theoretical frameworks and, importantly, different levels of gen-
erality. Some schemes are simply more refined than others, depending upon observers’ tastes and inter-
ests. This is the phenomenon of the proverbial Eskimos and their 60 kinds of snow. The CCP categorization
scheme, in some areas at least, stops at a relatively high level of generality (maybe something comparable to
the genus level in biology), but other researchers might prefer to make finer distinctions (say, at the species
level). For example, in the CCP the authors identify six characteristics related to the treatment of women in
constitutions. Lambert and Scribner (2009), however, have since coded a smaller set of constitutions across
a much wider (and deeper) set of characteristics, a set that was motivated by their own theoretical agenda.
Specifically, Lambert and Scribner are interested in comparing constitutions that ‘emphasize women's differ-
ent needs and provide gender-based protections (difference) as compared to countries with constitutional
structures that emphasize equality or gender neutrality (equality)’ (Lambert and Scribner, 2009: 337). This
particular distinction between their concepts of difference and equality may not be fully specified in the CCP
data, though one might certainly measure something about equality provisions in the CCP data.
The discussion above implies a sequential, generational relationship in which data collectors build on one
another's labor. It could be, of course, that analysts till the same soil independently (sometimes willfully so)
of one another. We might even think of some projects as competing with one another – carried on in parallel
but with sidelong glances. Stephen Jay Gould's (1992) 2010 account of Brontosaurus comes to mind. Gould's
story is one of two zealous paleontologists with two different visions of the same species. One coined the
name ‘Brontosaurus’ and the other ‘Apatosaurus'. One name, inevitably, would be the one that would become
the industry standard and capture the imagination of 7 year olds everywhere. For many years, Brontosaurus
was the standard, but some time in the 1980s, the powers that be designated Apatosaurus as such. Bron-
tosaurus was to be the ‘junior synonym'. But then in 2015, long after Gould had quit the matter, two biologists
wrote an apparently authoritative article that established two distinct species, thus allowing scientists to use
both names. Who knows what parents are supposed to say to their kids about this now?
Political science, for better or worse, does not have any sort of taxonomical police force or, it seems, even
the same bitter lexical battles as that in biology. But an important part of the re-organization of anything is
dealing with redundancy. We are more interested in translation (maintaining multiple useful names) than in
standardization (retiring names). Both methods are forms of de-cluttering, but one is more neutral than the
other. It would seem that the easiest approach to formalizing multiple perspectives on the world is simply to
record (if not maintain) these multiple perspectives. Of course, one faces a potential dilemma about whether
to preserve infelicitous terms that do not capture the public. Still, one hopes that there are ways to privilege
commonly held terms while recording ‘junior’ synonyms, if only as historical reference points. In short, there
really seems to be no need to make a decision between ‘Brontosaurus’ and ‘Apatosaurus’ in political science,
and many reasons to catalog the use of both.
In the case of the CCP, the researchers were conscious of the prior, if esoteric, efforts of van Maarseveen
and van der Tang (1978) to build an inventory of constitutional concepts and to code them across a set of
constitutions. CCP Scholars. sought to build on the thinking and even integrated some of the Dutch scholars’
concepts in the CCP. However, it was only much later that CCP Scholars. discovered the work of a group of
Armenian scholars (Harutyunyan et al., 1998), who had constructed their own constitutional terminology for
use in a project geared toward constitutional analysis in post-transition Armenia. In either case, it would be
profitable to compare ontologies systematically.

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Second-Order Extensions
Another task of conceptual translation is to connect conceptualizations in one domain (or set of units) to con-
ceptualizations in a related domain (or units). An example helps to clarify. Constitutional text can be inherently
interesting (to some of us at least) and informative (again, sometimes). But text does not interpret itself and,
as some would have it, text could be nothing more than a flexible vehicle that leaders and judges twist to their
own ends. The indeterminacy (or not) and enforcement (or not) of text is a matter of dispute ad nauseam at
nearly every forum on constitutional law, and not worth belaboring here. But regardless of where one comes
down on these questions, a reader of constitutional text will wonder how the relevant courts or officials have
interpreted and implemented the law. Conversely, a reader of a court's decision regarding a particular law
will want to read the accompanying law in question. By way of analogy, the same is true of religious texts
and the doctrine surrounding them. In order to read scripture and its attending doctrine efficiently, one needs
several basic pieces of information. One is, of course, a systematic recording of what the texts say (or, failing
such digests, simply the texts themselves). Another is the decoding of the decisions (and opinions) regard-
ing that text. But importantly – and the point of this chapter – one also needs a relatable set of concepts in
order to connect these pieces of data. Relatability implies either a common (perhaps standard) lexicon, or
translation tools that allow one to connect different conceptual vocabularies. Several empirical projects are
in progress that offer some promise in this regard (see the second-order group in Table 19.1). These are in-
teresting studies of court opinions across different domains and samples. A basic goal might be to connect
first-order projects with second-order projects. That is, text on the right to free speech in the South African
constitution would be connected to that country's high-court interpretation of that provision in cases.
Third-Order Extensions
A third extension, even further from the constitutional text, is one to data about the jurisdiction itself (e.g., the
country, which is the jurisdictional level of observation in the CCP data). So, one might want to connect con-
stitutional data in a given year and country to country-year data on human rights enforcement, economic con-
ditions, demographic characteristics, or whatever (how about happiness?). This kind of merging is, of course,
common in any data-analytic paper on the origins or consequences of constitutions. Many of us compile such
data as a matter of course in cross-national research. But sometimes it is helpful to have some systematic
conceptual translation, especially if the data merge is machine mediated. Increasingly, one wants to gather
data and information on a concept in a jurisdiction from across various unprocessed data sources, such as
media reports. In order to do that efficiently, one would need a relatable set of concepts. Merging data with a
concept map is certainly more efficient, but perhaps the real gain is in discovering the data in the first place
by tracing concepts.
Consider, for example, the concepts that underlie Ted Gurr's (and collaborators') Minority at Risk (MAR) data,
which include characteristics of groups that have experienced marginalization in their state of residency (Gurr,
1995). How do MAR concepts such as ‘political discrimination’ relate to some of the elements of ethnic ac-
commodation in constitutions? It might be that we should think of a constitutional provision, such as ‘con-
straints on party formation', as one application (or example) of ‘political discrimination'. If so, the presumed
relationship between those two concepts is worth recording.
Concept Formation and Enrichment

The basic insight from this discussion thus far is that we live in a world in which multiple scholars analyze
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roughly similar phenomena with roughly similar concepts. Any connections between these scholars’ works
can be inferred, but the connections are rarely made explicit. This state of affairs is nothing new, though with
the ever increasing mountain of information, it may be increasingly frustrating. However, it is useful to imagine
a very different world, if only as a thought experiment. This would be a world in which researchers could see,
understand, and connect to another researcher's conceptual schema (or ontology). Understanding how one's
concepts fit with another's concepts is tremendously valuable and enlightening in and of itself, as I will try to
elucidate. However, building bridges among concepts has other, perhaps even more powerful, downstream
effects. If I can connect my concept to another, I can then connect my observations about that concept's man-
ifestations (that is, my data) to those of another researcher. Mapping concepts allows us to combine data
creatively, which is critical for the analysis of measurement and hypothesis testing.
Imagine, following Sartori's guidelines of concept analysis, one wished to formalize understandings of a con-
cept. That is, for example, to map the semantic field, identify defining and elective properties, and point to any
important dimensions or classes of the concept. Enumerating these three tasks is one thing, but how exact-
ly are two researchers to construct such knowledge in a way that will map on to that of other researchers?
And, more to the point, why would they do so? Of course, one could formalize one's concepts tabularly, the
raw and basic form of such information. Imagine rows of concepts crossed with columns of information listing
sub-concepts, properties, synonyms, antonyms, etc. The result is a table of information about concepts that
any data scientist can make sense of. Of course, no one wants to stare at a data table of this sort. But analyt-
ic and visualization software applications can render such information in interesting ways. Indeed, the many
ways that creative users and their applications will use the data are – like data of any kind – limitless and ever
evolving. And, of course, one would like to combine that table with other tables, linked by any of the items in
the data.
One Promising Solution: Linked Open Data

One such mapping solution is ‘linked open data', sometimes summarized as the ‘Semantic Web', and more
generally, ‘Web 3.0'. It is a data structure that is increasingly common on the web, and it is the structure that
makes possible the data panels and carousels that search engines now regularly surface above search re-
sults. Social science data are increasingly available in this format. As it happens, one of the first data projects
to employ this structure in the social sciences was the CCP, and its indexed constitutional repository (Consti-
tute). Both projects incorporate a systematized ontology along with their data (CCP Scholars 2014).
Linked Open Data in Action

The progress of the CCP, again, illustrates some of the benefits and challenges of this structure. The core
intellectual product of the CCP is a set of data on some 600 or so characteristics of the world's constitutions
(and revisions to those constitution) since 1789. In 2013, CCP Scholars partnered with Google Ideas (now
Jigsaw) to leverage these data in order to build a public repository of constitutional texts currently in force. Im-
portantly, the texts would be indexed by some 300 topics and made available through an accessible interface.
The goal was to allow constitutional drafters to call up a set of representative excerpts on any provision of
interest. Since 2013, the site has received some 5,000 visitors a day and serves constitutional drafting teams
throughout the world.
So, think of CCP as a standard tabular dataset on the content of constitutions. Across over 900 constitutional
systems, CCP Scholars have coded 600 or so characteristics. People often confuse Constitute and CCP.
Constitute exhibits the repository of texts (currently, only those in force), which are indexed by 300 or so top-

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ics. CCP is a dataset of codings about these texts and more (in fact, all constitutions and their amendments
since 1789). If one wanted a quantitative sense of which country has what and when, one would consult CCP
data. If one wanted to see the text associated with some topic, one would consult Constitute.
The data files for CCP consist of a recognizable format used in the social sciences since the days of punch
cards – a matrix of rows representing constitutional documents against columns of constitutional attributes.
The data for Constitute, however, take a very different form built for the online environment – one that could
be easily accessed by human beings and machines. Much more on that format shortly. But first, consider
some early dividends of this data strategy.
From Linked Open Data to One-Boxes and Knowledge Panels

As of noon (PDT) on September 17, 2015 (Constitution Day), a Google search on ‘us constitution’ returns the
4,500-word US Constitution on a card at the top of the search results (and a 3×5-inch card at that, at least
on most screens). A drop-down menu on the card (a ‘one-box', in Google-speak) allows the reader to jump
through sections. The text and data on these cards comes directly from online Constitute data.
Figure 19.1 Results from a Google search: ‘us constitution'
The US Constitution on an index card is, quite literally, a small thing, but something that represents a huge
advance for information science, and the social scientists who depend on such.

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The data for these one-boxes, knowledge panels, and other infographics are stored in Google's ‘knowledge
graph', a curated set of highly connected and machine-readable data (‘linked data'). Google began delivering
results from the knowledge graph in 2012, but the concept of linked data had been simmering at least since
Tim Berners-Lee, known to many as the ‘inventor’ of the World Wide Web, had begun championing the con-
cept as early as 2009 as the heart of his Web 3.0. Berners-Lee runs an organization devoted to building and
standardizing the relevant technology. Linked data is also identified sometimes as ‘graph data’ (highlighting
its interconnectedness) and is a core part of what technologists describe as the ‘Semantic Web'.
Linked data are simple to understand and their utility is immediately obvious. One key feature is that each data
element, whether a concept or a concrete ‘thing’ (e.g., the US Constitution) has its own unique location on
the web (http://something…). These locations (Uniform Resource Location (URL)) are not websites (Uniform
Resource Identifier (URI)) that human beings read, but places where data reside for machines. Each of these
entities is linked to other entities through some relationship, a relationship which itself is labeled with a unique
URI. So, a typical linked data file comprises seemingly endless lines of subject-predicate-object ‘triples', each
of whose elements is a distinct URI. For example,
• http://constitute/constitution/sudan2005/article2\
• http://constitute/hastopic\
• http://constitute/torture\
is one of many triples in the Constitute dataset. Linked data files have the suffix ‘.nt’ (as in, ‘N triples'). This
particular triple tells us that Article 2 of the Sudanese Constitution deals with the topic of torture. It should
be clear that the Constitute dataset alone would have other links to each of these entities (that is, ‘Article 2',
‘Sudanese Constitution', and ‘torture').
As you can imagine, data files of this sort are utterly forbidding to browse directly. Editing and visualization
tools allow analysts to work and understand various relationships in these files. But regardless, the verbose
code is extraordinarily intelligible to machines, which matters to us too. The beauty of linked data is that these
‘things’ (concepts, properties, data elements, etc.) can be linked to an infinite number of other things and con-
cepts (hence the graph analogy, which refers to a network graph). And every ‘thing’ lives at a unique address
on the World Wide Web. The consequence is that machines and their human analysts can draw connections
easily and, as network ties grow, exponentially.
Consider, again, the Constitution-on-index-card idea, which represents a very simple use of linked data. To
produce these cards, Google's ‘knowledge graph’ queries data on the world's constitutions that our website
Constitute makes available as linked data on a SPARQL endpoint (a data hub that machines can consume).
Google can then program its search engine to reproduce the textual data as an info-box with the text indexed
by the section headers, which are also identified in the Constitute data. It is a simple application, but one
could exploit the knowledge graph for more. Imagine a box that lists provisions on ‘cruelty’ in Constitutions
from countries about which human rights organizations have made allegations of torture. Linked data on all
of those elements exist; one needs only to put together a few lines of query-code to get the list.
Ontology Enrichment
But perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the Semantic Web is its utility for concept formation and
enrichment. In particular, Semantic Web methods have the distinct advantage of being able to share and col-
laborate on conceptual ‘schema', or more exactly, ‘ontologies'. With tools developed for the Semantic Web,
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one can edit a dataset's ontology to update or expand any of this conceptual structure.
So, for example, consider the 300 or so topics that are in the Constitute Ontology. These topics reflect some
basic categories in the CCP dataset. CCP Scholars developed a three-level hierarchy to organize the con-
cepts – see Figure 19.2, a snapshot that shows the arrangement of just a few of these concepts on www.con-
stituteproject.org. In this example, the first-level topic, ‘Culture and identity', is expanded to depict several
sub-topics under which ‘Indigenous Groups’ is expanded to see a set of constitutional provisions including
‘Indigenous right not to pay taxes'.
Figure 19.2 A snapshot of Constitute's topic tree
But, to return to conceptual coordination, this categorization is only one view of constitutional elements and by
no means suitable or useful for all users. For example, none of the topics has ‘women’ in its label. There are
certainly topics that are related to women in our taxonomy; for example, inheritance laws, marriage equality.
These are important concepts closely related to the status of women. Another researcher might have includ-
ed them under the category, ‘women’ or ‘gender'. So, how would one integrate this new category?
In the case of Constitute, CCP Scholars introduced the keyword ‘women’ and linked each relevant topic to
that concept. So now if one types ‘women’ in the search bar, Constitute auto-suggests each of the topics re-
lated to that concept (see Figure 19.3). Adding keywords essentially allows Constitute to integrate different
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conceptualizations and, as such, enrich the underlying ontology. What this means practically is that one can
access constitutional texts and data associated with concepts other than those stipulated by the CCP.
Figure 19.3 Entering ‘women’ in Constitute's search box triggers topics
Tools for Editing and Viewing Ontologies

Enriching an ontology means, essentially, adding another data triple (subject-predicate-object). For example,
[Women] – [is a keyword associated with] – [gender quotas]
These relationships are encoded in a standardized ontology language (actually, Ontology Web Language,
or OWL) that is not fit for human editing or viewing (imagine lines and lines of code similar to the .nt files
described above). Fortunately, rudimentary but powerful tools have evolved to allow for editing and viewing
ontologies. The design of these tools is, of course, not a trivial matter. Working with a classification system
could, in theory, be a delightful exercise. It could also be an organization chore made even more painful by
a clunky experience. Much of the success of the Semantic Web, I am afraid, depends upon these design is-
sues.

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Conclusion and Discussion

The practitioner of any profession or pastime faces an existential crisis at some point. After all, there are many
good ways to spend one's time. Accordingly, one wonders about the role of the conceptualist in the discipline
and, relatedly, the value of conceptual work. Especially the kind of conscious conceptual work that is not in
direct service to a substantive research question. Undoubtedly, Linnaeus, Webster, and the authors of the
DSM have had an enormous influence on the rest of us, at least in terms of what we call things, if not in terms
of how we think about them. But one sometimes worries that what they (or we) are doing is ‘just’ semantic.
One recalls Popper's warning: ‘Never let yourself be goaded into taking seriously problems about words and
their meanings’ (1976: 19). And indeed, why talk so much about naming things, and not more about the things
themselves, after all. Sartori himself (1975) was sensitive to the impatience that some might have with the
methodologist who is ‘endlessly entangled in preliminaries and never gets to work'. Something like C. Wright
Mills’ ‘over-conscious’ scholar.
Thus, one wonders whether to recommend to young scholars that they pick up, say, Sartori's (1984) Social
Science Concepts. Philippe Schmitter (2009) has wondered the same. In his wonderfully titled address ‘The
Confessions of a Repeat Offending and Unrepentant Conceptualist', he presents some well-meaning job ad-
vice:
For those of you who are just starting in the profession, your career prospects are not great should
you choose this line of work. No department or faculty that I know of has a designated slot for a
‘conceptualist'. (Schmitter, 2009)
But yet, it often seems that those who have fretted about language and have invented a category and a term
that captures some phenomenon, some group, or some cluster of attributes so vividly, have been exactly
those who made a name or a term stick, have made an outsized contribution.
Schmitter is in good company. Indeed, for some, a self-conscious approach to names and meaning is at the
very heart of science and knowledge. Recall our introductory premise that thought and words are interdepen-
dent. Or choose your favorite aphorism, whether it is the psychologists’ quip, ‘how do I know what I think if I
haven't said it yet?’ or the classic Latin formulation: nomina si nescis, perit et cognito rerum (if one does not
have the names, there is no knowledge of things) (Sartori, 1975 [2009]: 68). The overriding sense of those
who have taken the time to organize and represent knowledge through conscious conceptual work is that
the exercise is enlightening. Perhaps Weber said it best: ‘The history of the social sciences is and remains a
continuous process passing from the attempt to order reality analytically through the construction of concepts’
(1905 [1949]: 105).
If so, what is the next step for the next Sartori? The basic question remains, always: how do we formalize our
conceptual map of the world and, then, compare this map with that of others? Roughly, two generations of po-
litical scientists have honed the craft of concept analysis. What remains for future generations is to formalize
these understandings in ways that allow for clearer knowledge representation and inter-scholar coordination.
Much of this work will need to go on within particular domains. Within constitutional law, I describe a promising
solution that information scientists have developed in recent years. The solution provides a standardized in-
frastructure for mapping concepts. One significant advantage of this approach is that it has become the in-
dustry standard for online data environments. It therefore facilitates the consumption and exportation of data
to and from an extraordinary wide set of sources. Indeed, the solution has already paid dividends. Google and
other search engines are already interacting productively with the social scientists who have disseminated in
this form.
But I see other clear dividends as well. One is the systematic description of the conceptual map of any given
concept. That is, knowledge representation. In any given inquiry, researchers are at various points interested
in understanding the semantic relationships among concepts, particularly in the presentation and develop-
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ment of theory. Another perhaps more immediately appreciated dividend, has to do with the retrieval of data.
Connecting concepts allows one to find and surface data from associated concepts. This step is critical in any
sort of empirical testing and can be important in crafting original empirical designs that merge data from differ-
ent sources and domains. And it is this connection to concrete phenomena – i.e., data – which so entrances
most of us about concepts. After all, their beauty lies in their ability to represent the world.
Notes
1 Originally named the Committee on Conceptual and Terminological Analysis (COCTA), the committee – still
as Research Committee-01 – was rechristened the Committee on Concepts and Methods (C&M).
2 By the way, anyone teaching concept analysis will want to peruse Gary Goertz's list of classroom concept
exercises, available from Goertz upon request (see Goertz, 2006).
3 It is a convention to letter concepts in small caps to distinguish them from perceived entities.
4 One of the initiatives of the Committee on Concepts and Methods is an online dictionary, of sorts, of ‘in-
translatables'.
5 BBC radio broadcast made on April 29, 1937 entitled ‘Craftsmanship’ (part of a series called ‘Words Fail
Me') and later published in The Death of the Moth and Other Essays (1942).
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• political concepts
• regulations
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n22

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Configurative Methods
Contributors: Claudius Wagemann

Chapter Title: "Configurative Methods"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Configurative Methods
Claudius Wagemann
1. Introduction
At first, it is necessary to get a closer understanding of what ‘configurative methods’ are, since the term is not
very frequently used in social science methodology. We can most easily refer to Rihoux and Ragin (2009a)
which has a very similar title (Configurational Comparative Methods). When looking at the single contribu-
tions to that volume, it becomes clear that most of the chapters1 deal with a specific method, which has also
become known as Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and is mainly connected to Ragin's widely read
contributions (Ragin, 1987, 2000, 2008; see also Schneider and Wagemann, 2012). While Rihoux and Ragin
(2009b: xix) even explicitly refer to QCA in all its variants2 when speaking about Configurative Methods, oth-
ers apply a broader perspective and see them equivalent to Boolean-based approaches in general (Thiem et
al., 2016: 765). They include ‘all case-study methods that are based on Boolean-algebraic principles’ (Thiem
et al., 2016: 767, endnote 3) such as – again – QCA, but also Coincidence Analysis, Event-Structure Analy-
sis, etc.
This chapter follows Rihoux and Ragin (2009b: xviii) and understands Configurative Methods as methods of
‘systematic cross-case comparisons, while at the same time giving justice to within-case complexity, partic-
ularly in small- and intermediate-N research designs’ (2009b: xviii). This definition is part of how QCA can
be seen (see Schneider and Wagemann, 2012: 8ff.), but can also be extended to other methods, as will be-
come clear later in this chapter. Admittedly, all QCA applications recently also increasingly include examples
of large-N studies (see the bibliographic overviews in Buche and Siewert, 2015; Rihoux et al., 2013; Wage-
mann et al., 2016), which has led to a discussion about this further diversification of QCA approaches (Fiss
et al., 2013; Greckhamer et al., 2013). However, this amplification of the perspective is still connected to the
basic principles of configurative analysis that had been developed in the early years of QCA methods so that,
nowadays, a definition makes less explicit reference to the N of a study (although the diffusion of large-N
studies may have some impact on the case-orientation of Configurative Methods, as Wagemann et al. (2016)
empirically demonstrate). Thus, for our purposes, the term Configurative Methods mainly refers to systematic
cross-case comparisons with a strong case-orientation and a recognition of case complexity.
In this sense, more general principles and logics of Configurative Methods are presented in section 2, before
QCA as the most prominent variant is introduced with more detail in section 3. However, since QCA covers
only a part of the universe of configurative methods, an attempt will be made in section 4 to see in which other
methods configurative elements can be identified. Finally, in the conclusion (section 5), a brief reflection on
current challenges for configurative methods and their position within the world of social science methods will
be presented.
2. Principles and General Logic of Configurative Methods
2.1 Components of Configurative Methods3

As the term ‘configurative methods’ indicates, we first have to clarify what ‘configurations’ are. This is also
called for since a methodology should necessarily conform to the ontology of one's thinking (Hall, 2003). Or,
in other words, if a researcher sees the social world full of configurations or – and this would be more epis-
temologically inspired – thinks that the social world is best analysed in terms of configurations, then (s)he
should also choose those methods which take the issue of configurations seriously.

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At the heart of a configuration lies the idea that cases are made up and can be portrayed in terms of their
properties. These properties are usually highly standardized notions of concepts, in the sense of Sartori's
view on concepts as data containers. Ragin (2000: 64) himself proposes to ‘[study] cases as configurations’
as one of the main characteristics of QCA. Elsewhere he goes beyond this purely descriptive use of configu-
rations and adds a causal component: ‘[understanding] causally relevant conditions as intersections of forces
and events’ (Ragin, 2008: 109). In other words, real-world existing cases are split into their entities. Such en-
tities can be defined through the components of typologies. When Lijphart (1999) organizes political systems
along ten criteria, then every single (country) case can be grouped with regard to every one of these criteria.
A country is then no longer called ‘Great Britain', but is described as a parliamentarian (usually) single-party
government without a written constitution and without a strong central bank, whose electoral system is ma-
joritarian. Yet another country, ‘Germany', is also no longer called by its proper name, but is described using
the same elements (which take an equal value as Great Britain for the category of a parliamentarian system,
but different values for the other elements just mentioned). Such a proceeding corresponds very closely to
the original Ancient Greek meaning of ‘analysis', namely to divide a whole into its constituting parts.
The attempt of describing Great Britain and Germany with the help of Lijphart's (1999) criteria shows some-
thing else: it sometimes may not be so easy to attribute a country (or, more generally, a case) to a category or
not. In the British case, the components of federalism and, increasingly, a two-party versus multi-party system
are not easy to decide. In the German case, the electoral system is mainly proportional, but with strong ma-
joritarian elements. Thus, we have to differentiate between an ‘ideal type’ and a real case. Lazarsfeld (1937)
has solved this very nicely by presenting a ‘property space’ where the cases could be located with regard to
all their defining properties. If it could not be decided whether a case should be described with a given prop-
erty or not, then it was placed somewhere close to that property, but not exactly with that property. In other
words, cases were set into relation to various ideal types. Fuzzy sets (as we will later see, section 3) take up
this idea of only partial belongingness of cases to ideal types.
Thus, although a view on cases as configurations of properties and therefore as a combination of single el-
ements risks to contradict the plea of holism which Ragin has made elsewhere (Ragin, 1987: 52, 85, 160,
166), we are still asked ‘to think holistically and to understand causally relevant conditions as intersections of
forces and events’ (Ragin, 2008: 109). In the end, this means that we should be able ‘to investigate cases
both as wholes and as parts'.
However, configurative methods do not stop there. The goal is not (only) to arrive at typologies, although
explanatory typologies or typological theories (Bennett and Elman, 2006; Elman 2005) and ‘fuzzy-set Ideal
Type Analysis’ (fsITA) (Kvist, 2007) are based on the same principles. Rather, the focus is on causal analysis.
Rihoux and Ragin (2009b: xix; italics in the original) indeed define a configuration as the ‘specific configura-
tion of factors ([…] we call these conditions in CCM terminology) that produces a given outcome of interest’
(2009b: xix; italics in the original). Following this, thinking about configurations always implies a reflection
about what is implied (or ‘caused') by these configurations. The central idea is that some configurations or pat-
terns are linked to a given outcome, while other configurations of the same elements are not. The important
aspect is that this is postulated about configurations, and not about individual factors. Neither can individual
factors alone be considered as ‘causes’ nor is their aggregation automatically of any help. If factor A cannot
explain an outcome, and factor B cannot either, it can still be possible that a combination of A and B (written
as A*B or AB in Boolean algebra notation) can instead. One factor may need the presence of another factor in
order to lead to a result. Neither the victory of the opposition party in an election nor the fact that electoral re-
sults are respected by the ruling party can alone overthrow a ruling government. Only if both elements occur,
a ruling government must cease office (needless to say, other components also have to be added). Config-
urative thinking in this sense seems to correspond especially well to the social sciences. Social phenomena
are usually complex, and nobody would assume that one factor alone will imply stable peace agreements or
a solution for global climate change. Neither does a thinking correspond to our worldviews (and this is where
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the discussion on ontology comes in again), that factors work in an additive way, that is, that each one adds
a bit more to the explanation of the observed variance. If we have an ontology, which sees the social world
as complex, causal processes influenced by the coincidence of several factors, and causal outcomes as the
result of highly complex intersections of causes, then we already think in configurations and need a method
which takes this perspective into account.
However, this alone does not yet represent the full range of what can be understood as a configuration. Two
more characteristics are usually added for what is called ‘causal complexity'4 (Ragin, 2000: 88; Schneider
and Wagemann, 2012: 78). One of them – equifinality – enlarges the notion of a configuration from a purely
conjunctural view, which exists if the term of a configuration is just used to describe the coincidence and the
simultaneous presence or absence of more than one factor in order to arrive at a causal formula. Equifinality
refers to those explanations where other different configurations of the same or other factors are accepted as
equally valid explanations. This takes into account the fact, for example, that combinations of success strate-
gies for centre-left political parties may not explain the success of centre-right parties. Once all different com-
binations of strategy factors are identified, all of them can count as explanations, although for different cases
or case types.5 This seems to correspond very well with many researchers’ ontology. There is no reason why
not more than one explanation could be found to account for phenomena to be explained.
Configurative methods very often show a third characteristic, in addition to conjunctions and equifinality,
namely asymmetry. However, there is no reason why asymmetry should be connected to the idea of configu-
rations. The idea that the explanation of a positive outcome should not be used to explain a negative outcome
(a central claim for asymmetry, Schneider and Wagemann, 2012: 81) is not part of the configurative logic.
Instead, asymmetry is related to characteristics of set relations (see below).
So, in brief, conjunctions, equifinality and asymmetry are important aspects of configurative methods. Before
turning to QCA, we first look at the relations between configurative and other methods.
2.2 Configurative Methods and Their Relations to Other Methods
Given the broad use of configurative methods,6 it is no wonder that they have become an established part
of the methodological world. This also means, however, that we have to consider which position they occupy
with regard to other methodological approaches and paradigms.
Much of what has been said before (section 2.1) runs counter to mainstream quantitative methods. Although
interaction effects in quantitative methods seem to be similar to conjunctures, configurations can be more
easily assessed than complicated models with interaction terms (Bennett and Elman, 2006: 466). Similarly,
cluster analysis seems to share some ideas with configurative methods. Nevertheless, configurative methods
are substantially different from quantitative methods, mostly because of the elements described above (for
such a reasoning see Ragin, 2006; Thiem et al., 2016). While past discussions resulted in comparisons of one
approach with the other, often attributing superiority to one of them (Seawright, 2005), a pluralist approach to
methods has developed more recently, not least because of the attempt to convert the discussion into ‘tales’
and paradigms into ‘cultures’ (Goertz and Mahoney, 2012). In the same way, the mixed methods debate has
shown that methods should be chosen because of their appropriateness for specific research questions and
their ontological and epistemological premises.
Configurative methods are usually grouped within the ‘qualitative’ realm of methods.7 In case of QCA, this is
even more evident, since the Q stands for ‘qualitative'. While earlier accounts saw QCA in a middle position

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between qualitative and quantitative methods (Ragin, 1987), more recent contributions firmly underline that
it is more correct to classify QCA with the qualitative research tradition, as it becomes manifest in set theory
(Goertz and Mahoney, 2012)8 which is strongly connected to the idea of configurative reasoning (see section
3). The fact that the ‘qualitativeness’ of the procedure is embedded in set theory is important, since there are
various understandings of what ‘qualitative methods’ actually are. Indeed, ‘the qualitative paradigm includes
many divisions’ (Goertz and Mahoney, 2012: 4; for doubts about the dichotomy of qualitative and quantita-
tive methods, see also Kühn and Rohlfing, 2016). Koivu and Kimball Damman's (2015) presentation of four
central variants clearly attributes a special role to what they call ‘empirical interpretivism’ (2624), not least
because of this stream being based on different epistemological underpinnings (2619, 2624). They even re-
port that ‘the interpretivist epistemology is sometimes dismissed as not belonging within the field of qualitative
methods’ (2624).9 While this is certainly not the place to shed further light on differences in the understand-
ing of what qualitative methods are, it should be noted that many scholars who claim to work with qualitative
methods do not include configurative methods when using the adjective ‘qualitative'. Indeed, there seems to
be a very strong mutual ignorance of these variants of qualitative methods.10
Yet, another variant of qualitative methods seems to be closer to configurative methods. Comparative ‘case
study research’ (Gerring, 2007) has made important contributions to knowledge accumulation in the social
sciences (Blatter and Haverland, 2012: 2ff.), but cannot be qualified as purely quantitative- or qualitative-inter-
pretive. Indeed, as Mahoney and Sweet Vanderpoel (2015) show (see below), configurative thinking can also
be found in case study research, although this does not always happen explicitly (section 4). Therefore, it is
not surprising that topics in case study research methodology and more formalized configurative approaches
have recently been linked in the literature (Rohlfing and Schneider, 2018; Schneider and Rohlfing, 2013). The
focus of these contributions initially has been on case selection, but this discussion shows the deep connec-
tions between conventional comparative case studies and configurative methods (Morlino, 2018: 93ff.) who
places the discussion of configurative methods within the broader spectrum of comparative case study meth-
ods.
Therefore, configurative methods are close to other comparative case study methods. They are sometimes
formalized in a similar way to quantitative methods, without wanting to replace them, and they do not share
the epistemological assumptions of interpretive methods (see Carver, Chapter 24, this Handbook). Thus, they
are methods in their own right.
3. QCA and Fuzzy Sets

It has already been mentioned that QCA is the ‘elephant in the room', in the sense that this method can be
seen as an elaborate, highly systematized and broadly used variant of configurative methods. Therefore, a
whole section is devoted to QCA, without, however, overlooking that there are other uses of configurations
(see section 4). In older publications, ‘Fuzzy-Set Analysis’ is sometimes portrayed as a method of its own
(e.g., Bennett and Elman, 2006: 468ff.), but, in the meantime, this is presented as a specific variant of QCA
(fsQCA; Schneider and Wagemann, 2012). QCA originally goes back to Ragin's (1987, 2000, 2008) influential
writings.
3.1 Sets and Set Calibration

QCA works with sets and is usually presented as a set-theoretic method. Originally, Ragin framed his ap-
proach in terms of Boolean algebra (Ragin, 1987; see also Caramani, 2009), but this was relegated in later

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works, and the set-theoretic underpinnings of QCA became more accentuated (Ragin, 2000, 2008; Rihoux
and Ragin, 2009a; Schneider and Wagemann, 2012). This step was crucial, because it strengthened the link-
ages between QCA and the case-oriented research tradition (see section 4).
Briefly said, in set-theoretic methods, the explanatory factors (‘conditions') and the outcome to be explained
are conceptualized in terms of sets. Different from a measurement approach, in which countries would be
attributed a value on how democratic they are, sets indicate the belongingness of a case to the set, such
as, for example, the belongingness of a country to the set of all democracies. The process of assessing this
belongingness is called ‘set calibration’ (for more on differences between measurement and calibration, see
Ragin, 2013: 172) and leads to membership values of cases in sets. Often social science phenomena are
characterized by dichotomies (presence or absence of a democracy, a war, a policy success, etc.), but these
dichotomies can be empirically observable at different intensities. Two democracies can vary with regard to
the degree how much they belong to the set of democracies, that is, one country can be more democratic
than another. The same holds for concepts such as war, policy successes, etc. In other words: when thinking
about set memberships, the social sciences require an idea that allows us to capture both differences in kind
(the dichotomy) and in degree (the grading). Fuzzy sets offer such a strategy. While being dichotomous in
nature, they allow for different degrees of belongingness to sets. Fuzzy values between 0 and 1 indicate this
degree numerically. A case with a fuzzy value of 0.8 in a given concept clearly belongs to the set described
by that concept, but not perfectly. By contrast, a case with a fuzzy value of 0.4 does not belong to the set
described by the concept (it is a difference in kind), but comes close to the threshold of 0.5 which would move
it into the set.
There are various strategies how to calibrate, which cannot be described in detail here (but see Ragin, 2008:
85ff.; Schneider and Wagemann, 2012: 32ff.). However, all have in common a double requirement: first, con-
siderable work has to be done in order to arrive at a concept definition that allows for the assignment of finely
grained fuzzy values to empirical cases. It is not possible to define membership values in the set of democ-
racies, if there is no clear and explicitly spelled-out concept of what a democracy is. Therefore, conceptual
work lies at the heart of calibration. Since this is a typical step in qualitative reasoning (just think about the
etymological origin of the word ‘qualitative', the Latin qualis, which refers to the fundamental characteristics
defining an object), calibration and the importance of concept formation contribute to placing QCA in the world
of qualitative methods. Second, case knowledge is of the highest importance. Even if researchers arrive at
highly elaborate versions of concepts, if they do not know the cases at hand, they may attribute wrong fuzzy
values to these cases. This also limits the validity of large-N QCAs, since calibration will usually not occur
case-by-case, but cases will have to be assessed on the basis of more general characteristics.
Note that calibration in QCA has to be explicitly performed, while many other comparative case studies per-
form this step implicitly. Case studies which do not use QCA will usually not include a chapter on ‘calibration',
but they meticulously define the concepts which are needed for the argument, and they are also be charac-
terized by deep case knowledge. Using numbers, QCA just goes a step further. The numerical representation
of set memberships makes decisions more transparent and forces the researchers to stick to their concept
and their case classification throughout the research process.
Next to fuzzy-set QCA (fsQCA), further variants of QCA exist (see Schneider and Wagemann, 2012: 13ff.,
253ff.). Crisp-set QCA (csQCA) does not allow for the differentiation of set memberships and only works with
dichotomies. Since this means that only the fuzzy values 0 and 1 are permitted in calibration, this is nothing
else than a specific variant of fsQCA (Schneider and Wagemann, 2012: 15) for which some procedures are
smoother, but not different from fsQCA. Therefore, it is also not a problem to mix crisp sets and fuzzy sets in
an analysis, although, from a research design perspective, this means that some concepts are more differen-
tiated than others (for a discussion on whether this is positive or negative for the analysis see Schneider and
Wagemann, 2012: 24ff.).
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Multi-value QCA (mvQCA, Cronqvist and Berg-Schlosser, 2009) allows for concepts that are not dichoto-
mous, but ordinal (low, medium, high, etc.) or nominal such as citizenship or religion. While acknowledging
the elaboration of the algorithm and the usefulness of mvQCA, some authors doubt the set-theoretic nature of
these concepts (Schneider and Wagemann, 2012: 258ff.; Vink and Van Vliet, 2009), which is solved through
seeing multi-value concepts as ‘multiple crisp sets’ (Schneider and Wagemann, 2012: 259). As has been
shown, such a multiple crisp-set analysis has the same limits and prospects as mvQCA (Schneider and
Wagemann, 2012: 262, fn. 12), so that this variant is not different from QCA as such.
A similar conclusion has been drawn for time-QCA (tQCA, see Caren and Panofsky, 2005), which uses the
temporal order in which conditions occur for introducing a dynamic element to QCA. However, Ragin and
Strand (2008) subsequently showed that when calibrating time itself as sets, conventional QCA arrived at the
very same results as tQCA.
Sets are the constituting units of what has been described as ‘configuration’ (see section 2.1). A conjunctural
and equifinal configuration is composed of various sets, be they crisp or fuzzy. A conjunction, AB, for example,
is the simultaneous occurrence of the sets A and B. For example, a federalist democracy is present when
a country has a membership in both the set of federations and democracies. In other words, configurations
can be seen as chains or compositions of sets. If this involves the use of fuzzy sets, then the configuration
describes the ‘ideal type’ in the sense of Lazarsfeld's (1937) property space (see section 2.1). In any case, in
configurative methods, cases become set configurations.
3.2 Necessary Conditions

As mentioned above, configurative methods are usually not only descriptive or typologically oriented, but aim
at causal explanation (Rihoux and Ragin, 2009b: xix; Schneider and Wagemann, 2012: 8). In QCA as a set-
theoretic method, this is modelled through set relations. For this, the relation between the set describing the
outcome and the set(s) describing the condition(s) is assessed. For example, the so-called Copenhagen cri-
teria establish whether a country can become a member of the EU or not. In this respect, two sets can be
defined, namely a set C (‘criteria') of all countries fulfilling the Copenhagen criteria and a set M (‘member') of
all EU member countries. Ideally, a situation results in which all countries that are in M are also in C. Howev-
er, not all countries in C are also in M, since countries (outside of Europe) might also fulfil the Copenhagen
criteria, but are not members of the EU. In other words, M is a subset of C, and C a superset of M. If our
model now foresees that the fulfilment of the Copenhagen criteria is an explanatory factor for EU member-
ship,11 then the outcome (M) is a subset of the condition (C). Such a scenario refers to C being a necessary
condition for M. Set-theoretically speaking, if the outcome is a subset of the condition, then the condition can
be defined as necessary for the outcome.12 From a logical perspective, it can be argued that for a necessary
condition there can be no case (i.e., country) which shows the outcome, but not the condition. If such a case
instead had existed (i.e., an EU member country which does not fulfil the Copenhagen criteria), then C cannot
be considered to be always necessary for M. For such a situation, parameters can be defined in QCA which
assess how tolerable such a deviance can be for the necessity assessment (see Schneider and Wagemann,
2012: 139ff. on the consistency measure for necessary conditions).
In other words, set theory and the assessment of necessary conditions are closely linked, since set theory
provides the set relations through which necessary conditions can be defined. Again, the question arises
about which role configurative thinking plays in all of this. Indeed, there are two moments when configurations
play an important role.
First, taking up the example above, the fulfilment of the Copenhagen criteria is certainly not the only neces-
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sary condition for being a member of the EU. Switzerland or Norway would easily fulfil them, but their popu-
lations and the governing elites have decided not to join the EU. In an analysis of necessity, the researcher
will try to come up with many potential necessary conditions, ideally with all of them. However, completely
saturated explanatory models which do not omit any potentially relevant explanatory factor are rare, if existing
at all (for a discussion on the illusion of ever solving the omitted ‘variables’ problem in QCA, see Radaelli and
Wagemann, 2018). However, if, in an ideal research world, a researcher were able to come up with all neces-
sary conditions, their combination (= their ‘configuration') would be a sufficient condition for the outcome, and
the outcome would be explained without any error. Since it is not realistic to reach this goal, researchers can
try to come as close as possible and to arrive at configurations which include many (hopefully theoretically
relevant) necessary conditions.
Second, a situation can be conceived where no single condition is identified as a necessary condition. How-
ever, researchers may detect that the presence of a given outcome always implies the presence of one out of
two (or more) conditions. For example, the outcome of a highly developed welfare state may be connected to
the presence of the condition of strong social-democratic parties or the presence of strong trade unions. How-
ever, social-democratic parties and trade unions alone do not show the required set relation. In such a case,
configurations can count as necessary conditions, which are composed of two or more components that are
alternatively necessary for one another. Certainly, mathematically speaking, this reasoning could be driven to
the extremes: the more conditions are defined as ‘alternatively necessary’ in this sense the less meaningful
is the necessity statement. The trivial statement could follow according to which it is necessary that any of
the presumed conditions is present.13 In order to avoid such an artefact of alternative necessary conditions,
it is required that the conditions making part of such a configuration are ‘functionally equivalent’ (Schneider
and Wagemann, 2012: 74, 326). This means they have to refer to the same macro concept in order to be
considered substitutable variants of one another. In the case of strong social-democratic parties and strong
trade unions, ‘strong left-wing political organizations’ could represent such a macro concept. It goes without
saying, however, that such a decision requires the use of theory and conceptual clarity.14
3.3 Sufficient Conditions

The analysis of sufficient conditions is even more clearly based on the notion of configurations. First, the gen-
eral rules for defining sufficient conditions have to be introduced. Again, from a set-theoretic perspective, let
us imagine a set of countries where right-wing populist parties (R) are part of a (coalition) government. In ad-
dition, let us imagine a set of countries that decide on tighter rules about immigration (I). Our theoretical model
postulates that R is explanatory for I (although, interestingly enough, this relation could also be reversed). If
now R is a subset of I and I a superset of R – if, in other words, the condition is a subset of the outcome –
then this subset relation gives us good reasons to claim R to be a sufficient condition for I (the caveat of note
12 also holds for sufficient conditions). This is the opposite way of defining a necessary condition, and various
parameters of fit tell us how many deviances from the rule we may accept (for the consistency of a sufficient
condition, see Schneider and Wagemann, 2012: 123ff.). The relation in size between the condition set and
the outcome set informs us about the explanatory contribution of the condition (for the coverage of a sufficient
condition, see Schneider and Wagemann, 2012: 129ff.).
Certainly, such a straightforward finding of declaring the participation of right-wing populists in a government
as sufficient for certain decisions in immigration policy is not very likely and ignores the complex reality of the
social world, mainly for two reasons which are both connected to the issue of configurations. First, it may well
be that right-wing populists are part of a coalition, but the coalition agreement can have fixed certain immigra-
tion policies where the right-wing populist party did not prevail. This means that just being part of a coalition
alone is not yet sufficient for arriving at changes in policies. Something else has to be added. This means that
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two or more elements have to be combined in a conjuncture, which is one basic unit of a configuration (see
above, section 2.1).
Second, there may also be situations in which no right-wing populist party is needed for tighter rules on immi-
gration. Indeed, even governments without any right-wing populist participation may introduce tighter rules on
immigration. Many reasons can be imagined for this. Above (section 2.1), we have referred to this as equifi-
nality. There may be more conjunctures which imply the outcome. Taken together, conjunctural causation and
equifinality contribute to a configurative approach of sufficiency.
Indeed, the ‘truth table algorithm', which is at the heart of most QCAs (Schneider and Wagemann, 2012:
178ff.) also makes a strong use of configurations. A truth table is organized around all possible configurations,
which can be formed from the chosen conditions. If A, B and C are chosen as conditions, then these can
combine as ABC, AB~C,15 A~BC, A~B~C, ~ABC, ~AB~C, ~A~BC or ~A~B~C. As can be seen, a truth table
formed from three conditions results in eight configurations that are called ‘truth table rows'. Since every sin-
gle condition can be part of a configuration either in its presence or absence and thus takes on two ‘truth
values’ (‘true’ and ‘false'), the number of configurations is an exponential function of the number of conditions
and can be calculated as 2k, with k being the number of conditions. This also means that the configurative
logic puts certain limits to the applicability of configurative methods. If Lijphart (1999) had not used quanti-
tative methods for his assessment of different political systems, but configurative ones, he would have had
to work with 210 = 1.024 configurations. Since some countries may have the same truth values for all com-
ponents,16 that is, belong to the same configuration, he would have needed at least 1,024 countries for his
analysis to cover all possibilities. This means that QCAs cannot simply add ever more conditions to analytical
models. Instead, QCAs have to be as parsimonious as possible regarding the relation between the number
of cases and the number of conditions.
In any case, in the truth table algorithm, all these 2k combinations are assessed for whether they qualify as
sufficient conditions for the outcome and whether they are part of the equifinal solution formula. In a further
step, this solution formula is minimized (on the rules of and the discussion about minimization, see Baum-
gartner and Thiem, 2017; Schneider and Wagemann, 2012: 104ff.). While we cannot delve deeply into the
technical details of this procedure, the analysis of sufficiency starts from an assessment of all possible con-
figurations. The analysis of sufficiency is, therefore, very closely linked to the issue of configurations.
As is obvious, it is certainly an illusion that the noisy and chaotic empirical social world provides researchers
with empirical cases for all 2k combinations. Even when the number of conditions is kept small (often at the
expense of overly simplistic theoretical and analytical models), there may still be combinations (or parts there-
of) which do not exist empirically. No woman has so far ever been in the most important leadership position
of the current super-powers: the United States, Russia and China; no African welfare state has developed;
etc. Sometimes these combinations cannot exist (the famous metaphorical ‘pregnant man'), but, more often,
historical, social and political processes have just not produced all combinations of conditions which make
up a truth table. In QCA, this phenomenon is called ‘limited diversity'. It cannot be ‘solved’ in the sense that
researchers can make up for information that they do not have. However, various proposals have been de-
veloped to cope with this problem (Ragin, 1987: 103ff., 2008: 147ff.; Schneider and Wagemann, 2012: 160ff.,
197ff.). All of them take configurativeness seriously by not breaking up the configurations and placing the ar-
guments on single, isolated factors, but they instead leave configurative thinking intact, even if this implies
to arrive at counterfactual arguments for selected configurations (Ragin and Sonnett, 2004; Schneider and
Wagemann, 2012: 167ff., 197ff.). In short, configurations are at the heart of sufficiency analyses and are im-
portant ingredients of the analytical protocol of QCA.

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3.4 Test of Theories and Robustness Tests

The fundamental paradigmatic differences between QCA as a configurative method and mainstream quanti-
tative methods also mean that some procedures which are standard (and useful) in quantitative approaches
cannot be directly applied or translated to QCA. Nevertheless, some possibilities exist which are frequently
overlooked. Two of them, which seem to be particularly relevant when looking at QCA from a configurative
perspective, are briefly presented here.
The first concerns theory testing. This is a frequent misunderstanding of QCA, which goes back to its configu-
rative nature. It is, of course, an illusion that a researcher will start his/her research with hypotheses that make
valid assumptions about all configurations that may contribute to a given outcome. Hardly any hypothesis will
state in detail that a combination of the presence of factor A and the presence of factor B, or the combina-
tion of the absence of factor A and the presence of factor C, or the absence of factor C and the presence of
factor D, is sufficient for Y. The world and its causal processes are just too complex for such sophisticated
hypotheses. Thus, the configurative nature of QCA that allows for so many complex patterns makes it hard to
arrive at realistic hypotheses. Nevertheless, there is a possibility in QCA that allows for some theory testing
(Ragin, 1987: 118ff.; Schneider and Wagemann, 2012: 295ff.). It basically starts from a hypothesis in set-the-
oretic formulation, but which is much less complex than the one just presented. For example, if two different
theories claim the factors A and B, respectively, to be sufficient for Y, and a third (more elaborate) theory says
factor C is sufficient, but only if D is not present, then this can be formulated as A + B + C~D → Y.17 This is
undoubtedly a configurative expression. Subsequently, the result of the empirical QCA analysis is intersected
with the formula of the theory. The intersection (for technical details, see Schneider and Wagemann, 2012:
295ff.) then identifies which parts of the theory are confirmed, which parts are not confirmed, and where the
theory has to be extended. In sum, this is a creative way to make use of Boolean algebra to test whether
empirical results of a configurative analysis confirm or contradict theoretical expectations. However, note that
a difference between the theoretical assumptions and the empirical results is already expected at the outset.
The second refers to robustness tests (Schneider and Wagemann, 2012: 284ff.; Skaaning, 2011). Several
proposals have been made how robustness can be assessed in QCA. Usually, they include changes in cali-
bration, or changes with regard to the threshold of consistency values above which a given configuration still
counts as sufficient, or changes with regard to the cases under research. It goes without saying that, if major
changes are made, QCA results also change – and this is not a disadvantage, since major changes in the
design should also imply major effects with regard to the results. Nevertheless, the question is how much the
results change. Schneider and Wagemann (2012: 286), for example, check for the set-relational status of the
results obtained with different design elements. They conclude:
if different choices lead to solution terms that are not in a subset relation with one another, then re-
sults are not robust. If, however, there is a clear subset relation between different solution terms,
then results can be interpreted as robust, even if these solution terms look quite different on the sur-
face (Schneider and Wagemann, 2012: 286).
This means if the main configurative structure of the argument is maintained (and this can be shown in the
subset relation), then results can be interpreted as robust. Such a definition of robustness places a special
emphasis on the configurative nature of QCA.
4. Using Configurative Thinking Beyond QCA

While QCA is a typical configurative method, this does not mean that configurative thinking is limited to QCA.
There are various other (components of) methods that make use of configuration, sometimes explicitly, some-

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times implicitly. We cannot give here a complete overview, but the following sections provide a first insight into
the broad usage of configurations.
4.1 Descriptive Variants

First of all, configurations cannot only be used when causal arguments are made, but also when social sci-
ence phenomena are simply described. A fundamental prerequisite for communication in social science is a
shared understanding about what the research objects actually are. In other words, clear concepts are need-
ed. A whole literature has evolved around concept formation (Mair, 2008; Sartori, 1970). Configurative think-
ing begins when Sartori (1970: 1041) presents the idea of the ‘intension’ of concepts as ‘the collection of
properties which determine the things to which the word applies’ (quoted from Salmon, 1963: 90–1). While in
Sartori's text the word ‘properties’ is in italics, it is better for our purposes to italicize ‘collection'. When we build
a concept and derive sub-concepts, properties are connected with one another to arrive at a more sophisti-
cated concept. In other words, by adding characteristics to a concept, the concept will become more specific.
In this way, for example, the concept of democracy can be developed into a ‘parliamentary democracy’ by
creating a conjunction. Later writings on concepts took up this idea of configurative concept formation, but
went beyond Sartori's formulation. When radial concepts (Collier and Mahon, 1993: 848ff.; Mair, 2008: 193)
were developed, conjunctions were interpreted in a different way, namely increasing the extension of a con-
cept. Family resemblance approaches (Collier and Mahon, 1993: 846ff.; Goertz, 2006: 74–5; Mair, 2008: 194)
go even further and propose sophisticated versions of configurative concept formation. The equifinal aspect
here is expressed through the fact that various conjunctions of properties (e.g., not only ABC, but also ABD,
or BCD) can imply the presence of the concept. At the same time, family resemblance approaches make use
of conjunctions so that the resulting concept formation is truly configurative (for an extensive discussion see
Goertz, 2006).
Such concepts can be further used as ‘data containers’ (Sartori, 1970: 1039) and be combined in typologies.
Indeed, the idea of typological theories (Bennett and Elman, 2006; Elman, 2005) is directly connected to this.
Therefore, it is no surprise that ‘fuzzy-set Ideal Type Analysis’ (fsITA) has been developed (Kvist, 2007). This
is similar to a QCA with fuzzy sets, but the algorithm is not completed. It rather stops when the truth table
is constructed, that is when all potentially possible configurations are matched with real cases. The aim of
fsITA is not causal, but classificatory: it asks which configurations do exist, and which cases can be attributed
to them. This can help to control and eventually revise existing classificatory systems, such as typologies of
welfare states, capitalist systems of production, party systems, etc. The truth table can then be minimized by
only accepting those combinations of properties that exist empirically. The result is a configurative formula
that describes which combinations of properties exist in reality.
4.2 Causally Oriented Variants

As mentioned above (section 2.2), there are various related methods which, taken together, form the larger
context within which configurative methods can be placed. We have termed them comparative case study
methods. Often, a difference is made between cross-case methods and within-case methods (Gerring, 2007:
21ff.). While QCA (see above, section 3) and more conventional ways of comparing small numbers of cases
(see Morlino, 2018) are a typical example for the former, the latter usually occur in n = 1 settings, where just
a single case is analysed, either synchronically or diachronically (Gerring, 2007: 28). The central idea of with-
in-case analysis is that variation can also occur within a single case, such as at different moments of time, or
through different aspects of a process, or through different actors, etc. A literature has developed from this
about ‘process tracing’ (Bennett and Checkel, 2015a; Blatter and Haverland, 2012: 97ff.; George and Ben-
nett, 2005). However, the method has a buzzword problem (Bennett and Checkel, 2015b), since many users
claim to perform process tracing without actually referring to the standards of the method. This runs counter

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to ideas to systematize process tracing concepts. Already very early, the idea of necessary and (not quite)
sufficient conditions was built into the logic (Van Evera, 1997: 31–2). Subsequently, Mahoney and Sweet Van-
derpoel (2015) enlarged this idea and showed how it was able to graphically (and thus logically) present stan-
dard procedures of comparative case study research through set-theoretic terms. Most of the presentation is,
indeed, through set theory, but, because of the close relation between set theory and configurative thinking,
these ideas can also be framed in terms of configurative methods.
Finally, Coincidence Analysis (CNA) – developed in response to QCA methodology (Baumgartner, 2009,
2013) – is yet another method based on configurative thinking. CNA does not decide potential causal relations
a priori and, therefore, does not distinguish between conditions and the outcome; these are equally treated
as ‘factors’ (Baumgartner, 2013: 14). As a result, with CNA it is possible to detect more complex causal struc-
tures in the data such as causal chains and common causes (Baumgartner, 2009: 91). This approach drives
the configurative method even further, since not only the potentially explanatory factors are considered to be
part of a configuration, but also the explanandum. Configurations are examined independently from previous-
ly formulated hypotheses or assumptions about which elements could count as causes and which as effects.
5. Conclusions
In this chapter, a brief overview of configurative methods has been provided. Starting from the observation
that the term as such does not enjoy much popularity in the social sciences methods canon, we first defined
configurations through the ideas of conjunctural causality and equifinality. This made it possible to identify a
group of configurative methods that are also known as set-theoretic methods. Configurative perspectives are
a special feature of set relations. A main part of this contribution was devoted to QCA as the most widely used
configurative method. Subsequently, other methods that use configurations to describe patterns or to make
causal arguments were briefly presented.
One important caveat has to be made concerning the ‘quality’ of the application of configurative methods
(for empirical analyses on this topic with regard to QCA, see Buche and Siewert, 2015; Wagemann et al.,
2016; for conceptualizations of what analytical ‘quality’ means, see Schneider and Wagemann, 2012: 275ff.).
Even the most basic requirements such as transparency standards are sometimes not fulfilled (Wagemann
and Schneider, 2015). Methods gain visibility and are taken seriously by the scholarly community not only
because their algorithms and procedures function ‘in theory', but the actual research practice is also deci-
sive. High-quality research practice means, at the most basic level, that methods are appropriately executed.
It also means that the execution of methods is well connected to the research design. Ideally, methods are
not only used for the pleasure to run procedures, but in order to accumulate knowledge about social science
phenomena. Therefore, quality aspects of the application are of foremost importance also for configurative
methods. Certainly, by their very nature, configurative methods allow for much flexibility. For this reason, it is
even more important to show that flexibility does not mean rulelessness, or that flexibility can be (mis)used in
order to justify superficial practices.
Notes
1 Of course, the book also includes chapters that touch upon other topics, such as Berg-Schlosser and De
Meur (2009) with their broader approach on most similar different outcome and most different similar outcome
designs.
2 The QCA family traditionally encompasses three types, namely crisp-set, fuzzy-set and multi-value QCA

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(Rihoux and Ragin 2009a; Schneider and Wagemann 2012).
3 Parts of the presentation of what configurations are have been developed together with Markus B. Siewert
in preparation of a paper for the ECPR Joint Sessions 2017 in Nottingham (Wagemann and Siewert, 2017).
4 ‘Complex causality’ may be the better term.
5 It is often wishful thinking that the existence of different explanations can be traced back to clear groups of
cases, that is, party families, geographical areas, types of political systems, etc. It will more frequently be the
case that researchers need some imagination in order to classify cases with their explanations. Often, there
may be more than one equifinal explanation per case, so that the case is ‘over-explained'.
6 It is, of course, impossible to estimate how many studies have been published based on configurative meth-
ods. Buche and Siewert (2015), Rihoux et al. (2013) and Wagemann et al. (2016) present some numbers for
QCA, while Blatter and Haverland (2012) and George and Bennett (2005) are good examples of (text)books
in which path-breaking studies are named and selected publications intensively discussed.
7 Without any doubt, the classification of methods as ‘quantitative’ vs. ‘qualitative’ falls short of research real-
ity, as do other dichotomies, such as case-oriented versus variable-oriented (Ragin, 1987). Nevertheless, we
recur to these dichotomies, since they are often used in social science methodology.
8 Others emphasize that QCA uses mathematical symbols and procedures, which are more typical for quan-
titative methods (Schneider and Grofman, 2009).
9 If interpretive methods really should not belong to the qualitative camp, this means that they either constitute
a third methodological paradigm, which would go beyond the quantitative–qualitative dichotomy, or that they
are no valid social science methods at all (such an opinion is clearly rejected by Goertz and Mahoney, 2012:
5, fn. 2).
10 Goertz and Mahoney (2012: 4–5) explicitly exclude interpretive methods from their discussion of two cul-
tures because of different ontological and epistemological premises.
11 In our example, it is difficult to imagine that the causal relation could be the other way around, namely that
EU membership is an explanatory factor for the fulfilment of the Copenhagen criteria.
12 Very often, set relations are interpreted as causal relationships. If the described set relationship (the out-
come is a subset of the condition) exists, then this is only a technical-set coincidence. The decision whether
the condition really qualifies as a necessary condition needs theoretical arguments (for more on necessary
conditions in the social sciences, see Goertz and Starr, 2003). This is comparable to the discussion in quan-
titative research, whether causation can be inferred from statistical correlation.
Similarly, the mere existence of a set relation does not tell us much about the importance of such a presumed
necessary condition. It can still be a trivial necessary condition. For example, without any doubt, the fact to
be born is a necessary condition in order to become a Russian president. But there are so many people who
have been born, but only a very limited part of them becomes a Russian president. In set-theoretic terms,
the set of the condition is many times larger than the set of the outcome, and we have a so-called coverage
problem. It goes without saying that, while being born undoubtedly is and remains a necessary condition for
becoming a Russian president, this statement is not particularly helpful in the analysis (for more on trivialness
of necessary conditions, see Schneider and Wagemann, 2012: 144ff., 233ff.).
13 This can be assessed through measures of trivialness in QCA (Schneider and Wagemann, 2012: 144ff.,
233ff.).

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14 More elaborate versions of these configurations can also be thought of (Mahoney et al., 2009: 126).
15 The tilde ~ is one possible way to indicate the absence of a condition.
16 Note that, going back to Lazarsfeld's (1937) ideas of the property space (see section 2.1), in case of fuzzy
sets, truth table rows constitute the ideal cases to which real cases can more or less correspond. In other
words, through fuzzy sets, cases become partial members of ideal types. By consequence, cases may have
different membership values in configurations, but belong to the same ideal type, although at different inten-
sities.
17 Read: A or B or the combination of the presence of C and the absence of D are sufficient for Y.
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Designing a Research Project1
Contributors: Hans Keman

Chapter Title: "Designing a Research Project1"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Designing a Research Project1

Hans Keman
Introduction
The ‘art of doing research’ in political science is explored here by demonstrating how to relate a theory guided
Research Question to a properly founded Research Answer by developing an adequate Research Design.
First, the role of theory and conceptualization will be examined. Second, the function of variables in social
research will be highlighted. Third, the meaning of ‘cases’ and their selection will be discussed. These are
important steps in any (comparative) Research Design. Fourth, the focus will turn to the ‘core’ of any type
of research, whether qualitative or quantitative: linking evidence to argument in a verifiable and convincing
fashion. Among the different methods and approaches (see e.g. Burnham et al., 2004; Keman and Wolden-
dorp, 2016) the comparative approach is emphasized: the use of the logic of comparative inquiry to analyse
the relationships between variables – representing theory – and the information contained in the cases – the
evidence. Finally, some problems common to relating theory to evidence will be discussed.
The logic of comparison allows for more types of research than is often thought. In the past, many researchers
were taught that ‘comparative politics’ meant the cross-national analysis of states, their institutional complex-
ion and politics (e.g. the welfare state in Western European democracies). As will be elaborated below, this is
not the state of affairs any longer. Other systemic entities, for example transnational networks (like the EU) or
societal developments over time, (sub-)systems (e.g. cities across the globe), many or few cases (be it coun-
tries, cities, institutions, actors or individuals) are now considered as proper units of analysis. For example, if
one wishes to understand the process of state formation or the development of democracies, obviously you
need to take into account the cross-case variation as well as the evolution over time, also called: the historical
approach.
The historical approach has long been neglected in political science (see also Berntzen, Chapter 23, this
Handbook). Following Mahoney and Rueschemeyer, it can be defined as follows: ‘comparative historical
analysis aims at the explanation of substantively important outcomes by describing processes over time using
systematic and contextualized comparisons’ (Mahoney and Rueschemeyer, 2003: 6). There are basically two
modes of analysis: if one compares sequences in a single or across several cases, it is called a diachronic
analysis; if it concerns several cases at the same point in time or during the same historical period, it is called
a synchronic analysis.
The second element in the above definition concerns ‘important outcomes'. But what is important? For exam-
ple, by hindsight the outcome of what we call today World War I was important because it meant a watershed
in Europe in terms of democratization and is also considered as a cause of World War II (Hobsbawm, 1994).
Hence, important outcomes of a historical process need to be formulated carefully by means of a Research
Question to explain puzzles over time and must be specified spatially (i.e. where and when do the same or
similar phenomena occur?) to compare these properly regarding their temporal variation (Pierson, 2000).
A Research Design is a crucial step for developing and testing theories and for the verification of rival theories.
Theory development and Research Design are closely interlinked in analysing political developments. Con-
trary to everyday practice, where most people are often implicitly comparing situations, in comparative politics
the issue of what and how to observe reality is explicitly part of the comparative method. Dogan and Pelassy,
for example, remark: ‘to compare is a common way of thinking. Nothing is more natural than to consider peo-
ple, ideas, or institutions in relation to other people, ideas and institutions. We gain knowledge through refer-
ence’ (1990: 3). Hence, the evolution of political science has moved on from implicit comparisons to explicit
ways of comparing political systems and researching related processes. One of the major modern develop-
ments in political science consists of linking theory to evidence by means of comparative methods (Landman,
2008). The particular method to be used depends, however, on the Research Question (RQ) asked and the
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Research Answer (RA) to be given (see Box 21.1). The actual method chosen is what we call Research De-
sign (RD) and this is what this chapter is about.
A theory, in its simplest form, is therefore a meaningful statement about the relationship between two real
world phenomena: X, the independent variable, and Y, the dependent variable. According to theory, it is ex-
pected that change in one variable will be related to change in the other. The conceptual and explanatory
understanding of such a relationship is the point of departure for conducting research by comparing empirical
evidence, for instance across systems or over time (see also Brady and Collier, 2004: 309; Burnham et al.,
2004: 57).
An example of how the triad works and has helped to answer a contested issue is the debate during the
1980s and 1990s on ‘does politics matter?’ (Castles, 1982; Hicks and Swank, 1992; Schmidt, 1996; Keman,
2002). The dependent variable or the outcome (Y) in this example is welfare state development, i.e. what
the researcher seeks to explain. It is called dependent because we expect that the variation in welfare state
provisions across systems also depends on one or more independent variables. As a tentative answer, the
researcher comes up with a hypothesis. In this example, the variation in welfare state development (Y) is de-
pendent on the relative strength of left-wing parties and trade unions (X) in various countries.
This Research Answer, or hypothesis, is a conjecture about the relationship between the dependent variable
and the independent variable and is supposed to explain the outcome, i.e. the development of the welfare
state (Y). In this case, in a comparative Research Design a theoretical relationship is elaborated to account
for the differences and similarities in welfare state development across a number of nations over time.
Obviously, any type of ‘X–Y’ relationship in social science is an abstraction from the complexities of the real
world. This is deliberate. By means of hypotheses or explanations (X) those factors are included that can
account for the variation in Y. This procedure allows us to establish whether or not a meaningful relationship
indeed exists, and whether or not this relationship can be qualified as ‘causal’ or not.2
As we will discuss below, another factor to take into account is the role of economic growth (X2). It goes al-
most without saying that the growth of the ‘wealth of a nation’ may well depend on the financial revenues of
the state. Hence, the Research Design is further extended to include this potential explanation: X1+ X2→Y.
This formal description is then subject to develop a Research Design that can provide a convincing, reliable
and valid Research Answer by means of developing the proper information and selecting the relevant cases
(those where there is a welfare state) and period covering the observation in terms of development (e.g. after
World War II).
In more formal terms, a theory posits the dependent variable in the analysis – what is to be explained? Ad-
ditionally, the researcher wishes to know: what are the most likely ‘causes’ of the phenomenon under investi-
gation? Again, in formal terms: which independent variables, or explanatory factors, can account for the vari-
ation of the dependent variable across different systems (e.g. countries) or features of political systems (e.g.
parties or policies) or by means of a time series? The answer to this question rests heavily on the develop-
ment of a ‘correct’ Research Design. Comparative methods can thus be considered as a ‘bridge’ between the
Research Question asked and the Research Answer proposed. This is what we label the ‘triad’ RQ → RA →
RD (see Box 21.1).
The Triad RQ → RD → RA

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The point of departure is that all Research Questions should be theory guided. The theoretical guid-
ance is expressed in relating Research Questions (RQ) to Research Answers (RA) by means of logical
relationships between a dependent variable (Y: what is to be explained) and the independent variables
(X: the most likely causes, i.e. factors serving as an explanation).
The ‘bridge’ between RQ and RA is called a Research Design (RD). Therefore, the (comparative)
method is a means to an end: to make choices as to which of the potential mass of relevant empirical
data (the evidence) and possible causes (X) explaining variations in Y can be used and are valid and
reliable in arriving at an RA.
Developing a Research Design in political science requires careful elaboration (what is ‘political'?). First, the
Research Design should enable the researcher to answer the question under examination. Second, the given
answer(s) ought to meet the ‘standards’ set in the social sciences: are the results valid (authoritative), reliable
(irrefutable) and generalizable (postulated) knowledge (King et al., 1994)? Third, are the Research Design,
the methods and the data used indeed suitable for the research goals set? This chapter will elaborate on
these issues and attempt to guide the reader towards linking research questions to research answers by pre-
senting examples of extant research.
Key Points:
• The proper use and correct application of methods by means of a Research Design is essential in all
contemporary political science research.
• A correct application implies that the method in use meets the professional ‘standards’ set in terms
of validity, reliability and its use in a wider sense, i.e. generalizability of the results.
• The relationship between variables and cases in any social science research is crucial in order to
reach empirically founded conclusions that will bring further knowledge in political science.
• The foundation of a Research Design rests with the proper planning of the ‘triad': relating a Research
Question to a Research Answer by means of a Research Design that allows for evidence-based Re-
search Answers.
The Substance of Political Science

Political science is – as are many of the social science disciplines – a multifarious discipline in terms of types
of theoretical approaches and related diversity of methods. As Gabriel Almond (1990) once remarked: the
development of political science can be characterized as having in essence the same menu, it is however
consumed at different tables. Political science analysis is, therefore, characterized by its variety and often
contested across the discipline. Obviously, this is by and large due to the nature of its core substance: the
role of politics in society and its systemic processes. Political processes involve individuals, i.e. the political
actors (be it individuals like political leaders, MPs, electors, party members, citizens and so on), organiza-
tions (parties, governments, movements, trade unions, business associations, NGOs and so on) and institu-
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tions (formal, like basic laws and a constitution or informal rules, conventions, traditions or temporary mea-
sures). However, both actors and institutions are interdependent. The game of politics is played by the rules
(of course, not always), but the actors or players differ in weight and position. Hence, analytical tools must be
used in terms of the units of the system in which they operate (the playing field, a democracy, an autocracy or
some other system or sub-system). This defines the weight and position of the different actors given the ex-
tant sets of institutions and their occurrence at different levels of aggregation: inter- or transnational, national
or intra-national.
Let us give a few examples: in a democracy all electors are equal and all parties have the same platform to
compete. Yet, some parties are bigger than others and some are in government and other parties are not.
This makes a difference for the actors involved and – depending on the systemic rules in use – gives some
of them more leeway for action than others. For instance, in a presidential system with a two-party system
one party takes all (having the majority), whereas in a parliamentary system, more often than not more than
one party enters into a coalition to have a majority in parliament and to form the government. So, a Research
Question could well be: does it make a difference whether a political system is presidential or parliamentary in
view of representation and policy performance? Another example is: what is the difference between democra-
cy and autocracy in terms of the quality of life? In the eye of the public of the so-called advanced democracies
the answer is almost self-evident. Yet others have claimed that the answer is not so straightforward at all.
Hence, you need to do (comparative) research to find out to what is the ‘truth'. For this you need a well-devel-
oped Research Question and a proper Research Design that is capable to give a scientifically sound answer.
These examples are typically formulated on the level of the nation-state and can only be researched on the
macro-level comparing nations.
Originally, nation-states were considered to be the main organizing unit of political processes. This is not al-
ways the case anymore. In addition to the fact that states were often assumed to be unitary governing bodies,
we notice – on the one hand – more and more the emergence of transnational and international regimes (e.g.
international governmental organizations – IGOs), and on the other hand, that the nation-state is not a closed
unit of analysis, but has a varied intra-system composition. Hence, political processes cannot and should not
be studied by focusing on the nation-state per se. Instead, the focus can well be a ‘systemic multi-level’ ap-
proach to understand the dynamics of politics in the contemporary world (Braun and Maggetti, 2016).
In other words, we need to consider the political world as a more or less organized system that is character-
ized by systemic (or: within-system) features that can be discerned at various levels (Kübler, 2016). In the real
world, this may concern a federation and its constituting parts or the sub-national units within a centralized
state (e.g. municipalities) or the members of an international governing body (like the UN or the EU). Hence,
both theory and method in political science are characterized by complex interactions between political actors
(like parties or organized interests) operating at different levels of the polity that vary in space and time and
are in need of different methods and approaches to capture the political processes both descriptively and an-
alytically (Mahoney and Rueschemeyer, 2003; Pennings et al., 2006).
If this is the case, then researching political processes and their ramifications is a challenging and complex
assignment for any political scientist. It must be made clear, however, that such a ‘systemic’ view should not
to be considered as a ‘paradigm’ or as a ‘unique selling point'. Rather, we consider this perspective to be a
useful heuristic device to show how and when different approaches, methods and related applications can
be used best to analyse political activities at different levels of a polity. In short: studying substantial political
processes as a systemic activity is our framework of reference that directs the formulation of the relationship
between a theory guided Research Question and potential explanations, i.e. the Research Answer.
Hence, before one starts collecting data and information, let alone analyse them, it is – first of all - paramount
to elaborate the underlying or guiding theory and formulate a clear and meaningful set of research questions
(or hypotheses). These preliminary activities define the type of Research Design, the analytical tools and the
empirical information needed (be it qualitative or quantitative), not the other way around (Brady and Collier,

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2004).
Second, studying political processes implies that both change and continuity have to be taken into account
as well as the patterned variation in terms of space and time (Keman, 2016a). This means that this approach
to politics implies that the comparative method and its logic is seen as a central form of political analysis.
However, we do not claim that it is the only way to go. One can make a valid distinction between ‘implicit’
and ‘explicit’ modes of comparison. Implicit comparing is almost always used intuitively by researchers in the
social sciences (and by most people in general!) when assessing situations, developments and outcomes.
By contrast, explicit comparisons are often used intentionally by academic researchers to explain horizontal
(e.g. relations between parties) and vertical political processes (e.g. states vis-à-vis their citizens) controlling
for their systemic differences over time and space (e.g. Pierson, 2000; Keman, 2016b: 91).
Third, not only different approaches exist which are (sometimes strongly) contested, but this also applies to
the mode of analysis and related types of empirical information.3 Our point of departure is that essentially
any type of political research should be open to replication, ought to be reliable in terms of the sources and
data used and should be valid as regards measurements in relation to the concepts used. This statement
appears perhaps to be almost superfluous, but it is not. A major divide within the social sciences and political
science in particular concerns qualitative versus quantitative types of data and analysis. Yet, as Brady and
Collier (2004) argue, it is less the question whether the method and related techniques are more or less su-
perior, but rather whether or not the scientific standards to be used are indeed honoured. We share this view
and maintain that empirical information must be solid and responsibly reported. This applies to the historical
approach and method as well as to constructivist types of research or quantitative data analysis (King et al.
1994; Pennings et al. 2006).
Key Points:
• Political processes can be analysed by using a systemic and multi-layered approach as a heuristic
and organizing device and postulates that ‘politics’ is manifested at various levels of governance and
by various societal activities.
• Political actors and institutions are central to any type of ‘politics’ and ought to be studied in spatial
terms and across time (depending on the Research Question).
• Both implicit and explicit types of comparison underlie most types of political research and analytical
inferences should be based on empirical information, be it qualitative or quantitative.
• Fundamental to any type of research is that the standards of empirical–analytical social science are
shared and applied. These ideas guide and structure the elaboration of any Research Design.
The Research Design: Bridging Theory and Outcome

Many students on whatever level have excellent theoretical ideas to come up with a relevant and challenging
Research Question. Some of them also have fine ideas what Research Answer (or: hypothesis) would be
viable, if not convincing. However, if it comes to developing a Research Design that indeed underpins the
relationship between Research Design and Answer, many students tend to fall short. How come? A reason
may well be that in many university courses the emphasis is on either theoretical or substantial questions on-
ly, or solely on the application of methods and collecting evidence as such. There is, however, little training in
relating the Research Question to the Research Answer. Yet, it is crucial for any student, to develop a proper
Research Design that is viable and feasible.
A Research Design is a crucial step for developing and testing theories and for the verification of rival theories.
Hence, as Guy Peters emphasizes, ‘the only thing that should be universal in studying comparative politics …
is a conscious attention to explanation and research design’ (1998: 26). Theory development and Research
Design are closely interlinked in political science. Let us elaborate this by means of the ‘history’ of analysing
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the impact of economic development (X) and the role of the state (Y).
An example is ‘Wagner's Law’ developed in the 1890s (Kohl, 1985). This ‘law’ says that the more the economy
grows, the higher the level of state expenditures. Hence, the theory says that the ‘wealth of a nation’ or: X (e.g.
expressed as the gross domestic product per capita) correlates positively with the growth of public spend-
ing (i.e. the more X changes, the more Y changes) and thus produces higher levels of taxation (revenues of
the state). Although Wagner's Law has been contested, at a general level it appears to work and has been
conducive to additional Research Questions and alternative Research Designs to explore whether or not it is
indeed a ‘law’ (i.e. it is evident under all circumstance and everywhere) and what the consequences are for a
society.
Peacock and Wiseman (1961), for example, conducted an alternative approach to this Research Question.
Rather than comparing nations, their method focused on a single case (UK) over a long period using annual
data and found that Wagner's Law is more or less a general tendency. But they found, in addition, that partic-
ular circumstances – like the incidence of war or an economic depression – explained the observed stepwise
increment of public spending and taxation. Therefore, the trend may be correct, but its development is divers
due to specific external factors. What is important to note is, that this research design did confirm the basic
tenet of Wagner's Law, but at the same time offered an explanation why and when the increment of public
finances occurred.
Manfred Schmidt (1989) also took Wagner's Law as a point of departure and asked an additional Research
Question, namely in what way and to what extent the higher levels of public expenditures were distributed by
the state. He found that the level of economic development makes a difference in terms of functional spend-
ing (e.g. how much respectively on the military or on public welfare). His follow-up Research Question was
that the political institutionalization of decision-making should be included in the Research Design in order
to understand the comparative variation in public spending. For this purpose, Schmidt chose to employ a
cross-national Research Design in which he developed sub-sets of countries defined by their relative level of
economic growth.
What this debate shows is that the relationship between Research Question and Research Answer defines
the choices regarding the development of the Research Design. Wagner used economic evidence and ap-
plied statistics to underpin the relationship (by means of correlations). His analysis was implicitly comparative
and aiming at showing a general development in the industrializing world. Peacock and Wiseman employed
annual data to measure change in various ways (long-term and short-term fluctuations) in order to observe
the longitudinal deviations around the trend using time-series analysis within one country. This Research De-
sign not only confirmed Wagner's Law by and large, but enabled these researchers to refine the ‘law’ by
including external factors. By contrast, Schmidt made explicit use of available global data, not so much to
scrutinize Wagner's Law, but to analyse how state involvement extended beyond its core activities (like Law
and Order, Justice, External Safety, Regulating social and economic relations and providing Infrastructure) in
different sub-sets of nations by employing comparative standards of economic development and character-
istics of the polity. His principal aim was to demonstrate that the so-called ‘modernization’ thesis4 could not
be upheld. Instead, Schmidt showed that modernization was indeed dependent on economic growth but that
the political institutionalization of state involvement affected this process in terms of policy choices allocating
public revenues.
This example of an application of the ‘triad’ demonstrates that a relatively straightforward Research Question
can well be conducive to further elaboration, building on previous Research Answers and related evidence by
means of carefully developed Research Designs.
Key Points:
• Without a theory there cannot be a proper relationship between the Research Question and the Re-
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search Answer → there is no given Research Design.

• The Research Design must be directly related to the substance and the central concepts of the Re-
search Question → variables and cases must be valid.
• The Research Design must deliver reliable evidence, which is open to replication5 → the empirical
data employed have to be fully documented.
• The goal of a Research Design is to achieve generalizability of the results to advance knowledge →
data analysis should be internally and externally valid.
Both types of validity are equally important, but it should be noted that there is a trade-off. The more
cases included in the analysis that can be considered as representative, the more ‘robust’ is the over-
all result (external validity). Conversely, however, the analysis of fewer cases may well be conducive to a
more coherent and solid conclusion for the cases that are included (internal validity).
It should be noted that the concepts of internal and external validity are ideal-typical: in a perfect world with
complete information then the standards of both internal and external validity may be met, but in practice this
is hard to achieve.
Building the Bridge: Concepts – Variables – Cases

The ways to bridge the gap between abstract concepts and specific measurements concerns the tension be-
tween the concept as an object of analysis (its meaning) and the concept as a means to accomplish empirical
analysis of political phenomena (its observation). This is difficult because many concepts are often not directly
observable. It is crucial to what extent the observations related to a concept are reliable and valid. Reliability
is achieved if a measurement tool yields stable and consistent results when repeated over time (e.g. a dis-
tance should be measured with a solid tool and not a rubber band). Validity is achieved if we are measuring
what we intend to measure (i.e. temperature should be measured with a thermometer and not a barometer).
Both criteria should be met as much as possible, although there is often a trade-off between them (Pennings,
2016).
This trade-off concerns the choice between the degrees of precision of how the concept is transformed into
observable terms (the variable) vis-à-vis the relative comprehensiveness of the unit of observation (the case).
The more cases are included (covering the variable) the more likely is the generalizability of the research re-
sults. However, this always implies a ‘ceteris paribus’ situation or: assuming all other things being constant.
Alternatively, one can restrict the conceptual transformation into lack of precision to a minimum, which would
lead to one or to a few cases to be analysed (recall Box 21.2).
Internal and External Validity

Internal validity refers to the degree to which descriptive or causal inferences from a given set of cases
are indeed correct for most cases under inspection.
External validity concerns the extent to which the research results can be considered valid for similar
cases that were not included.
For a long time this trade-off has led to the dispute between ‘quantitative’ (i.e. the more cases, the bet-

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ter) and ‘qualitative’ (i.e. the fewer the number of cases, the more exact the observations) approaches
(Box 21.3). This dispute is in our view rather quaint: first, there are methods that help to forestall this
problem by means of ‘Fuzzy Set Analysis’ and Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA).6 Second, pre-
cise and comprehensive description may become recycling history and does not contribute to general
knowledge (see Pierson, 2000, for how historical observations can instead be used for social science
analysis). Third, an alternative Research Design might be feasible: combining ‘many cases’ with ‘few
cases’ where the latter analysis can corroborate the former results or bring to light the ‘deviant cases’
or so-called ‘outliers’ (i.e. the ‘exception to the rule'; see Mahoney and Rueschemeyer, 2003 and Box
21.3).
Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches in the Social Sciences

Qualitative methods focus on understanding the meaning underlying an intention, action, object or
phenomenon. In other words, researchers adopting qualitative methods aim to develop, an interpreta-
tion, of the way in which those cases to actors study understand their actions and the context in which
they act.
In political science research, qualitative methods are usually contrasted with quantitative methods,
which typically deal with large amounts of data and statistical methods, establishing causal relation-
ships between social phenomena.
As such, it is clear that qualitative methods are usually underpinned by an interpretivist position by
means of case-based description, while quantitative methods are underpinned by numerical informa-
tion and variable-based statistical analysis. Given these differences, qualitative and quantitative meth-
ods have often been seen as mutually exclusive modes of generating and analysing data.
(Bryman, 1988; Ercan and Marsh, 2016).
There are a multitude of notions about what a case study is and which purpose it serves in the development
of adequate research. However, the methodological discussion about case study research in political science
has been linked with comparative analysis. The dispute concerns how case-based analysis can contribute to
the attainment of theoretical, generalizable knowledge (Seha and Müller-Rommel, 2016). Hence, while many
conceptions of case study research exist, the understanding of case study research as an instrument for
uncovering generalizations is commonly given prevalence over interpretative approaches and the notion of
studying cases for their singularity (Yanow et al., 2010: 109). Given the intention to relate Research Ques-
tions to Research Answers, the case analysis is expected to enable the researcher to make statements that
are general as well as testable; practitioners of case study research in political science have commonly not
confined themselves to studying a single case on its own terms, but have instead placed the study of cases
under the umbrella of the comparative analysis.

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The study of ‘democracy’ can serve here as an example. This is a concept that is for most people easy to
understand in daily use, but quite complex to pin down in empirical-analytical terms. It has, therefore, to be
specified as precisely as possible in order to get a common understanding about the meaning of what democ-
racy entails and its application in terms of observation. Since most, if not all concepts are complex and ab-
stract, they must be broken down into components that are measurable to generate data (Beetham, 1994). In
political science most concepts are multidimensional, but the complexity (i.e. the number of dimensions and
the number of levels of observation) differs (Goertz, 2005).
The basic level entails a general abstract notion like democracy and its institutions (e.g. the constitution, elec-
toral laws, type of parliament, state organization) that is considered to make up a democratic system. The
secondary level divides the basic concepts into constitutive dimensions. In the case of democracy these are,
for example, participation by citizens and contestation between candidates for office (Beetham, 1994; Keman,
2002). The third level is the operationalization level. This level is most detailed in order to enable data collec-
tion by means of indicators that allow empirical information to be contained in variables (i.e. measuring the
values representing the constitutive dimensions across cases).
There exist multiple approaches to conceptualizing and measuring democracy in the literature. They can be
broadly divided into either minimalist (to increase the number of cases) or maximalist (including many fac-
tors to enhance precision) conceptualizations, each having strengths and weaknesses. A minimalist will opt
for a few indicators like universal suffrage, regular elections and basic civil rights (Vanhanen, 1997; Free-
dom House, 2006). A maximalist will strive for an in-depth analysis by means of a comparable case analysis,
taking into account many factors that contribute to the functioning of democracies, such as political equality
and policy performance in actual practice. A comprehensive approach is the Varieties of Democracy project
(V-Dem) that seeks to capture seven different concepts of democracy over time after 1900 up to the present
(Coppedge et al., 2011).7
In order to bridge the gap between theory and data adequately, a number of requirements should be met. It is
not sufficient to list a (large) number of dimensions of a concept (like the V-Dem Research programme). The
generated data should enable the researcher to specify a causal relationship between those real world phe-
nomena in a way that logically follows from the theory guided Research Question. In addition, the data must
clearly establish the temporal and spatial dimensions by being applicable to certain places, actors, time peri-
ods, etc. (Pierson, 2000; Keman, 2016b). For example, a theory of democracy should not only describe what
democracy is, but also question under which conditions it performs better or worse. If these causal factors
are not equally important, their weight must be specified. For example, which cultural, political or economic
factors are more decisive for the rise and endurance of democracies? (Lipset, 1959; Beetham, 1994).
The basic Research Question underlying Lipset's (1959) Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics con-
cerned the question of how and under what conditions a democratic political system could be stable and pros-
perous. The Research Answer formulated by Seymour Lipset is that there is a direct relationship between
economic development and democracy. This conclusion was founded upon a Research Design developing
an extensive empirical examination, both quantitative and qualitative, by means of an analysis of the bases

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of democracy across the world. As the evidence showed, a strong causal relationship between economic de-
velopment (prosperity) and democratic stability could be established.
Arend Lijphart (1968) employed another type of Research Design to study the question: what conditions ad-
vance the stability of democracy? Contrary to established ideas that a homogeneous society (in terms of
culture, like, for example, religion and language) and pluralist behaviour (seeking a balanced choice across
politically organized cleavages) are the stepping stones towards a stable and peaceful democratic society,
Lijphart demonstrated by means of a case-based analysis (the Netherlands) that a combination of certain in-
stitutions and behaviour of organized actors tended to lead to consensus rather than conflict.
This Research Answer led to a new concept in political science, namely consociational democracies. This
concept has been adopted by others and led eventually to the development of a more general theory of
democracy (known as consensus democracy; Lijphart, 2012). This example shows how a Research Question
can lead to a Research Answer derived from a case study and is developed into a different theoretical and
empirical conceptualization and measurement of democracy by means of a Research Design.
Key Points:
• Proper conceptualization of the central elements of a Research Question and related Answer is cru-
cial for the elaboration of a viable Research Design.
• The type of concept in use is closely related to type of variables, level of measurement and number
of cases to be included in the Research Design. There is always a trade-off between variables (many
or few) and cases (many or few) in relation to the method to be used and the eventual analytical
results.
• Developing variables from the concepts underlying the Research Question and related to the Answer
requires a careful operationalization by means of indicators (real world observations). Essential in
this regard is ‘reliability’ by replication.
• The relationship between variables and cases defines the internal and external validity of the initial
research outcomes and opens avenues for further research by means of alternative research de-
signs.
Putting Theory into Praxis: Caveats – Pitfalls – Problems

We argued throughout the chapter that the comparative approach in political science is considered to be the
‘royal way’ in linking theory to evidence, enhancing it as a ‘scientific’ discipline. Obviously, the comparative
approach is not the only one, but we do contend that the underlying methodology offers a wide spectrum of
options to develop a Research Design to carry out political science-related research. Of course, there are –
as in other approaches in the social sciences – a number of constraints that may well affect its possibilities
and can impair its usefulness in answering the Research Question under consideration. In this section, we
discuss some of these limitations. While it is important to be aware of them, it is a challenge for researchers
to find appropriate solutions to overcome them.
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A major admonition for the social sciences is that there are many theories that fit the same data. You only
have to go through the literature concerning research on, for instance, political parties or the welfare state, to
understand this pitfall. There is a bewildering number of different research outcomes derived from the same
sources (like OECD and UN data as regards the welfare state research or the use of national or individual-
based statistics concerning elections). Obviously, the caveat is that valid and reliable data for the cases we
have selected to test theoretical relations are often applied to different Research Questions. If this problem
is insufficiently understood, it will undermine the quality of advancing knowledge. Let us discuss a number of
these problems.
Conceptual Stretching
Conceptual stretching is the bias occurring when a concept developed for one set of cases is extended to
additional cases to which the features of the concept do not apply in the same manner. Sartori (1970) illus-
trated this problem by means of the ‘ladder of generality’ (i.e. enhancing a wider use of a theoretical concept
by extension of its initial meaning). For instance, some researchers have applied a concept that involves a
loss of intension (where the observations reflect the original features of the concept, i.e. remain close to the
original Research Question).
Intension will obviously reduce the applicability of a concept across more cases, but it enhances the internal
validity of the cases included. Extension will have the opposite effect, and the question is then whether or not
the wider use (i.e. in a greater number of cases) impairs the claim for external validity of the analytical results.
The more the meaning of a concept moves in the process of operationalization from specific to general, the
less the information collected will be relevant for each case and signifies a loss of internal validity of the re-
search results (see Box 21.2). At the end of the day, it is up to the researcher to make a decision: accepting
less generable results or aiming for a result that is close to a real world situation.
Equivalence
A related problem of transforming concepts into empirically based indicators concerns the question of whether
the meaning of a concept stays constant across time and space. Landman (2008: 43–6) argues that this prob-
lem is less a matter of whether a concept is measured with identical results (which is a matter of reliability),
and that whatever solution is chosen, it is up to the researcher to convince us whether or not the degree of
equivalence between measured phenomena is acceptable. This pitfall is particularly relevant regarding quan-
titative studies. In conjunction with this hazard, it has been noted that reliability problems may arise as a result
of including (functional) equivalents that are used to widen the number of cases as a result of conceptual
stretching.
An example is the concept of the ‘political party'. What defines a political party, and how can such a concept
be transformed into measurable and valid entities across a wider universe? Across Europe it may be feasible,
but – as we know – in the United States the political parties are quite differently organized and perform not
in the same way as in Europe. Thus, the problem is to what extent a concept transformed into an empirical
indicator has indeed an identical meaning across different settings or cultures (van Deth, 1998). However, at-
tempts have been made to develop methods to cope with the problem of overstretching and travelling (Braun
and Magetti, 2016). All this implies that a Research Design ought to take into account the selection of cases
and, if relevant, the period or time series under investigation (Pierson, 2000; Keman, 2016a).
Family Resemblance

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Another caveat with respect to the validity and reliability of data collection and analysis is the use of ‘family
resemblance’ to extend the available data (Collier and Mahon, 1993). In its simplest fashion, this method ex-
tends the initial concept by adding features which share some of the attributes of the original concept. How
far this type of extension can go depends on what the Research Question is. For example, if we are investi-
gating the behaviour of political parties and define these as any actor that is vote-seeking, office-seeking and
policy-seeking, then the concept of a party can be used in a wider sense. If instead of requiring that all three
characteristics are present simultaneously, we may allow the inclusion of parties that have fewer features in
common, then these may show a mere resemblance. Examples are so-called ‘electoral democracies', where
people can vote but where elected parties cannot decide about the composition of the government in auto-
cratic or ‘hybrid’ systems.
Overall, these potential solutions to enlarge information on more cases are at the same time potentially af-
fecting the reliability and validity of the data in use. In part, these solutions are creating ‘artefacts’ and can
easily lead to the above mentioned caveat that too many data collections serve to underpin different theories
in political science. This observation only shows once more that the development and elaboration of a proper
Research Design is crucial for the further development of political science. However, even if we dispose of
a complete and convincing Research Design, that is adequately executed, the actual outcomes need to be
correctly interpreted in view of the Research Question that underlies the research results as such.
Interpreting Results
There are caveats and pitfalls to be taken into account when interpreting the generated data available –
whether or not with numerical values. These are:
• Galton's problem
• Individual and ecological fallacies
• Over-determination
Galton's Problem
Galton's problem refers to a situation where the observed differences and similarities may well be caused by
exogenous factors that are common to the cases selected for comparison, such as comparing fiscal policy-
making across states in Europe after the introduction of the European Monetary Union requirements, or the
choice of Westminster-style parliamentary governance in former British colonies (Burnham et al., 2004: 74).
Another example is the process of ‘globalization’ (see Kübler, 2016). Obviously, diffusion among different cas-
es or path dependence over time within a single or a few cases will affect the process of descriptive inference
because the explanation is distorted by a common external cause or sequence of events. A possible way
to detect such a common cause is either by triangulation (employing more than one method or more than
one type of data) or by applying comparative historical analysis (Mahoney and Rueschemeyer, 2003; Keman,
2016a).
Individual and Ecological Fallacies

An ecological fallacy occurs when data measured on an aggregated level (e.g. at the country level) are used
to make inferences about individual or group-level behaviour. Butt et al. (2016), for example, claim that survey
techniques remain important in political science, but are in dire need of linking the information to contextual
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factors. Conversely, individual fallacy is the result of interpreting data measured at the individual or group level
as if they represent the ‘whole’ (e.g. using electoral surveys for party behaviour or national attitudes, Welzel,
2007). This type of fallacy occurs often in comparative politics, be it case studies or multiple cases and shows
the need for reflecting on a proper level of measurement in the Research Design.
Over-Determination and Selection Biases

Over-determination and selection biases are risks that emanate from case selection. In particular, when a
Research Design is used containing similar cases (assuming ceteris paribus), the chances are high that the
dependent variable (Y) is over-determined by another difference that is not actually accounted for in the Re-
search Design. Conversely, if the cases included in the analysis are fairly homogeneous, there is a chance
that a selection bias will go unnoticed. As King et al. (1994: 141–2) note, if the similarities among the cases
affect the degree of comparative variation of the independent and dependent variables we cannot draw valid
conclusions (Landman, 2008).
In addition to these constraints and limitations, comparative methodology is often criticized for being a-the-
oretical, empiricist and solely country-oriented. However, we argue that the comparative approach may not
offer solutions for all types of research problems, but by acknowledging them and finding ways to arrive at
plausible answers a Research Design can be enhanced. Comparison is required to make research insightful
and scientifically relevant.
The alternative is to study a single case (Seha and Müller-Rommel, 2016). Several new approaches that are
related to the ‘spatial turn’ in comparative politics can help to advance new insights. One example is multi-
level governance (MLG) that criticizes methodological nationalism and other forms of centrism (like Europe or
democracies) that often characterize comparative politics. The MLG approach analyses how decision-mak-
ing competences are shared by policy-relevant actors at different levels of government (i.e. supranational,
national and sub-national levels; Kübler, 2016: 63–80). It focuses on the dynamics of cross-level interactions
between these actors in one or more policy areas. A second example examines interdependencies, policy
diffusion and policy transfer between national states and international agencies (Nölke, 2016). This type of
research argues that not only developments within nation-states matter, but also relations between nation-
states and inter- and supranational forms of cooperation and bargaining (Nölke, 2016). Such a relational ap-
proach means that policy outcomes are accounted for by multiple interdependencies in conjunction with do-
mestic factors.
Although these new developments are promising, we have to take into account an important caveat. The
existing applications to transnational politics are descriptive case studies and often lack explanatory power
and generalizability. Hence, case-based analyses should be regarded as useful additions to conventional ap-
proaches and not as replacements of the comparative approach as such (Seha and Müller-Rommel, 2016).
To conclude this section, the constraints and limitations of the comparative method need permanent attention.
However, it would be wrong to conclude that – given the complexities and criticisms discussed in this chapter
– the comparative approach to politics is therefore misdirected or fallacious. If we accept the fact that most po-
litical science is comparative, explicitly or implicitly, then it is one of the strengths of the comparative method
that both the advantages and disadvantages are recognized and discussed in terms of its Research Design.
Key Points

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• There are many hazards and pitfalls in comparative methods that ought to be taken into account to
link theory and evidence in a plausible fashion.
• Conceptual travelling is a sensitive instrument to widen the case selection as long as overstretching
is avoided. The use of ‘family resemblance’ and ‘functional equivalence’ can remedy this, if used pru-
dently.
• Interpretation problems are often due to biases like Galton's problem and over-determination, as well
as to individual and ecological fallacies. Avoiding these problems will reduce the probability of draw-
ing invalid conclusions.
Conclusions
We began with the claim that a Research Design in political science is essential for the development of high-
quality research. It is the crucial link between what the researcher aims to investigate and the ideas that may
answer this. Essentially a Research Question ought to be ‘theory guided'. In fact, there is one exception to
this ‘rule': a research project may be developed to test an existing research result in order to advance it by
means of new data or cases. Yet, the intrinsic goal of research should be to advance and extend our ‘knowl-
edge'.
The foundation of a Research Design rests with the proper planning of the ‘triad': relating a Research Ques-
tion to a Research Answer by means of a Research Design that allows for evidence-based research answers
(Box 21.1). Therefore, we have stressed throughout the importance of developing reliable and valid data that
enable the researcher to bridge the question and answer under review. Additionally, the issue of replication
was mentioned because it allows other researchers not only to replicate but also to amend and further exist-
ing results. The goal of a Research Design is to achieve generalizability of the results to advance knowledge
by means of data analysis, which is based on well-documented and reliable information and is internally and
externally valid (Box 21.2). Advancing theory and data is an intrinsic value in the academic community. It is a
‘collective good'!
To make this work, a Research Design needs to be characterized by an adequate elaboration. First of all, the
conceptualization of the central elements of a Research Question and the related Answer is crucial for the
elaboration of a viable Research Design. The type of concept used is closely related to the type of variables,
level of measurement and number of cases to be included in the Research Design. However, there is always
a trade-off between variables (many or few) and cases (many or few) in relation to the method used and the
eventual results. The analysed relationship between variables and cases defines the internal and external
validity of the initial research outcomes and opens avenues for further research by means of alternative re-
search designs. This contention is applicable to whatever type of Research Design, be it qualitative or quan-
titative, a multiple case analysis or a single case study. In our view this distinction is not relevant in view of
developing a Research Design as long as it conforms to our shared rules and standards that are in use and
have been accepted in the social sciences (Box 21.3).
The comparative approach, implicitly or explicitly, is defined in this chapter as the ‘royal way’ to do research
in political science. This position may be challenged, but nevertheless it is a useful departure for developing
a proper, valid and reliable Research Design. This enables the researcher to conduct thoughtful research be-
cause it forces her to include context, time and dimension. Further, as we discussed, it makes her aware of
the pitfalls and problems related to developing a viable, feasible and fruitful Research Design.

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Notes
1 This chapter is an original text, but also makes use of earlier publications by the author. See Keman and
Woldendorp (2016; Keman and Pennings, 2017).
2 Causality is a fraught concept in the social sciences and is hard to establish. Yet, it is now accepted that
if the variation in the dependent variable (Y – here: more or less expansion of the welfare state) is evidently
and systematically related to the variation in (one of) the independent variable(s) and a theory as to why this
is the case (X1: political indicators and X2: economic factors), then we can assume causality and the data
analysis is meant to demonstrate the relative weight of each variable (see also Baumgartner, Chapter 18, this
Handbook).
3 By ‘empirical’ we mean all observations that can be related to the ‘real world'. Alternatively, it can be consid-
ered as ‘evidence’ be it quantitatively (as a numeric variable) or qualitatively (as an interpreted description).
Yet, both approaches are subject to the shared rules and standards that apply within the social sciences. See
King et al. (1994; Brady and Collier, 2004; Berg-Schlosser, 2012).
4 Modernization theory refers to a model of a progressive transition from a ‘pre-modern’ or ‘traditional’ to a

‘modern’ society. Modernization theory originated from the ideas of German sociologist Max Weber. The the-
ory emphasizes those factors – e.g. economic growth – that can bring development in the ‘Third World’ in
the same manner as for earlier developed countries in Europe or North America. Modernization theory was a
dominant approach in the social sciences in the 1950s and 1960s.
5 Replication signifies the possibility for other researchers to repeat the original analysis independently using
the same evidence. This implies that the researcher ought to make his or her data publicly available. Nowa-
days there is a development to make evidence available via ‘open data’ archives.
6 QCA attempts to cater for ‘multiple causalities'. This type of analysis allows for the handling of many vari-
ables in combination with a relatively high number of cases simultaneously. Ragin (2008) claims that this type
of Research Design avoids the trade-off between many cases/few variables vs few cases/many variables.
The logic of comparison employed is based on Boolean algebra or ‘Fuzzy Set Logic' in which qualitative and
quantitative information is ordered in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions as regards the relationship
under investigation (see also Wagemann, Chapter 20, this Handbook).
7 The concepts concern: participatory, consensual, majoritarian, deliberative, egalitarian, electoral and liberal
democracy in as many countries as possible using almost 400 specific indicators. These data are collected
worldwide by country experts and their results are cross-validated and checked for reliability.
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Sage, pp. 108–113.
• research design
• research questions
• welfare state
• dependent variables
• independent variables
• theories
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n24

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Experiments
Contributors: Anna Bassi

Chapter Title: "Experiments"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Experiments
Anna Bassi
Social sciences have long been thought to be non-experimental disciplines. However, as history has taught
us, disciplines are not inherently experimental, but become so when theoretical concepts develop in a way to
be suitable for controlled manipulation. In the early 17th century, Galileo Galilei began to conduct physics ex-
periments because theoretical concepts such as force and mass had become well defined and easy to control
and manipulate. Similarly, in the early 20th century, psychology became an experimental science when psy-
chologists started to develop theories about how different stimuli could affect individual behavior. With their
similar focus on individual behavior, the disciplines of economics and political science soon followed. As was
the case for psychologists, political scientists have turned to experimental settings with the purpose of creat-
ing artificial situations in which they can observe the behavior of subjects and analyze the factors that deter-
mine such behavior. Experiments in economics and political science are also somewhat analogous to those
in physics, chemistry, and other natural sciences, with the only difference being that the subject of analysis
is the behavior of human beings. Common among these various disciplines is the very reason that scientists
became motivated to turn to experiments; that is, the realization that knowledge can be gained in a controlled
experimental setting regardless of time, place, and context.
The first study that adopted experimental methods in political science appeared in the 1920s (Gosnell, 1926).
Gosnell conducted a field experiment to investigate the effects of information on voter turnout in Chicago. He
hypothesized that turnout on election day would increase if voters were provided with information about reg-
istration procedures and they were encouraged to vote. In the summer preceding the Coolidge versus Davis
race, Gosnell tested his theory in 12 districts; constituents in six districts received information about regis-
tration procedures by mail, and those in the remaining six districts did not. Using this methodology, Gosnell
effectively manipulated the environment in six districts and controlled the effect of this manipulation by ob-
serving turnout in the six districts that were not provided with information. He observed that turnout was 8%
higher in the districts with information than in the districts that did not receive it.
After Gosnell's study, however, experimental methods did not become widespread in political science until the
early 1970s. Except for a few experimental studies of voter turnout (Eldersveld, 1956; Eldersveld and Dodge,
1954) and an early push toward the adoption of field experimentation (Campbell and Stanley, 1963), empirical
research in political science focused primarily on surveys and archival studies. However, the inability to an-
swer significant research questions, such as those that involve the direction of causality among variables, and
the emergence of new questions that were particularly suitable for experimentation, such as those that sought
information about the effect of institutions on political behavior, led to the reappearance of experimentation in
political science. Many experimental laboratories began to take shape and contributed to the growth of the
experimental methodology in different directions: Stony Brook laboratories were established at The State Uni-
versity of New York to perform political psychology experiments under the direction of Tanenhaus and Lodge;
at Yale, the University of Michigan, and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), experimental pro-
grams were pursued with the support from Kinder and Iyengar; while at the California Institute of Technology,
Plott established experimental laboratories to run political economy experiments.
By the beginning of the 1990s, experimental methods had achieved enough recognition to appear regularly in
general audience journals, such as the American Political Science Review and the American Journal of Polit-
ical Science. Groundbreaking articles such as those by Gerber and Green (2000) provided tools to overcome
many methodological fallacies associated with earlier field experiments and generated the reemergence of
field experimentation in political science. Technological advances such as computer-assisted and on-line sur-
veys also helped spur the expansion of experimentation, leading the way to a notable growth in experimental
studies. During the past 20 years, experimental studies have blossomed in the field of political science (see
Druckman et al., 2009, 2011 for a full account of the development of experimental methodology in political
science) and dozens of new subfields have opened to experimentation. In 2010, the American Political Sci-
ence Association welcomed the addition of an Experimental Research section (Section 42) and, in 2014, the
launch of the Journal of Experimental Political Science provided a stable platform for experimental studies of
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any type.
Despite the growth of the experimental methodology, experimental studies are nonetheless the target of sev-
eral criticisms. This chapter discusses the theoretical foundations, the advantages, and the challenges of the
experimental methodology both in theory and in practice, with specific emphasis on studies that are common-
ly referred to as ‘political economy experiments', which are incentivized, controlled laboratory experiments
that are focused mainly on testing theoretical predictions and conjectures.
The Experimental Method

One reason that experimental methods are unique is that they provide the ability to study non-naturally oc-
curring phenomena. The engine of the scientific process, which lies in the alternation of theory and empirical
evidence, not only requires analysis of observed phenomena but also requires exploration of counterfactuals.
However, counterfactuals do not necessarily occur in nature. The experimental laboratory provides a unique
environment to generate counterfactual situations and test theoretical conjectures to advance the scientific
process.
Experimentation is defined by the researcher's intervention upon nature and the control that experiments en-
capsulate to help provide answers to causal questions. The experimenter exercises three types of control.
First, she establishes an experimental setting that allows her to control for nuisance factors that could poten-
tially interfere with the causal relationship under study. Second, she generates different treatments to isolate
causal factors and identify the effect(s) of each individual factor. Third, she exercises control over potential
contamination by scheduling observations in a way that causal relationships are not affected by nuisance ef-
fects that might occur simultaneously with the treatment.
When an experimenter is not able to exercise these three types of controls, ‘quasi-experiments’ or ‘natural
experiments’ may emerge. In quasi-experiments, one of the three types of control is missing. For example,
experiments in educational settings often lack the first and third type of control. For ethical reasons, the ex-
perimenter cannot expose participants to the full set of treatments that she wishes to apply: for example, the
experimenter cannot force participants to smoke or not smoke, be (un)athletic, eat (un)healthily, etc. Likewise,
for either ethical or policy reasons, she might not be able to pick and choose participants to be exposed to a
specific treatment like Gosnell did (Gosnell, 1926), being constrained to run the same experimental treatment
to all students of the same classroom or school. Natural experiments are a subset of quasi-experiments in
that they lack the second type of control. In natural experiments, nature acts as the experimenter, generating
an exogenous treatment and exposing only a subset of subjects to it. In other words, nature acts in a way that
is close to how the researcher would have intervened.
Experiments can be divided in two large groups: field experiments and laboratory experiments. Field exper-
iments typically are conducted in settings where the phenomenon under study naturally occurs, providing a
more realistic environment than a laboratory setting, but limiting the experimenter's control over potential con-
founding effects. Laboratory experiments typically are characterized by a common physical location where
subjects participate in the experiment. In this location, the laboratory, the experimenter exercises maximum
control over all aspects of the phenomenon under study. Most experiments fall into either of these two broad
categories, but some may fall somewhere between the two. For example, on-line experiments, which allow
subjects to participate largely via the internet, are neither purely laboratory nor purely field experiments. In
fact, subjects neither interact in the same controlled physical location nor in the natural location where the
phenomenon occurs. As a result, the experimenter has greater control over the creation of settings than in a
field experiment but loses control over potential confounding effects because of her inability to observe the
subjects directly while they are exposed to the treatment. Details regarding the two broad categories of field
and laboratory experiments are given in the following subsections.

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Field Experiments
Field experiments typically are performed in settings with a high degree of naturalism. To control for unob-
servable confounding effects, the experimenter randomly assigns the treatment among participants. Random
assignment, if performed with a large enough number of participants, ensures the balance of observable and
unobservable confounding variables among the treatment groups, thus allowing causal relationships to be
established. The degree of naturalism in an experiment is established according to four criteria (Gerber and
Green, 2012): (i) whether the experimental manipulation resembles the phenomenon in the real world, (ii)
whether experimental subjects resemble the actors who usually are involved in that phenomenon, (iii) whether
the context in which subjects are exposed to the treatment resembles the context of interest, and (iv) whether
the outcome measure resembles the actual phenomenon outcome. For example, Gosnell's field experiment
(Gosnell, 1926) tested a realistic get-out-the-vote campaign rather than a simulated campaign. It targeted
eligible voters in certain Chicago neighborhoods where elections would actually take place instead of using
a convenience sample of participants at, for example, a college campus. Finally, Gosnell's experiment as-
sessed actual voter turnout behavior rather than the mere intent to turn out or simulated voting behavior.
One of the benefits of field experiments compared to laboratory experiments is that field experiments are con-
sidered to have high external validity. Because the manipulation of the environment, the participants, the set-
ting, and the outcomes more closely resemble those that would occur in the real world, causal relationships
established through field experiments are considered to have more validity and generalizability than those
established in settings where these relationships are artificially created. As Gerber and Green argue, ‘field
experiments strive to be as realistic and unobtrusive as possible’ (2012: 9). as the less subjects are aware
of being part of a study, the more they will behave naturally and will be unbiased against what they think the
experimenter is trying to accomplish.
Laboratory Experiments
Laboratory experiments are experiments in which subjects are recruited to come to a common physical lo-
cation (a laboratory) and the researcher controls all aspects except for subject behavior in the environment
at that location. Subjects typically are given instructions (also called ‘scripts’ or ‘frames') that describe the
choices they will make during the experiment. Laboratory experiments can be divided into two subcategories:
political psychology experiments and political economy experiments. Although both categories share the sim-
ilar goal of studying attitudes and behavior, they use different approaches to address similar questions. As
Ariely and Norton (2007) suggest, the different approaches derive from the different methodologies by which
the two disciplines recreate real-world phenomena in the laboratory environment; psychologists use decep-
tion and economists use incentives. After deciding which aspect(s) of the phenomenon to bring to the labo-
ratory for testing, the experimenter must find a way to recreate this aspect within the experiment. This stage
is the most important in designing an experimental study and, as discussed in the next sections, affects the
study's validity. It is at this stage that economists and psychologists take different routes. Economists bring a
phenomenon to the laboratory by abstracting it from inessential features and focusing only on variables that
the theory identifies as those that drive agents’ behavior. Because most political economy theoretical mod-
els are derived from assumptions found in rational agent theory, economists recreate in the experiment the
incentives that theoretical models claim agents in the real world face. For psychologists, agents’ decisions
are context-dependent, meaning that environmental factors that are bypassed by rational agent theory are
claimed to affect agents’ behavior. As a result, psychologists expend much effort in recreating contextual as-
pects that are considered key factors in explaining real-world phenomena. As these contextual aspects might
be perceived as preposterous by the experiment participants, experimenters need to use stories and decep-
tion to ensure that people react to the contexts as naturally as they would in the real world (Kimmel, 1998).
For psychologists, the use of deception is essential to represent contextual cues in the experiment. By con-

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trast, economists have no use for deception, as they aim to abstract the phenomenon from specific contexts.
For economists, deception only carries a potential risk to the validity of the experiment. In fact, the suspicion
and mistrust that deception might evoke in participants could affect the trust in the experimenter and in the
experimental institutions that the experimenter is trying to recreate. Dickson (2011) and Bol (2018) provide full
accounts and discussions of the conceptual and methodological differences between political economy and
political psychology experiments.
The rest of this chapter is devoted primarily to political economy experiments and highlights the principles
on which political economy experiments build and ways that political economy experiments differ from other
types of experimental methods.
Political Economy Experiments

The first studies in the political economy experiment tradition were developed in the 1950s by Fouraker and
Siegel (Siegel and Fouraker, 1960), who conducted a series of experiments aimed at analyzing agents’ bar-
gaining behavior. Fouraker and Siegel combined, for the first time, methods belonging to economics (theo-
retical models of bargaining) with methods pertaining to psychology (experimental methods), while adopting
real incentives to motivate subjects. Although these studies were later developed to test hypotheses from the
psychology literature, Fouraker and Siegel laid the foundations for what became the distinguishing features
of experimentation in economics: incentivized, controlled, laboratory experiments.
After Siegel's death in 1961 and a period of slow growth of experimentation in economics, Charles Plott be-
came the forerunner of political economy experiments in the early 1970s. Plott believed that the similarity
between social choice theory and economic theory, that is, that both types of theory build on fundamental as-
sumptions such as rational agents and equilibrium behavior, make political science topics and questions like
voting and committee behaviors ideal candidates to be studied in experimental settings.
During the past five decades, political economy experiments have grown in number in both economics and
political science. Groundbreaking theories, such as those that involve spatial models, agenda-setting models,
models of turnout and political participation, and legislative bargaining, have been tested in various labora-
tory settings (see Palfrey, 2009, 2012, for a thorough survey of the development and contributions of politi-
cal economy experiments to political science). Novel theoretical models and new phenomena have emerged
and have been explored thanks to the experimental methodology. Notable and most recent examples are the
studies of Grosser and Palfrey (2019), who propose and test a variation of the citizen candidate model; Merlo
and Palfrey (2018), who use laboratory data to conduct a test on the predictive power of competing behavioral
models of voter turnout (such as instrumental voting, altruistic voting, expressive voting, and ethical voting);
and Casella et al. (2012), who test theoretical models of vote-trading. Importantly, new fields have started to
open to the experimental methodology. Researchers in comparative politics have increasingly adopted what
are referred to as ‘lab-in-the-field experiments’ to study political behavior and attitudes in theoretically rele-
vant populations. Examples of this kind of laboratory experiments include the study conducted in Nepal on
collective behavior in conflict-plagued regions by Gilligan et al. (2014), and the study on the effect of sanc-
tioning on public goods contributions run in Uganda by Grossman and Baldassarri (2012). Political economy
experiments have started to develop also in the field of international relations, from the early application of
Pilisuk (1984), who studied an arms race dilemma, to the study of Tingley and Walter (2011), which analyzes
the effect of costless threats on the probability to deter opponents’ attacks.
Alvin Roth proposes a classification of political economy experiments as a function of the experiment's prima-
ry goal (Roth, 1986, 1988, 1995). The first of three classes includes all experiments aimed at testing hypothe-
ses derived from formal theoretical models. Experimental methods contribute to the advancement of science
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by discriminating among alternative theories, testing the predictive power and robustness of a single theory,
and shedding light on elements that the theory has ignored. Examples of this type of experiment include ulti-
matum games experiments (Güth et al., 1982), coordination games (Van Huyck et al., 1990), and bargaining
game experiments (Roth, 1983). These contributions constitute the classic and probably most common goal
of experimental research.
The second class includes all those experiments that investigate phenomena that cannot be explained by ex-
isting theories. Many experimental projects start with the goal of testing a theory and then extend the aim to
include analysis of anomalies, that is, behaviors that violate well-established and prevailing theories. Exam-
ples of this type of experiment include the Ellsberg paradox (Ellsberg, 1961), the Allais paradox (Allais, 1953),
and the preference reversal phenomenon (Grether and Plott, 1979). This category of experiments has given
rise to the formulation of new theories that are capable of explaining behavioral regularities, and the creation
of so-called ‘behavioral economics'. While experimentation represents primarily a method of investigation, be-
havioral economics is mostly concerned with the process of revising classic rational agent theories.
The third class includes those experiments that are intended to support or guide policy choices. An example
is the series of experiments that explore the conflict between individual interest and group interest. Studies
that belong to this line of research appear in different disciplines (social dilemmas experiments in psychology,
tragedy of the commons in political science, and public goods in economics) and they share the goal of pro-
viding tools to attenuate the conflict between individual and group interests to achieve a common desirable
outcome (Isaac et al., 1985; Plott, 1983). Experiments that aim at testing new voting procedures before they
are adopted for real elections also belong to this class of studies. Examples of this type of experiments are
studies by Forsythe et al. (1996), which analyzes the impact of polls on election outcomes, Blais et al. (2010),
which tests the performance of rational choice theory to predict individual behavior, and Bassi (2015), which
analyzes the extent of strategic voting under different voting procedures.
Principles of Experimentation
A laboratory experiment needs to reproduce the abstract context of the theory that it wants to test in the ar-
tificial setting of the laboratory. The experimenter creates a self-contained environment – a microcosm – that
consists of individual agents together with an institution through which they interact. The experimental sub-
jects are the agents who act in this microcosm and the institution specifies which interactions are allowed and
the potential outcomes of each interaction. For example, to analyze the way in which different voting systems
affect the likelihood of voters to vote strategically, the experimenter needs to create an environment where
experimental subjects can act as voters (agents) in an election that is administered using a specific voting
system (institution). Controlled laboratory experiments are uniquely positioned for studying the behavior of
agents within different economic and political institutions, even those institutions that do not exist in nature.
The researcher can test different theories about how these institutions affect human behavior. The subse-
quent analysis of agents’ behavior in an experimental setting can provide support for extant theories or serve
as a tool to refine these theories.
As part of the scientific dialogue, theories organize our knowledge and help us predict behavior in new situ-
ations. Empirical analysis turns up regularities that are not explained by theory, thus leading to theory refine-
ments. The experimental method provides a unique ‘ground zero’ empirical environment for testing a theory. If
a theory fails to predict agents’ behavior in the simplified artificial environment of a laboratory, then the theory
needs to be revised and improved before it is applied in empirical settings with higher degrees of naturalism.
The use of data that are generated under controlled laboratory conditions has begun to play a key role in
bridging the gap between the theoretical world in which the researcher can keep all the variables constant,
except the focus variables (creating ceteris paribus conditions), and the real world in which no such control
is possible. Hence, experiments are situated in a key intermediate place on the path of scientific dialogue
between the formulation of theoretical conjectures about real-world phenomena and their final applications.
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Induced-Value Theory
The first principle of experimentation is that, to provide a test for a theoretical claim, the experiment must
share the same characteristics as the theory it is designed to test. Rational agent theory assumes that agents
assign values to each outcome and that, given these values, the institutional differences have predictable ef-
fects on the subjects’ choices. To test a theory, the experimenter must induce subjects to have the same value
orderings over outcomes as are assumed by the theory. As aforementioned, political economy experiments
achieve this goal through the use of incentives. The experimenter, in order to motivate participants to behave
as they would in real life, must explicitly define the incentives as an integral part of the experimental design so
that participants can fully evaluate the costs and benefits of each decision, thereby mirroring the theoretical
claims and predictions (Edwards, 1961; Hertwig and Ortmann, 2001).
Vernon Smith organized the methodology of experimental political economy around a set of ‘precepts’ of
the experimental design (Smith, 1976), which focused on the importance of incentives, following the lead of
Siegel (Siegel and Fouraker, 1960). According to the induced-value theory, the proper use of a reward medi-
um induces specific characteristics in experimental subjects such that the background characteristics of the
subjects become irrelevant. Smith (1976, 1982) specifies four norms that a reward medium must satisfy to
form an adequate incentive structure: monotonicity, salience, dominance, and privacy.
Monotonicity (or non-satiation) is the first norm of induced-value theory. According to monotonicity, subjects
must prefer a choice that provides more of the reward medium over a choice that provides less reward, as-
suming the two choices lead to an otherwise equivalent outcome. Salience prescribes that a reward is a
function of the subject's behavior (and that of other agents), as clearly defined by institutional rules. The re-
lationship between a reward medium and institutional rules is well understood by and consequential to the
subject; that is, the subject has a guaranteed right to claim the reward based on his or her actions in the
experiment. Salience connects the outcomes in the laboratory microcosm to a reward medium that the sub-
ject cares about. This aspect of salience is the reason that many political economy experiments do not use
subjects who have previously participated in experiments that employ deception. Subjects who have been
deceived in the past might not trust the experimenter and her promise to compensate them according to the
institutional rules.
Dominance prescribes that the utility of the experimental subjects is a function predominantly of the reward
medium while other factors are negligible. The reward medium dominates any subjective value that a subject
can bring to the experiment. In order to be dominant, a reward medium must be substantial enough to incen-
tivize the subject to put forth maximum effort to understand the institutional rules and to behave in such a way
to maximize the reward, given the institutional rules. A common convention is to compensate experimental
subjects approximately twice their opportunity cost. For example, if undergraduate students on a university
campus earn on average $15 per hour by working in the library or tutoring other students, compensating them
$30 per hour should be sufficient to dominate any other motivating factors. Another way to increase domi-
nance is to design the experiment in a way that reduces the impact of any other background preference. This
aspect is the reason that many political economy experiments use abstract and neutral terminology and keep
the experimental goals as general as possible. For example, the dominance of a voting experiment design
that uses real candidates’ names is diminished when pre-existing political preferences do not align and might
suppress the preference(s) that the experimental design aims to induce.
Privacy specifies the information that is provided to each subject. Each experimental subject is given infor-
mation only about his or her own reward. Single-blind privacy prescribes that subjects may know the choices
and the rewards of other subjects, but not the other subjects’ identities. Only the experimenter has complete
information regarding the correspondence between rewards and subjects’ identities (usually for payment pur-
poses). With double-blind privacy, not even the experimenter has knowledge of this correspondence, and the
payment process is handled through a third party or anonymous entity.
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Although none of the four norms explicitly mentions monetary rewards, financial incentives have become the
gold standard for political economy experiments and their use as a reward medium is considered a sufficient
condition to satisfy all the induced-value theory precepts. The reason is twofold: on the one hand, monetary
rewards are considered the only reward media that satisfy monotonicity and non-satiation. Although other re-
ward media, such as lottery tickets, chocolate, or extra course credit, might satisfy monotonicity at least for a
specific group of subjects, an experimenter can feel confident that every participant prefers more money than
less without feeling satiated. However, many people might feel satiated after accumulating large amounts of
other reward media, such as chocolate or course credits. On the other hand, financial rewards reduce vari-
ation in subjects’ performance by reducing the variation of subjects’ preferences (or intensity of preferences)
for the reward. For example, lottery tickets might satisfy monotonicity and non-satiation, but subjects might
differ in terms of how much they value them. Participants who are more risk-averse would value lottery tickets
less than participants who are risk lovers. Furthermore, even when controlling for risk attitudes, participants
might have different beliefs regarding the probability of winning the reward. Subjects who do not have perfect
and complete information about the probability of winning, or who have time preferences and discount the
time when the winning ticket is drawn, would value lottery tickets less than the experimenter might expect.
The reward of extra course credits shares a similar problem, as students who naturally perform better might
value extra credit less than students who need extra credit to improve their grades. Hence, financial incen-
tives are more likely to satisfy dominance precepts than other reward media.
For these reasons, cash is the most often used form of reward media for behavioral experiments. In addition
to being dispensed to the subjects at the end of the experiment as compensation for their participation, cash
also is sometimes used prior to the experiment to induce salience. This form of reward, often referred to as
an ‘on-time bonus', serves primarily to establish ex ante credibility about the experimenter's solvency beside
the clear minor goal of reducing tardiness. Credibility is a key feature that the experimenter needs to gain and
maintain to satisfy salience. If subjects do not believe that they are going to be compensated in the manner
that the experimenter has described at the beginning of the experiment, then their behavior will not be deter-
mined by the underlying theoretical model.
However, compensating subjects solely with a fixed reward (as is common practice in political psychology ex-
periments) does not satisfy induced-value theory because the theoretical values and order of preferences are
not actually induced (the theoretical values are not salient). Furthermore, other confounding variables might
become dominant and drive subjects’ behavior. For example, subjects might prefer to minimize the time it
takes to finish the experimental task rather than exerting effort. Subjects might feel empathetic toward fellow
subjects who perform worse than they do and consequently may then act in a way that helps the poorer per-
formers. The use of financial incentives suppresses the variability in the data that may be caused by subjects
who make choices because of considerations outside the realm of the theory.
Multi-session experiments, which involve repeated interactions with the same subjects, also pose difficulties
for induced-value theory. These experiments typically require the same subjects to participate in a series of
experimental sessions conducted at different points of time, with the time between sessions allowing partici-
pants to assimilate, or forget, what they have been exposed to in earlier sessions. Even though compensating
the subjects at the end of each session is ideal to satisfy dominance and salience, it might also generate attri-
tion, since subjects might choose not to return to a new session of a multi-session study. Paying the subjects
at the end of the last session (and thus for the entire experiment) is the only way to guarantee that all subjects
will return for all subsequent sessions that the experimental design includes. However, this payment scheme
can be implemented only in a well-established pool of subjects who have participated in experiments before
and who have never been deceived and, as a consequence, trust that the experimenter will keep her word
and pay them at the end of the experiment. When this scenario is not the case, the experimenter can use a
higher payout rate in the subsequent experimental sessions to reduce attrition and induce subjects to return
and participate in the entire series of sessions.
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Conventional one-session experimental studies that included multiple rounds (or tasks) pose a similar prob-
lem. Even though attrition is not a major concern – as the probability that subjects drop out during a single
session is usually very low – fatigue and wealth effects might decrease dominance. On the one hand, long ex-
perimental sessions might create boredom and tiredness that decrease the subjects’ attention and effort. On
the other hand, the accumulation of earnings gained in the earlier rounds creates wealth that can reduce the
dominance of the reward medium in subsequent rounds. Fatigue and wealth effects on late-rounds behavior
can be mitigated by paying subjects for a randomly drawn round rather than for each round. In doing so, each
round would have the same probability to be selected and to determine the participants’ compensation, forc-
ing subjects to pay the same attention to each round without being affected by the possibility of accumulated
wealth.
Controlled Experimental Design

The second principle of the experimental method is referred to as ‘perfect control'. The goal of the experi-
menter is to analyze the effect of focus variables on the variable of interest. However, other nuisance variables
also might have an effect, and the experimenter must account for them to avoid reaching wrong conclusions.
The point of experimentation is to be sure that the effect of the focus variable is clean and is not confounded
by the effect of other variables. To separate the effects of focus and nuisance variables, the experimental de-
sign must employ two key devices: controlled treatment and randomization.
Controlled treatment is an intervention or artificial variation that is induced by the experimenter. Experimental
subjects are divided into groups that receive different or no treatment (the group that receives no treatment is
usually referred to as the control group). By comparing the level of the variable of interest across groups, the
experimenter can test whether a specific intervention or treatment has caused a change in the behavior of the
experimental subjects. This type of experimental design, in which the treatment variable varies only across
groups of subjects, is called ‘between-subject’ design.
The between-subject design builds on the so-called ‘controlled variation’ logic, which assumes that groups
that are exposed to different treatments are identical, or at least similar enough to be deemed equivalent.
This assumption is pivotal for the logic to work. In fact, should this equivalency not be the case, the exper-
imenter cannot attribute a difference across groups to the different treatments to which the groups are ex-
posed because the groups were already different before being exposed to the treatments. A treatment test
works only if all other factors that might influence the subject's behavior remain fixed or if these factors are
uniformly distributed, or equally present, in all treatment groups. According to induced-value theory precepts,
a dominant reward medium should suppress other factors that might affect a subject's behavior. However,
when the groups are different enough, even with a dominant reward medium, any difference in the groups’
behavior cannot be attributed solely to the difference in the treatment variable. For example, if all the subjects
in a group are poorly educated and all the subjects in another group are highly educated, their behavior in
response to a stimulus might differ simply because the subjects in the second group are better able to under-
stand their optimal course of action. Hence, the experimenter needs to create groups in a way that all possible
factors that could affect the variable of interest are balanced. The most obvious way to balance these factors
is by matching, which is the process of assigning subjects to each treatment group in a way that the groups
are similar with respect to key characteristics.
Another way to avoid confounding problems that may emerge due to potentially dissimilar groups without
directly controlling for them via matching procedures is through randomization. Because direct control is es-
sentially impossible to achieve, given the number of known and unknown factors that an experimenter needs
to balance and that matching is always less than perfect, randomization has become the most commonly
used method to guarantee pretreatment similarity of groups. With randomization, provided that the sample is
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large enough, the differences among groups are neutralized. Hence, a carefully designed experiment that is
based on the logic of controlled comparison and uses randomization to assign subjects to different treatment
groups achieves the property of perfect control that is essential in all experimental sciences. Friedman and
Sunder (1994) classified four types of randomized design as functions of the direct control component they
entail. These types of randomization, described in the following paragraphs, are: completely randomized de-
sign, factorial design, random block design, and within-subject design.
The simplest type of randomized design is the completely randomized design in which each treatment is
equally likely to be assigned to each subject. This type of randomized design is ideal when the design involves
few treatments and a large number of participants. When the number of participants increases, the probability
of any correlation between the treatment and the nuisance variables decreases until it becomes negligible.
When the efficacy of a completely randomized experiment is hindered by the number of treatment variables
that the experimental design entails, a factorial design type of randomization can be used. The difference be-
tween a completely randomized design and a factorial design is that the former assigns each combination of
treatments randomly to each participant, whereas the latter assigns the same number of participants to each
combination of treatments. Even though the two types of design achieve the same goal as the number of
participants increases, a factorial design is more efficient with a limited number of participants.
When the number of participants is limited and the nuisance variables still appear to be correlated with the
treatment variable, an optimal solution is to use the right combination of control and randomization. In a ran-
dom block randomized design, one or more nuisance variables are controlled in blocks; that is, they are held
constant within a block but varied across blocks. Each block represents a set of participants. Independence
or (no correlation) between treatment and nuisance variables can be also be achieved using a within-sub-
ject design in which each subject serves as a block and the nuisance variables are fixed inside the block. In
this type of design, each subject is exposed to different treatments and the subjects’ behaviors are compared
across treatments.
Experimental Subjects
The presence of human subjects makes behavioral experiments crucially different from other methodologies.
Theoretical models often do not engage in questions about how people react to changes of situations, learn,
form beliefs, and choose strategies, relying instead on simplifying assumptions of rationality. Theories gener-
ally assume a homogenous abstract agent (the so-called ‘representative agent'), but human beings are het-
erogeneous and differ greatly. The experimenter must be the one to decide which differences among human
beings matter for the experiment's purpose and which do not.
Most political economy experiments use college students as experimental subjects, which may relate to the
convenience and relative ease of recruiting undergraduate students, but also to the specific features these
students encompass. Undergraduate students have ready access to the subject pool, they can be recruited
easily on university campuses where laboratories typically are located, and they have a low opportunity cost,
which means that dominance can easily be achieved through a reward medium. But most importantly, college
students are on average more literate in language and math, and generally display an ability to learn and as-
similate new concepts that often cannot be matched by other segments of the population. This sophistication
and steep learning curve make college students a best fit to participate in behavioral experiments where par-
ticipants typically have only a limited time to become familiar with a new environment and try to discern the
best course of action. Finally, undergraduate students usually lack the exposure to experience or information
that might bias their behavior, which is the primary reason that graduate students or professionals typically
are not recruited to participate in behavioral experiments. Undergraduate students are thought to respond
more in terms of their understanding of possibly relevant theories than to direct incentives (the incentives be-
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come less dominant) whereas graduate students and professionals may use decision rules with which they
are familiar but that are not appropriate or useful for the specific experimental task. Hence, unless the skills
necessary for the experiment cannot be acquired during the period of the experiment, the advantages of us-
ing student subjects are so great that switching to other subject pools usually is not justifiable.
However, the usefulness of undergraduate students as subjects does not mean that experimenters should
run experiments using their own students. On the contrary, experimenters should use caution before running
experiments in their classroom. Classroom experiments offer the advantage of effortless recruiting and sched-
uling, and the opportunity for students to earn academic credits can produce dominance by itself or along the
use of a financial reward medium. However, classroom experiments present many problems. First, the rela-
tionship between subjects and the experimenter can create validity problems; students may want to impress
the experimenter/instructor by behaving in a way that they believe pleases her, and instructors may imprint
personal points of view on their students that might bias their behavior during an experiment. Second, class-
room experiments present ethical concerns; when class time or grades are used to motivate subjects, a con-
flict may arise between the pedagogical needs of the university's program of instruction and the instructor's
research needs. Grades must measure or approximate the students’ learning accomplishment in the course.
When no connection between pedagogical and research goals can be established, the experimenter should
limit the experimentally determined component of the grade to a small fraction of the total grade. For these
reasons, classroom experiments are best suited for pilot or exploratory studies.
Validity
In general, the validity of a research project is the extent to which the research is sound. The validity of an
experimental study concerns both its design and methods and has three connotations: first, validity pertains
to the extent to which the subject of evaluation reflects the phenomenon under study; second, validity refers
to the degree to which the results of the study add to the understanding of the phenomenon; and third, va-
lidity indicates the extent to which the results and implications that are drawn from a study can be extended
to other contexts. Cook and Campbell (1979) deconstruct validity into a typology of four concepts: construct
validity, causal validity, statistical validity, and external validity.
Construct validity is the degree to which inference from the data is valid for the theory under study. In practice,
a study has construct validity when the data-generating process used in the experimental setting matches the
theoretical concept it is intended to study. The major hurdle to construct validity lies often in the complexity of
the political concepts under study. Because political variables are often ambiguous, a unique way to recreate
a theoretical concept in the laboratory is not always feasible. An example is testing the theoretical conjecture
that the more aggressive the leader, the higher his or her approval ratings. Although approval rating is not an
ambiguous concept, aggressiveness is, and its definition can be operationalized. For example, the construct
of aggression could be operationally defined as action that leads to physical harm, physical or verbal threats,
debate strategies that aim to hinder the opportunity of the opponent to raise his or her point, or simple obnox-
iousness. Although conceptualization and measurement are factors that are common to all empirical analy-
ses, political economy experiments generally suffer from these factors to a lesser extent because the theoret-
ical models that they typically test provide clearly specified and less ambiguous variables to operationalize;
thus, it is easier to represent them in the abstract laboratory setting of political economy experimentation.
Causal validity is whether the relationship that the researcher finds within the target population is causal or
not. In experimental settings, the researcher manipulates a treatment variable (or independent variable) to
determine its effect on the focus variable (or dependent variable). If the researcher can attribute the observed
difference (or change) in the dependent variable to the independent variable, and if she can rule out other
explanations or rival hypotheses, then the inference is said to be causally or internally valid. Internal validity is
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one of the most important features that a study should be able to satisfy. That is, when factors that are extra-
neous to the concerns of the study can affect the results of the study, the findings can simply be considered
invalid. Controlling all possible factors that threaten internal validity is a primary responsibility of every study.
Statistical validity assesses whether the covariance between the variables of interest is statistically significant
and whether the relationship is sizeable. Experimental findings can support statistical validity also through
reproducibility. When a study, if reproduced under the same conditions, produces the same findings, the sta-
tistical validity of its findings increases.
External validity describes the extent to which findings can be generalized beyond the parameters of a spe-
cific study. Generalizability can be of two types: generalization to and generalization across. The former as-
sesses whether the results can be applied beyond the sample of participants and to the entire population; the
latter assesses whether the results can be applied beyond the particulars of time, place, and methodology.
One of the main threats to the ‘generalization to’ type of external validity concerns the adequacy of the sample
used in the study. Samples that are representative of the population are deemed to be better fitted to gener-
ate findings that can be generalized to the entire population. The predominant use of convenience samples,
typically composed of undergraduate students, has made the experimental methodology a constant object of
criticism. The main threat to the second type of externality validity, ‘generalization across’ (also called ‘eco-
logical validity'), concerns the correspondence between the conditions under which a study is conducted and
the real-world conditions in which the phenomenon occurs. When this correspondence is weak, the likelihood
that the findings can be extended to other environments and settings decreases. Hence, ecological validity
and internal validity are inversely related. Increasing the artificiality of the research conditions increases the
control of nuisance variables, increasing the study's internal validity, but it reduces its correspondence with
reality, thus decreasing ecological validity.
Validity lies at the center of a debate about the usefulness and appropriateness of experimental methods in
political science. The next section discusses the strengths and hurdles of the experimental methodology and
suggests a path to overcome their challenges and broaden their appeal for scholars in the field.
Experimental Strengths and Weaknesses: Ongoing Debates and Perspectives

The two main advantages of experimental methodology compared to other methodologies are the ability to
control the data-generating process and the possibility to reproduce and replicate data creation. Perfect con-
trol over the experimental microcosm allows the researcher to engage in types of analyses that are impos-
sible when using naturally occurring data. For example, the ability to recreate theoretical settings and ma-
nipulate laboratory conditions in order to isolate key variables allows the experimenter to test theoretical pre-
dictions. This work is not possible when using data from natural settings, because real-world settings that
correspond to theoretical assumptions (which would constitute a natural experiment) are extremely difficult
to find in nature and the conditions to test theoretical conjectures are virtually impossible to manipulate. As
argued by Davis and Holt (1993), the absence of control over natural data prevents the simplest prediction
of any theoretical model from being verified. Furthermore, experimental methodology is ideally suited to test
causal propositions. By varying one treatment variable at a time, any correlation between a treatment variable
and a focus variable can reflect a causal relationship with a clear direction of causality. Furthermore, the ex-
perimenter can engage in analytical decomposition and analyze the direct and interactive effects of multiple
treatment variables. Last, by controlling and appropriately manipulating background factors, the experimental
method is an ideal tool to test the robustness and validity of causal relationships.
Reproducibility and replicability describe the possibility to recreate the experimental findings using the same
methods and conditions of the original study and using different methods from the original study, respectively.
Because the experimenter has created the experimental environment, the results are expected to be repro-
ducible as long as the environment can be reproduced in an equivalent manner. Reproducibility of an experi-
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ment allows a researcher to verify other researchers’ experimental findings in an independent manner.
The main criticism of the experimental methodology is focused on validity. As discussed, the methodology
used in a study is considered internally valid when it allows conclusions to be drawn on behavior within the
study, and the methodology is considered externally valid when it allows conclusions to be drawn on behav-
ior outside the study. An experimental study is not internally valid when the design is inappropriate for the
phenomenon under study (no construct validity) or it lacks proper control (no causal validity), and it is not ex-
ternally valid when the experimental findings do not give information about behavior outside the experimental
study. An experimental study can have low external validity if the population sample that participated in the
experiment responds to experimental manipulations differently than other samples would respond in other
settings.
Although internal validity concerns can be addressed with appropriate experimental design and implementa-
tion, concerns about external validity are more complex, as they do not pertain strictly to a specific study but to
the entire experimental discipline. Detractors and critics of experimental methods claim that because the arti-
ficiality of the experimental setting does not mirror real-world situations, experimental findings cannot be gen-
eralized to other environments. Friedman and Sunder (1994) argue that external validity issues are inherent
of all empirical methodologies. Because all investigations are conducted in specific settings, no single study
can produce general knowledge. Single observations have no phenomenological status unless they support
a theoretical claim. Hence, general knowledge exists only in tandem with theoretical knowledge. As Friedman
and Sunder (1994) claim, behavioral regularities will persist in new situations to the extent that the relevant
underlying conditions remain substantially unchanged, where it is the theory that defines what is relevant and
what is substantial. Via its abstractness, a theory applies across settings and populations. Hence, as noted
by Plott (1982), for experimental studies that are aimed at testing hypotheses derived from formal theoretical
models, the abstractness of the laboratory setting is an advantage because it better mirrors the abstractness
of a general theory. If an experimental design recreates and manipulates every theoretically relevant variable
and finds an effect that does not generalize to naturally occurring situations, then such an outcome is not rep-
resentative of criticism of the experimental study but of the underlying theory. Hence, the key component of
external validity is the underlying theoretical proposition. One way to increase external validity is to improve
the confirmatory status of the theory by conducting ad hoc scientific replications. Through replications of the
experimental study using different measures and settings, confidence in the theory is gained and each suc-
cessive test increases the external validity of the experimental findings.
Another criticism regarding the external validity of laboratory experiments pertains to the student samples
that laboratory experiments traditionally use. Because laboratory experiments do not draw probability sam-
ples from large populations – a sampling technique usually adopted in other methodologies – critics often
argue that experimental findings cannot be generalized from a convenience sample to the larger population.
Although college students who participate in experiments represent a specific sample of a small and distinct
population, their use as experimental subjects is not a downside for studies whose goal is to disprove or con-
firm a theory. In fact, homogeneous samples are better fitted for this purpose than heterogeneous ones, as
homogeneous samples increase the likelihood of identifying violations of a theory when the theory is false.
The way to overcome all these criticisms, increase external validity of experimental studies, and increase the
generalizability of underlying theories is to employ replications. Replications should be conducted using non-
random samples that differ significantly from the sample used in the original study on measurements of vari-
ables for which the theoretical prediction is expected to hold. For example, if a theoretical claim is expected to
hold for different measurement of the ‘age’ variable, an experimental study that uses college student samples
should be replicated using senior participants. Stress tests also should be conducted using samples that differ
from the sample used in the original study, along measurements or variables not described by the theory, but
that are closer to real-world characteristics. As McDermott argues: ‘Conducting a series of experiments which
include different populations, involve different situations, and utilize multiple measurements establishes the
fundamental basis of external validity’ (2011: 38). Only by increasing the heterogeneity of the study popula-

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tion, the settings, and the circumstances of the situation in which a phenomenon occurs, can generalizability
of both the theoretical construct and the empirical findings be established.
Concluding Thoughts
This chapter is not intended to cover the extensive literature of political economy experiments. Instead, the
goal is to provide readers with an understanding of the conceptual features that set political economy experi-
ments apart from other types of experiments and to offer a glimpse on the development of this methodology.
Political economy experiments are uniquely fitted to test theoretical models of political interaction and to gen-
erate refinements and improvements of such theories. Their use in political science has grown so much in the
past 20 years that this type of laboratory, controlled, incentivized experimentation is now regarded as one of
the most valuable tools of empirical analysis. The issue of external validity, raised by critics of this methodolo-
gy, can be overcome by complementing experimental results with ad hoc replications on theoretically relevant
samples and settings.
But what does lie ahead for this type of experimentation in political science? As happened in the field of ex-
perimental economics, the future of political economy experiments will be primarily tied to the developments
of formal modeling in the fields of domestic politics, international relations, and comparative politics. As we
noted at the beginning of this chapter, experimentation will grow in the fields of research that witness a growth
of formal modeling suitable to this type of experimentation.
Furthermore, the prosperity of behavioral economic models in the field of economics, which improved upon
the classical assumptions of the rational agent model, is increasingly influencing all fields of political science.
Political scientists, more than economists, have always been wary of the restrictive assumptions of rationalist
models and are well disposed toward behavioral revisions of the standard model of choice. Novel behavioral
contributions on preferences, beliefs, and decision-making, such as preference reversal and bounded ratio-
nality, are bound to be incorporated into formal models and open the way to new laboratory, controlled, and
incentivized experimental studies in the years to come.
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• experiments
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• experimental method
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• laboratories
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Historical and Longitudinal Analyses
Contributors: Einar Berntzen

Chapter Title: "Historical and Longitudinal Analyses"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Historical and Longitudinal Analyses

Einar Berntzen
Introduction
Historical and longitudinal analyses constitute a prominent part of a research tradition in contemporary po-
litical science referred to as comparative historical analysis (CHA). This research tradition has the following
three defining features:
First, a macro-configurational orientation that entails a concern with complex, macro-level, large-scale out-
comes, which are often aggregated combinations of multiple events and processes. For example: state and
nation building, democratic transitions, welfare state building, revolutions and the analysis of aggregate cases
such as nation-states, political movements, welfare regimes, party systems, empires, and even whole civiliza-
tions and world systems.
Second, an emphasis on empirically grounded, problem-driven case-based research with a focus on explain-
ing observed outcomes, real-world empirical puzzles often anchored in particular times and places. Compar-
ative historical analysis seeks to develop explanations that identify the causal mechanisms that enable and
generate these outcomes.
Third, a commitment to temporally oriented analysis and attention to the study of temporal processes and the
temporal dimension of politics as essential for the valid understanding and explanation of real-world political
outcomes. Comparative historical methods for temporal analysis reflect an ontology in which temporal loca-
tion shapes the effects of individual variables that may be mediated by historical context, and the temporal
structure of causes and outcomes matters for explanatory analysis and our understanding of process and
time in politics (Mahoney and Rueschemeyer, 2003; Mahoney and Thelen, 2015).
Historical and Longitudinal Analyses: A Brief Genealogy

Historical and longitudinal analyses have a long and distinguished history in the social sciences and can trace
their roots back to the founders of modern social science. The classics of modern social science, from Alexis
de Tocqueville to Karl Marx and Max Weber, all pursued CHA as a central mode of analysis. The macro-con-
figurational and temporal orientation of CHA links it to the classics of modern social science and shares with
them an abiding concern with explaining large-scale political and political-economic outcomes and historical
processes, like the origins of modern Western capitalism in the cases of Marx and Weber.
In the decades after World War II, comparative historical research and analysis was partially eclipsed by other
analytical approaches. Ahistorical grand theories, Parsonian structure-functionalist systems theories, mod-
ernization theory, and large-N cross-national statistical research dominated sociology and political science in
the 1960s and 1970s. However, after some period of neglect, history came into sharper focus. There was
a resurgence of interest in what Mahoney and Rueschemeyer label ‘big’ questions, that is, ‘questions about
large-scale outcomes that are regarded as substantively and normatively important by both specialists and
non-specialists’ (Mahoney and Rueschemeyer, 2003: 7).
Modern CHA took shape in the 1960s and 1970s through the publication of a series of landmark and early
agenda-setting books: Barrington Moore Jr., 1966; Martin Seymour Lipset and Stein Rokkan, 1967; Perry An-
derson, 1974; Emmanuel Wallerstein, 1974; Charles Tilly, 1975; and Theda Skocpol, 1979.
In particular, Barrington Moore Jr. was a pivotal figure among the forerunners cum-founders of modern CHA.
His path-breaking Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (1966) laid a solid foundation for the resur-
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gence of comparative historical scholarship within sociology and political science. By the late 1970s and
early 1980s, the revival of comparative historical research across the social sciences was well beyond its
days as an isolated mode of analysis carried out by a few older scholars dedicated to the classical tradition
(Skocpol, 1984). Almost two decades later, Mahoney and Rueschemeyer noted that comparative historical
research was again a leading mode of analysis, widely used throughout the social sciences (Mahoney and
Rueschemeyer, 2003: 5).
Comparative historical analysis occupies an important and influential place in contemporary comparative pol-
itics and political science. As CHA came of age over the past three decades, numerous books from this per-
spective have been published. These works focus on a wide range of topics, but they are united by a com-
mitment to offering historically grounded explanations of large-scale and substantively important outcomes.
The comparative historical scholarship consists of a surge of important studies on social provision and wel-
fare state development (e.g. Skocpol, 1992; Rothstein, 1998) and studies that explore processes of state for-
mation and state restructuring in various world regions (e.g. Tilly, 1990; Ertman, 1997). In addition, the last
decades have seen the publication of important comparative historical books on the origins of democratic,
authoritarian, and hybrid regimes (e.g. Luebbert, 1991; Rueschemeyer et al., 1992; Yashar, 1997; Mahoney,
2001; Levitsky and Way, 2010), racial and ethnic relations and national identities (e.g. Marx, 1998), the caus-
es and consequences of revolutions (e.g. Wickham-Crowley, 1992), and political parties and party systems
(e.g. Collier and Collier, 1991; Roberts, 2014).
A concern with ‘big structures, large processes, huge comparisons’ (Tilly, 1984) is how CHA began with the
classic founders of modern social science and how its defining features remain.
Critical Junctures and Historical Legacies

A central concept in historical and longitudinal studies is the concept of critical juncture, an historical moment
during which much greater change is possible than during the preceding and subsequent periods of high
and often long institutional stability. The concept of critical juncture has played an important role in compara-
tive historical and other macro-comparative scholarship since it was developed and first used by Lipset and
Rokkan (1967), who traced the origins of party system formation in Western Europe to three critical junctures
located far back in history (Lipset and Rokkan, 1967: 37–8). They focused on the connection between critical
junctures and fundamental societal cleavages: center–periphery, church–state, rural–urban, and owner–work-
er. They argued that the cumulative legacy derived from three critical junctures (Reformation–Counter-Refor-
mation in the 16th and 17th centuries, the National Revolutions after 1789, and the Industrial Revolution in
the 19th century) was the ‘freezing’ of different types of European party systems in the first decades of the
20th century. Lipset and Rokkan's approach to analyzing multiple critical junctures is to treat them as sepa-
rate branching points on a tree in which countries gradually diverge from one another in the course of time.
Lipset and Rokkan thereby established a three-step cleavage-critical juncture-legacy template.
Their analysis, however, was largely embedded in a macro-structuralist approach that left little space for the
analysis of decisions and strategic choices of political actors and reconstructed, instead, the origins of histor-
ical variation ex post, starting from variation in the outcome of interest (European party systems) and looking
backwards in time (Berntzen and Selle, 1990).
Collier and Collier's Shaping the Political Arena (1991) helped crystallize and further develop the critical junc-
ture approach (Mahoney and Rueschemeyer, 2003: 156). The critical juncture in Shaping the Political Arena
is the period of labor incorporation in eight Latin American countries. Collier and Collier define a critical junc-
ture as ‘a period of significant change, which typically occurs in distinct ways in different countries (or in other
units of analysis) and which is hypothesized to produce distinct legacies’ (1991: 29). In addition, Collier and
Collier (1991) expanded Lipset's and Rokkan's three-step template by adding the antecedent conditions pri-
or to the cleavage/shock, and the aftermath when the legacy takes shape. Thus, Collier and Collier's (1991)
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critical juncture framework established a five-step template: antecedent conditions, cleavage or shock, critical
juncture, aftermath, and legacy (Collier and Munck, 2018).
Antecedent conditions are diverse socioeconomic and political conditions prior to the onset of the critical junc-
ture that constitute the baseline for subsequent change. Some antecedents derive from earlier critical junc-
tures. For example, in Lipset and Rokkan (1967) these include the structure of the party system as it evolved
across multiple critical junctures. Knowledge of antecedent conditions is essential for explaining the distinct
ways in which the critical juncture occurs across cases.
Cleavages, shocks, or crises are triggers of critical junctures. Critical junctures often grow out of a fundamen-
tal societal or political cleavage as in Lipset's and Rokkan's (1967) four cleavages. In other cases, the precip-
itating event can be called a shock or a crisis, as with the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s (Roberts,
2014). However, the cleavage, crisis, or shock should not be confused with the critical juncture itself, the latter
being specifically an episode of institutional innovation. It is the cleavage or shock that triggers a critical junc-
ture, but cleavages or shocks do not necessarily always produce a critical juncture (Collier and Munck, 2017:
5). Critical junctures are major episodes of institutional change or innovation. The core claim in the critical
juncture framework is that the episode of institutional innovation generates an enduring legacy. No legacy, no
critical juncture. The strength of a critical juncture argument hinges to a large degree on how well this claim
can be sustained (Collier and Munck, 2017: 6).
The aftermath is the period during which the legacy takes shape. The legacy does not always flow directly
from the critical juncture. The zigzag path of change that often follows the critical juncture may therefore be
important in shaping the legacy. The issue concerns the mechanisms of production that generate the legacy.
The complex steps between the critical juncture and the legacy are what Collier and Collier called ‘reactions
and counter reactions’ (1991: 37), and Mahoney calls a ‘reactive sequence’ (2001: 5). The legacy is an en-
during, self-reinforcing institutional inheritance of the critical juncture that stays in place and is stable for a
considerable period. Without the emergence of such a legacy, the prior episode does not constitute a critical
juncture (Collier and Munck, 2017: 6).
With this formulation, antecedent historical conditions define a range of alternatives available to actors during
a key point of choice, or the critical juncture, which is characterized by the selection of a particular option (e.g.
a specific policy, coalition, or government) from two or more alternatives. The selection made during a critical
juncture is ‘critical’ precisely because it leads to the creation of new institutional or structural patterns that
endure over time. In turn, in the aftermath institutional and structural persistence triggers a reactive sequence
in which excluded actors challenge the prevailing institutional setup through a series of predictable reactions
and counter reactions. These reactions then channel developments up to the point of a final outcome, which
represents the legacy.
By way of illustration, Collier and Collier (1991) compare eight Latin American countries to argue that labor-
incorporation periods were critical junctures that set the countries on distinct paths of development that had
major consequences for the crystallization of certain parties and party systems in the electoral arena. The way
in which state actors incorporated labor movements was conditioned by the political strength of the oligarchy,
the antecedent condition in their analysis. Different policies towards labor led to four specific types of labor
incorporation: state incorporation (Brazil and Chile), radical populism (Mexico and Venezuela), labor populism
(Peru and Argentina), and electoral mobilization by a traditional party (Uruguay and Colombia). These dif-
ferent patterns triggered contrasting reactions and counter reactions in the aftermath of labor incorporation.
Eventually, through a complex set of intermediate steps, relatively enduring party system regimes were estab-
lished in all eight countries: multiparty polarizing systems (Brazil and Chile), integrative party systems (Mexico
and Venezuela), stalemated party systems (Peru and Argentina), and systems marked by electoral stability
and social conflict (Uruguay and Colombia) (Collier and Collier, 1991).
The critical juncture approach has been widely used to study the historical development of both political

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regimes and party systems. Some further examples of recent comparative work (Yashar, 1997; Mahoney,
2001; Roberts, 2014) in this vein illustrate the analytical steps of the critical juncture framework. The critical
juncture in Yashar (1997) is the democratic transition in Costa Rica and Guatemala in the 1940s and
1950s.Yashar compares the different political regime outcomes in Guatemala and Costa Rica to explore the
question of why democracies are founded and endure. Her argument is that enduring democracy depends on
whether emerging democratic forces seize the opportunity to forge cross-class coalitions during the democ-
ratic transition and pass redistributive reforms that weaken the power of rural elites, while at the same time
allowing for the possibility that traditional social forces will continue to play a role in politics. The scope of re-
forms introduced during the critical juncture period triggered counter mobilization on the part of elites, but elite
unity in Guatemala and split in Costa Rica shaped the different decision-making institutions that emerged,
establishing an enduring legacy of authoritarian rule in Guatemala and of democracy in Costa Rica. The level
of development of civil society constitutes the antecedent condition, but agency is paramount: in the event
that actors do not act at the moment of democratic transition, they will lose a historic window of opportunity to
reshape institutions in an enduring way (Yashar, 1997).
In Mahoney's (2001) study of regime change in the five Central American republics, the critical juncture is the
liberal reform period between about 1870 and 1920. The different choices that the liberal presidents and their
political allies made in relation to agricultural development during the critical juncture were crucial in setting
the political institutions of these countries on different paths of development: traditional dictatorships devel-
oped in Honduras and Nicaragua, military authoritarianism in Guatemala and El Salvador, and democracy
in Costa Rica. The choices made by liberal presidents resulted in three patterns of liberal reform (different
models of agricultural development): radical liberalism, reformist liberalism, and aborted liberalism. Under a
pattern of ‘radical liberalism’ in Guatemala and El Salvador liberals enacted policies that saw the creation of
a highly polarized agrarian economy and a militarized state apparatus. By contrast, under ‘reformist liberal-
ism’ in Costa Rica, liberals promoted a less dramatic shift to commercial agriculture that saw the develop-
ment of an advanced but non-polarized agrarian economy and a centralized but non-militarized state appara-
tus. Finally, under ‘aborted liberalism’ in Honduras and Nicaragua, foreign intervention undermined ongoing
processes of liberal transformation. Hence, liberal efforts to promote development were not fully successful,
allowing many traditional state and agrarian structures to survive into the postliberal period. As in the case
of Yashar (1997), antecedent conditions (preexisting socioeconomic structures) were an important backdrop
during the critical juncture but did not determine the decisions of political actors (Mahoney, 2001:13).
In all countries, the liberal reform brought on significant reactions from actors who were excluded or marginal-
ized during the reform process. Disadvantaged actors responded to the structural patterns established during
the liberal reform period by leading democratizing episodes. In the cases of radical liberalism, Guatemala and
El Salvador, these democratizing episodes ultimately failed when military and economic elites initiated power-
ful counter responses against democratic reformers, which led to the establishment of harsh military-author-
itarian regimes (Mahoney, 2001: 14). By contrast, in the case of reformist liberalism in Costa Rica, important
factions of the elite actively mobilized democratizing movements to generate electoral support in the course
of political struggles. The political incorporation of previously excluded groups increased the stakes of political
competition among the elite and ultimately convinced most factions that accepting full democracy as the type
of political regime was not incompatible with their interests.
Finally, in the two cases of aborted liberalism, Honduras and Nicaragua, where there was no basis for de-
mocratizing movements, the political reactions in the aftermath period were directed at US actors who had
intervened during the liberal reform period. When US presence ended, 19th-century-style backwards tradi-
tional dictatorships reappeared (Mahoney, 2001: 16). The contrasting political outcomes of military authoritar-
ianism in Guatemala and El Salvador, democracy in Costa Rica, and traditional dictatorship in Honduras and
Nicaragua constitute the regime heritage or enduring legacies of the three patterns of radical, reformist, and
aborted liberalism of the critical juncture period.
Roberts (2014) treats the crisis-induced transition from state-led development to market liberalism in Latin

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America as a critical juncture affecting party system transformation. Structural adjustment and market policies
either aligned or de-aligned Latin American party systems programmatically, depending on whether the mar-
ket reforms were led by conservative actors and whether a major left party existed to channel societal resis-
tance to market orthodoxy. The reactive sequences in the aftermath period were moderated where conserva-
tive-directed reforms aligned party systems programmatically, stabilized partisan competition, and channeled
societal resistance towards institutionalized leftist parties. In countries like Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay, these
left parties were strengthened and gained victories in national elections in the aftermath period, which pro-
duced relatively moderate ‘left turns'. By contrast, in countries like Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Argenti-
na, where market reform policies were implemented by traditional center-left or populist parties, the critical
juncture de-aligned party systems programmatically. The fact that the market reforms were introduced by the
traditional center-left or populist parties left them vulnerable to highly disruptive reactive sequences driven by
social and electoral protest against market orthodoxy, culminating in the rise of more radical populist alterna-
tives to the left of the traditional party systems (Roberts, 2014).
In general terms, critical juncture analysis tests the hypothesis that the domestic social factors that correlate
with the institutional outcome of interest may be endogenous to political decisions made much earlier in time
and for reasons unrelated to such factors. Mahoney, for example, shows that patterns of agrarian class rela-
tions, which many consider to be key determinants of political regimes in Central America during the 20th cen-
tury, were largely the consequence of the previous choice of a particular model of agricultural development on
the part of liberal leaders, who were mainly interested in maintaining and expanding their own personal power
(Mahoney, 2001: 19). Mahoney emphasizes the historical contingency of the choices made by political actors
during the critical juncture. But is contingency a defining feature of critical junctures? The definition of the con-
cept of critical juncture has thus been the object of the contingency versus determinism debate concerning
this question. Some scholars (Yashar, 1997; Mahoney 2000, 2001; Capoccia and Kelemen, 2007; Roberts,
2014; Capoccia, 2015) view the uncertainty of outcomes and substantial degrees of freedom in actor choices
as a defining feature of critical junctures.
Whereas Collier and Collier defined a critical juncture rather loosely as ‘a period of significant change’ (1991:
29), Mahoney (2001) delivered a more precise and elaborated definition of the concept. According to Ma-
honey, critical junctures are points of choice when a particular option is adopted from two or more alternatives.
These junctures are ‘critical’ because once an option is selected, it becomes increasingly difficult to return to
the initial point of choice when multiple alternatives were still available. Both the alternatives available during
critical junctures and the choices finally made by actors are typically rooted in antecedent conditions. The de-
grees of freedom in actor choices during critical junctures may vary, ranging from choices characterized by
high levels of individual discretion to choices that are more determined by antecedent conditions. However,
in many cases, critical junctures are moments of structural fluidity and institutional uncertainty allowing actors
to shape outcomes in a more voluntaristic fashion than under normal circumstances. These choices illustrate
the power of agency by showing how long-term patterns of development can hinge on distant actor decisions
of the past. Not all points of choice are critical junctures. The status of critical junctures can only be obtained
by those choices that put countries (or other units) onto paths of development that lead to certain outcomes,
different from others, and that are difficult to brake or reverse. Before a critical juncture, the range of possi-
ble outcomes is broad; after a critical juncture, enduring institutions and structures are created, which limit
the range of possible outcomes considerably (Mahoney, 2001: 7). Although the choice itself may have been
caused by prior events, it is the factors unleashed by the choice, not the antecedent conditions that led to the
choice, that determine final outcomes (Mahoney, 2001: 7).
Capoccia and Kelemen (2007) and Capoccia (2015) share Mahoney's emphasis on contingency during crit-
ical junctures and further refine the definition of the concept in order to capture the political dynamics of in-
stitutional path selection during critical junctures. Capoccia and Kelemen (2007) note that during moments
of social and political fluidity such as critical junctures, the decisions and choices of key actors are freer and
more influential in steering institutional development than during ‘normal’ times. In other words, by analytically
linking the concept of contingency to the choices, strategies, and decisions of political decision makers, the
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analysts are more likely to capture the dynamics that in most cases influence the selection of one institutional
solution over others that were available during the critical juncture. On this theoretical basis, Capoccia and
Kelemen (2007) define critical junctures as ‘relatively short periods of time during which there is a substan-
tially heightened probability that agents’ choices will affect the outcome of interest’ (Capoccia and Kelemen,
2007: 348).
By ‘relatively short periods of time', they mean that the duration of the juncture must be brief relative to the
duration of the path-dependent process it instigates and which eventually leads to the outcome of interest.
By ‘substantially heightened probability', they mean that the probability that agents’ choices will affect the out-
come of interest must be high relative to that probability before and after the critical juncture. This definition
captures both the notion that, for a brief phase, agents face a broader-than-typical range of feasible options
and the notion that their choices from among these options are likely to have a significant impact on sub-
sequent outcomes. The absolute duration of a critical juncture has an impact on the possibility for actors to
act more freely, and for the consequences of their actions to have a bigger impact than in normal times: the
longer the juncture, the higher the probability that political decisions will be constrained by some reemerging
structural constraint (Capoccia and Kelemen, 2007: 351).
Linking contingency to the analysis of political choice, and decision-making points to the plausibility of the
counterfactual argument that actors could have made different decisions, and had they done so, this would
have led to the selection of a different path of institutional development. The range of plausible options during
critical junctures (what could have happened) is not infinite: its boundaries are defined by antecedent condi-
tions even though, within the limits of those conditions, actors have real choices (Capoccia, 2015: 158–9).
According to Capoccia and Kelemen (2007) the analysis of agency and contingency in critical junctures also
yields important methodological advantages. A logical consequence of stressing the importance of contin-
gency as a defining element of critical junctures is that change is not a necessary element of a critical junc-
ture. If change is possible and plausible, considered, pursued but narrowly fails to materialize in a situation of
high uncertainty, there is no reason not to consider this situation as a critical juncture (Capoccia and Keleman,
2007: 352). Such ‘near-miss’ critical junctures or negative cases may occur due to two main sets of circum-
stances. The social and political bases for reform may exist, but political entrepreneurs may fail to mobilize
the necessary coalition to achieve reform (Yashar, 1997: 22). A second source of near-miss critical junctures
is one in which the political forces in favor of institutional change narrowly lose their struggle to forces favoring
stability, in other words, cases in which the political struggle over the choice of different institutional options
during a phase of uncertainty and institutional fluidity results in the restoration of the pre-critical juncture sta-
tus quo rather than change (Capoccia, 2015:166).
Another endeavor to advance the precision of the concept of critical juncture is Capoccia and Kelemen's
(2007) attempt to operationalize the ‘criticalness’ of critical junctures by focusing on two components: the
probability that at the end of the critical juncture the institution acquires its durable path-dependent character-
istics observable for the duration of the legacy of the critical juncture, and the duration of the critical juncture
relative to its legacy. The duration of a critical juncture should be shorter than the path-dependent process it
initiates. They recommend that the analysis begins with those critical junctures that had the largest impact on
the outcome and that occurred earlier in time (see Capoccia and Kelemen, 2007: 360–3 for a formalization of
this operationalization).
A focus on the ‘most critical’ critical junctures also provides analysts with a criterion for establishing a mean-
ingful beginning point of analysis and overcoming the problem of infinite explanatory regress into the past.
Such longitudinal comparisons of the ‘criticalness’ of candidate critical junctures can help scholars build ar-
guments as to which candidate critical juncture was more ‘critical’ for their outcome of interest (see e.g. Ma-
honey, 2001: 26–7).
Other scholars (e.g. Pierson, 2004; Slater and Simmons, 2010; Soifer, 2012) view critical junctures more de-

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terministically and have criticized the focus on agency and contingency as key causal factors of institutional
path selection during critical junctures. Antecedent conditions play an important role in debates about con-
tingency versus determinism in the critical juncture. Slater and Simmons (2010) use the label ‘critical an-
tecedents’ to underscore the influence of this earlier phase prior to the critical juncture on subsequent de-
velopments. Antecedent conditions are, however, an important source of rival hypotheses for explaining the
outcomes attributed to the critical juncture. For example, Capoccia (2015) in offering methodological advice
for building a critical juncture argument, recommends that once candidate critical junctures are identified,
the hypothesis that antecedent conditions, not agency, drive institutional change should be tested (Capoccia,
2015:168).
While not denying the causal importance of agency and contingency during critical junctures, Slater and Sim-
mons (2010) nevertheless argue that a focus on the antecedent conditions of critical junctures is analytically
more useful than a focus on political agency and contingency. According to Slater and Simmons (2010) and
Soifer (2012), the defining feature of critical junctures is not contingency but divergence. Hence, Slater and
Simmons (2010) define critical junctures as ‘periods in history when the presence or absence of a specified
causal force pushes multiple cases onto divergent long-term pathways, or pushes a single case onto a new
political trajectory that diverges significantly from the old’ (Slater and Simmons, 2010: 888). Since they do not
deny that agency (Slater and Simmons, 2010: 890) and contingency (Soifer, 2012: 1573) play a potentially
important causal role during critical junctures, Capoccia (2015) argues that such a role is logically inconsistent
with a definition of critical junctures in terms of divergence. Divergence is a consequence of critical junctures
in which agency and contingency are causal, and as such it cannot be used to define them (Capoccia, 2015:
157).
From Critical Juncture to Enduring Legacy: Path Dependence

Critical juncture analysis is a component of the study of path-dependent institutions, but path dependence as
a mechanism of reproduction of the legacy comes into play only after critical junctures have performed their
work. Path dependence is not simply a blanket label to describe all explanations that employ a long time hori-
zon or that examine temporally sequenced variables. James Mahoney provides a much more precise (and far
more restrictive) definition: path dependence characterizes specifically those historical sequences in which
contingent events set into motion institutional patterns or event chains that have deterministic properties (Ma-
honey, 2000: 507). Hence, Mahoney views the critical juncture in terms of contingency, but uses a framework
of determinism for studying the self-perpetuating character of the legacy.
The concept of path dependence is built around the idea that crucial choices during critical junctures may es-
tablish certain directions of change and foreclose others in a way that shape development over long periods
of time (Mahoney, 2001: 264). Therefore, a defining feature of path dependence is the idea that it is difficult
for actors to reverse the effects of choices made during critical junctures. Critical junctures lock countries into
particular paths of development. Once a country has started down a path, the costs of reversal are very high.
There will be other points of choice, but the resilience of certain institutional arrangements prevents an easy
reversal of the initial choice point (Mahoney, 2001).
Analyses of path dependence tend to encourage a rather strict separation of the issues of institutional innova-
tion and institutional reproduction. With regard to the question of institutional genesis and change, analyses
of path dependence emphasize moments of institutional innovation in which agency, choice, and contingency
figure prominently. Such moments of ‘openness’ and rapid innovation are then followed by long periods of
institutional reproduction, stasis or ‘lock in’ where the importance of strategy and choice recedes relative to
processes of adaptation to institutional incentives and constraints. The reproduction of the institutional pat-
terns created during the period of institutional innovation is marked by relatively deterministic causal patterns
or what Mahoney refers to as ‘inertia': once a process is set into motion and starts tracking a certain outcome,
it tends to keep on moving and tracking the outcome (Mahoney, 2000: 511).
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However, Mahoney makes an important analytical distinction between two types of path-dependent se-
quences: self-reinforcing sequences ‘characterized by processes of reproduction that reinforce early events',
and reactive sequences in which ‘initial events trigger subsequent development not by reproducing a given
pattern, but by setting in motion a chain of tightly linked reactions and counter reactions’ (Mahoney, 2000:
510, 526–7). Self-reinforcing path-dependent sequences are characterized by the formation and long-term re-
production of a given institutional pattern (Mahoney, 2000: 508). Pierson contributed to clarifying the concept
of path dependence by specifying the dynamic processes that sustain institutions over long periods of time by
investigating the distinctive characteristics of social processes subject to what economists call increasing re-
turns, which could also be described as self-reinforcing or positive feedback processes (Pierson, 2000: 251).
Path dependence operates through a number of distinct mechanisms. Mahoney has contributed to analytic
clarity by specifying various mechanisms of reproduction that may be sustaining different institutions, in a ty-
pology of path-dependent explanations of institutional reproduction: utilitarian, functionalist, power, and legit-
imation arguments (Mahoney, 2000: 517). Pierson analyzes path-dependent power dynamics by distinguish-
ing five ways in which power may beget power (Pierson, 2015). In his analysis of path dependence, Mahoney
(2000: 512) refers to Arthur Stinchcombe who noted that the factors responsible for the genesis of an institu-
tion may not be the same as those that sustain it over time (Stinchcombe, 1968).
The second type of path-dependent analysis involves the study of reactive sequences. Reactive sequences
are chains of temporally ordered and causally connected events. In a reactive sequence, each event in the se-
quence is both a reaction to prior events and a cause of subsequent events (Mahoney, 2000: 526). Reactive
sequence arguments follow a different logic from that of self-reinforcing sequences. Whereas self-reinforcing
sequences are characterized by processes of reproduction that reinforce early events, reactive sequences
are marked by backlash processes that transform and perhaps reverse early events. Reactive sequences are
relevant for the aftermath period, the intervening steps that constitute the ‘mechanism of production’ of the
legacy.
A pattern of reactive sequences in the aftermath produces important methodological challenges. If the legacy
does not emerge directly but in zigzag steps, how can the analyst know when the reactive sequence has
come to an end? The implication is that the analyst might misinterpret one of the steps in the sequence as an
enduring legacy. The debate between Roberts (2014, 2017) and Boas (2017) focuses precisely on the impor-
tance of temporal distance and how much historical hindsight is needed before the analyst can conclude that
an enduring legacy has been established.
Roberts (2014) uses the critical juncture framework to analyze the political and party system consequences
of the transition to neoliberal market economies in Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s. Boas’ (2017) critical
assessment concerns the inherent methodological difficulties in analyzing recent or ongoing transformations
with a theoretical model of change that requires temporal distance from the events to be explained.
Boas claims that a critical juncture argument requires making the case that a definitive legacy has emerged.
Unless a definitive enduring legacy can be identified, the outcome being explained might ultimately turn out
to be just one step in a larger sequence of reactions and counter reactions in the aftermath of the critical
juncture. A critical juncture argument constitutes a causal hypothesis linking a major societal transformation
to a temporally distant outcome that represents the endpoint of a process of change, not something that hap-
pened while the process was still unfolding. In order to evaluate the hypothesis, process tracing is needed
to connect the critical juncture to the legacy. Hence, a critical juncture argument requires that the enduring
legacy be specified a priori in order to describe how countries vary with respect to this legacy. Specifying the
legacy is crucial not only for establishing that the critical juncture produced distinct legacies, but also for con-
necting cause and effect (see Beach, Chapter 17, this Handbook).
Extended analytical time horizons are crucial in the critical juncture framework since it is typically used to
make arguments about processes that are hypothesized to play out over long periods of time. The point of

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departure for a critical juncture is typically a cleavage or crisis that calls into question the political status quo.
Yet the critical juncture is analytically distinct from this cleavage or crisis, and it is often temporally removed
as well. The emergence of the legacy may also be temporally removed from the critical juncture itself. This
is particularly true if ‘the critical juncture is a polarizing event that produces intense political reactions and
counter reactions'. These are intervening steps that constitute the ‘mechanisms of production’ of the legacy
one seeks to analyze (Boas, 2017: 18).
The importance of temporal distance and historical hindsight is also relevant with regard to the legacy. Given
that an enduring legacy is a defining feature of a critical juncture, how much historical perspective is needed
to establish that it has in fact endured? How long must the legacy last to count as the legacy of a given crit-
ical juncture? The length of the legacy in relation to the length of the critical juncture is also a consideration
(Capoccia and Kelemen, 2007). Roberts (2014) defends the thesis that market reforms in Latin America in
the 1980s and 1990s constituted a critical juncture that shaped key features of subsequent party systems.
By contrast, Boas points out that it may still be too early to identify the market reforms in Latin America in
the 1980s and 1990s as a critical juncture. This debate highlights the challenge of finding an appropriate time
horizon for studying processes of change that may still be unfolding.
Incremental Change and the Logic of Institutional Evolution

The critical juncture framework is premised on a model of historical change that emphasizes moments of
‘openness’ and rapid innovation followed by long periods of institutional stability. The implication is that insti-
tutions, once created, either persist or break down in the face of some kind of exogenous shock or crisis. But
what about institutional changes that fall short of breakdown?
While the theory of critical junctures and institutional path dependence provides scholars with a powerful con-
ceptual tool for substantiating claims of distal causation, scholarship on models of endogenous institutional
change has shown that the conceptual apparatus of path dependence may not always offer a realistic image
of development. Theories of endogenous institutional change (Thelen, 2003) criticize theories of path depen-
dence for displaying a ‘stability bias', which relegates change to exogenous shocks or crises. In the effort to
incorporate change in a theoretical account of institutional development, scholars in this tradition have con-
ceptualized institutions as ‘arenas of conflict’ rather than as equilibria. These endogenous processes of insti-
tutional change are not deployed in short periods but evolve gradually, radically transforming institutions over
the long run (Hacker et al., 2015).
Thelen (2003) criticizes path-dependent and increasing returns arguments for telling only part of the story
Perhaps ćriticizes arguments of path-dependence and increasing returns for telling only part of the story. Such
arguments are better at articulating the mechanisms of reproduction behind particular institutions than they
are at capturing the logic of institutional evolution and change. She proposes to distinguish more clearly, at
both an empirical and an analytic level, between the mechanisms of reproduction and the logic of change at
work in particular instances, and to suggest modes of change that go beyond the empirically perhaps relative-
ly rare cases of institutional ‘breakdown’ or wholesale replacement implied by the critical juncture approach.
Thelen proposes two concepts: institutional layering and institutional conversion, as ways of conceptualizing
the problem of institutional evolution that overcome the zero-sum view of institutional innovation versus in-
stitutional reproduction. Arguments about institutional change through layering and conversion highlight the
processes through which institutional arrangements are renegotiated periodically in ways that alter their form
and functions. These alternative modes of change share with path dependence perspectives a strong ‘histori-
cist’ and temporal dimension and provide a way of understanding why, over time, institutional arrangements
may come to serve functions that are quite remote from those originally intended by their designers, how
they can affect, rather than just reflect or reinforce, the prevailing balance of power among social classes and
groups, and how they can become resources for, rather than just constraints on, actors engaged in struggles
over appropriate or desirable practices.
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The more gradual, cumulative patterns of institutional evolution analyzed by Thelen (2003) and Mahoney
and Thelen (2010) often come nested within broader patterns of institutional continuity. Change, therefore,
may occur incrementally through ‘periodic political realignment and renegotiation’ with institutions adapting to
pressures for change through processes of gradual transformations and institutional discontinuity caused by
incremental ‘creeping’ change: layering, drift, and conversion.
Institutional layering involves the partial renegotiation of some elements of a given set of institutions while
leaving others in place: layering of new arrangements on top of preexisting structures or grafting new ele-
ments onto old ones. Layering is a mechanism used by proponents of change to work around institutions that
have powerful vested interests. New coalitions may design novel institutional arrangements but lack the sup-
port, or perhaps the will, to replace preexisting institutions that were established to pursue other ends. Some
aspects may be ‘locked in’ in the way path dependence theorists emphasize, by the power of the constituen-
cies they have created. But institution builders have found ways to work around this opposition by adding
new institutions rather than dismantling the old. Rothstein (1998) provides an example of this type of change.
He identifies the potentially transformative effects of individualized private-sector social services that emerge
alongside standardized universalistic welfare programs in Scandinavia. The growth of private alternatives can
undermine support for universal programs among the middle class, on whose ‘contingent consent’ the entire
public system rests (Rothstein, 1998).
Institutional drift occurs when institutions or policies are deliberately kept in place while their contexts change
in ways that significantly alter their effects. A simple example is the US minimum wage, which is not indexed
to inflation. Hence, unless new federal legislation is enacted to change the rules, the minimum wage will keep
losing value with rising prices. Interest groups that wish to promote change through drift need only prevent the
updating of existing rules. Drift thus depends on the context sensitivity of the effects of an institution, and on
whether policies and institutions are designed in such a way that it is possible to update them in accordance
with changing circumstances, and on how easy or difficult it is to block such updating (Hacker et al., 2015:
180).
Institutional conversion describes changes in implementation that occur without formal policy revision, when
political actors are able to redirect institutions or policies towards purposes, functions, and goals beyond their
original intent. An example is the ability of business corporations to use the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 to
fight labor unions. The anti-trust legislation was originally passed with the purpose of fighting corporate col-
lusion, as it was meant to break up business trusts that were ‘in restraint of trade'. Yet business corporations
were successful in convincing federal courts that trade union organizing was ‘in restraint of trade'. In cases
of conversion, actors who are not part of the original coalition that originally created the formal rules are able
to convert these rules in order to achieve their own quite different goals. Rule ambiguity is a source of con-
version. Multiplicity of political arenas where ambiguous rules can be reinterpreted is another (Hacker et al.,
2015: 181).
Comparative Historical Methods: Tools for Comparing Temporal Processes

There is a close alignment between theories of institutional change and CHA (Hacker et al., 2015: 182). The
study of historical and longitudinal processes has important methodological implications. Critical junctures
and enduring legacies, drift, or conversion can be observed only in analyses that are both configurational and
attentive to changes that unfold over long periods of time. The affinity between macro-historical questions and
comparative research design is strong. The focus on theories of process and sequences of events rather than
on the configuration or covariation of factors has triggered methodological advance with regard to the strat-
egy of casing. The shift towards theories of historical processes required new strategies of casing and new
comparative designs in which periods and events rather than systems are the primary units for comparison.
This is certainly true for any historical work that systematically compares two or more sequences within a giv-
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en case. With these studies, the sequences are central units of analysis, not only the national or other spatial
units in which they are located. In turn, when one treats sequences as central units of analysis, it is possible
to revisit traditional comparative historical methods, which are often understood to apply mainly or exclusively
to the macro-spatial unit under analysis. A new vantage point for thinking about comparative historical meth-
ods comes into being by treating sequences and processes as core units of analysis and comparison.
Comparative historical analysis is often understood to imply the comparison of a small-to-medium number of
cases (usually countries or other macro units). However, Falleti and Mahoney (2015) argue that it may be
more precise to say that the field of CHA is more concerned with the systematic comparison of sequences.
They suggest that a principal overarching methodology of CHA is the comparative sequential method (Falleti
and Mahoney, 2015: 211). This method is defined by the systematic comparison of two or more historical
sequences of events, and CHA causal claims rest upon the inferences derived from the analysis and compar-
ison of those sequences. The comparative sequential method implies both longitudinal comparisons of se-
quences (e.g. comparisons of two or more critical junctures argued to explain an outcome in the same unit of
analysis, assessing rival arguments), as well as cross-sectional comparisons of critical junctures in different
units. The comparative sequential method is an overarching methodology. Concerning the temporal compo-
nent of the comparative sequential method, sequences are the central units of analysis, But the comparative
sequential method also encompasses more specific cross-case and within-case methods for making causal
inferences.
The most basic comparative methods for assessing causal hypotheses are J. S. Mill's method of agreement
and method of difference (Mill, 1843/1972). The method of agreement matches cases that share a certain
outcome and it eliminates any potential factor that is not shared by the cases in question. The factor is not
necessary for the outcome. The method of difference compares a case where the outcome is present with a
case where the outcome is absent and it eliminates any factor that is shared by these cases. The factor is not
sufficient for the outcome (Mahoney, 2004: 86). When used in isolation, these methods are weak instruments
for small-N causal inference. While these methods may be able to discover that an individual factor is not nec-
essary/sufficient for an outcome, they are unable to establish that a given condition is necessary/sufficient.
Small-N researchers thus normally combine Millian methods with process tracing in order to make a positive
case for causality. These basic matching methods or controlled comparisons are widely used in comparative
historical analyses (e.g. Collier and Collier, 1991; Luebbert, 1991; Yashar, 1997; Mahoney, 2001; Roberts,
2014).
The best-known formal method for evaluating necessary and sufficient causes is Boolean algebra introduced
by Ragin (1987). Boolean algebra in Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) is particularly suited for the
analysis of combinations of variables that are sufficient for the occurrence of an outcome. Since several differ-
ent combinations of variables (conjunctural causation) may each be causally sufficient, this method allows for
multiple paths to the same outcome. These more formal techniques are also used by comparative historical
analysts (e.g. Wickham-Crowley, 1992; Berntzen, 1993; Berg-Schlosser and De Meur, 1994).
Process tracing is a technique in which the analyst attempts to locate the causal mechanisms linking a hy-
pothesized explanatory variable to an outcome. Process tracing is an especially important tool for studies in
which explanatory and outcome variables are separated by long periods of time. Process tracing is also valu-
able for establishing the features of the events that compose individual sequences (e.g. their duration, order,
and pace) as well as the causal mechanisms that link them.
Counterfactual analysis is used to evaluate causal arguments in a single case. For example: a critical juncture
approach has more analytical leverage when controlled comparisons are used to identify the causal process-
es that produce divergent outcomes across a range of cases that are subjected to similar pressures for
change. The basis for claims that a major change in a single unit of analysis constitutes a critical juncture,
in isolation from patterns observed elsewhere, is more limited. A counterfactual thought experiment might in-
crease analytical leverage by explaining potential variance in hypothesized outcomes in a single case (Capoc-

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cia and Kelemen, 2007: 355–7).
Conclusions
This chapter has presented an overview of historical and longitudinal analyses as part of the CHA tradition in
comparative politics and political science. Historical and longitudinal analyses belong to a prominent research
tradition that can trace its roots back to the classics of modern social science and their concern with address-
ing major questions of enduring significance. The three core defining elements of the CHA approach – its
emphasis on macro-configurational explanation, its focus on problem-driven case-based research, and its at-
tention to temporal processes and the temporal dimension of politics – are closely linked in empirical CHA
research. Because the timing and sequencing of relevant events form part of the context that produces the
outcome in question, macro-configurational explanations often have a strong temporal dimension. Likewise,
empirically grounded case-based research facilitates the identification of causal mechanisms and interaction
among different causal variables and processes as these unfold over time.
The critical juncture framework is widely used in historical and longitudinal analyses. The definition of the
concept of critical juncture has been the object of the contingency versus determinism debate, in which an-
tecedent conditions have played an important role. Some scholars emphasize the historical contingency of
the choices made by political actors during the critical juncture, whereas other scholars have criticized the
focus on agency and contingency as key causal factors of institutional path selection during critical junctures.
The latter argue that a focus on antecedent conditions of critical junctures is analytically more useful.
Since the critical juncture approach is a method and theoretical model that presupposes temporal distance
from the events in question, extended analytical time horizons are crucial for developing a valid critical junc-
ture argument. The core claim in the critical juncture framework is that the critical juncture generates an en-
during legacy. No legacy, no critical juncture. The problem is that the legacy may be temporally distant from
the critical juncture. Hence, the challenge of identifying critical junctures and assessing the legacy of a new
critical juncture without the benefit of hindsight shows the importance of historical hindsight and temporal dis-
tance when developing a critical juncture argument.
Critics of the conceptual apparatus of path dependence implied by the critical juncture model have developed
alternative models of institutional change and evolution. Attention to incremental forms of political change
such as layering (the introduction of new rules on top of or alongside existing ones) and conversion (the
changed enactment of existing rules due to their strategic redeployment) may be relevant to major subjects
of contemporary political systems.
There is a close alignment between theories of historical processes and institutional change and CHA. Critical
junctures and enduring legacies, or incremental change (drift, layering, or conversion) can only be observed
by analyses that are both configurational, case-based, and attentive to changes that unfold over long periods
of time. The focus on theories of temporal processes and sequences of events has brought about a change
in the strategy of casing. The events and sequences of events have become the primary units of analysis.
Hence, the principal overarching methodology for comparing temporal sequences is the comparative sequen-
tial method.
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• longitudinal analysis
• historical analysis
• critical juncture
• party systems
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n26

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Interpretative Methods
Contributors: Terrell Carver

Chapter Title: "Interpretative Methods"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Interpretative Methods
Terrell Carver
Science and Society

All scientific investigations require prior interpretative work to set them up, and all scientific results – whatever
methods deployed – require interpretation after the fact. Whether it is rocks or votes, scientists must be
trained in a discipline which already interprets the world. In that way, phenomena can be identified and select-
ed for investigation. Any object being studied is then subject to analytical methods, which themselves arise
in a similarly interpretative way. Successive interpretation thus produces on-going dialogical consensus in a
scientific community about methods, as well as about results. However, novel methods – with suitable eval-
uative trials and shared agreement – can win adherents within a discipline, and may generate similarly novel
results. Since the mid 20th century, political science that proceeds in this way has occupied a mainstream
position in research and training (Easton, 1981).
The observations about interpretation stated above notably transcend the physical science/social science bi-
nary, viewing both as similar practices within human knowledge-making communities. In that way both com-
munities are using a similar understanding of what science is, and what an object of study is. That common-
ality, though, does not exclude differences relevant to the particular sorts of objects involved. Thus, meteo-
rology or geology will necessarily involve somewhat different methods from those of physics or biology. On
this view, then, social studies, indeed political studies as a science, is thus dissimilar only in kind to various
natural sciences. But it is not dissimilar in essence, since science itself is presumed to transcend the natural/
social binary, and to offer methodological protocols and truth-criteria common to both. This understanding of
science invokes a commonplace notion of interpretation, which is taken for granted and not itself much inves-
tigated (Yanow, 2014a).
Alternatively, social and political studies have sometimes been defined as wholly different from the natural/
physical sciences: votes not being like sub-atomic particles; politics not being like weather-systems. There is
thus no commonality in respect of presuppositions and methods, even if there are areas where similar lan-
guage is deployed. Apparently similar terms, in relation to rigorous procedures and truth-criteria, are rather
said to be mere analogies, but not to represent genuine similarities. From that binary perspective, then, the
‘science’ in political science seems a misnomer, so the locution political studies has sometimes been sub-
stituted. The interpretative methods under consideration below have been developed, but only in part, within
one side of the binary just described. That side of the binary, positing social and physical objects as distinctly
different in essence, is often identified as hermeneutics (Zimmerman, 2015).
Interpretative scholars might bridle at being called either scientific or unscientific, since they understand social
objects and appropriate methods to be radically different from those conceived in ‘hard science'. Nonethe-
less, they sometimes defend their work methodologically, claiming that it is just as rigorous as research done
in natural/physical science, albeit in an alternative way. And they sometimes claim to achieve results that are
just as objective, albeit derived from alternative methodologies, because the objects of investigation are so
different in essence (Yanow, 2014b).
Sometimes political scientists add an element of interpretative methods to the scientific ones, modelled on
the natural/physical sciences. While those interpretative methods have been derived from scholars working
within the hermeneutic demarcation of the physical from the social, that important distinction is most often
simply disregarded by political scientists. They are incurious about this so as to make their appropriation of
hermeneutically driven methods legitimate and to maintain an unproblematic notion of interpretation. Thus, in
apparently talking to each other on the basis of agreement, political scientists and hermeneutic scholars are
often actually talking past each other (Hawkesworth, 2014).

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However, from the 1990s the consideration of interpretative methods in relation to political science has begun
to generate a novel perspective on science itself, whether social or physical, and not merely on methods.
Those developments have followed on from innovative work in philosophy, and particularly in philosophy and
sociology of science, first begun some decades earlier (Kuhn, 2012). That unifying approach uses post-struc-
turalist premises based on the implications of the ‘linguistic turn', the terms of which will be explained below.
That novel perspective goes well beyond commonplace truisms about knowledge-making in human commu-
nities. It does so by transcending the terms through which the ontological and epistemological binaries of fa-
miliar knowledge-making practices have been constructed in the first place (Belsey, 2002). For many political
scientists the end-result of the discussion here will not look like science, or even like political phenomena as
usually conceived. For those in political studies taking a hermeneutical approach, the end-result will not look
like hermeneutics, either, or necessarily like political activity, even on a broad understanding of the term.
Many if not most practitioners within the discipline of political science will probably prefer the uneasy but fa-
miliar metaphors and compromises through which they operate, and through which graduate training takes
place. However, for a full understanding of the significance of the interpretative ‘turn’ in social and political
studies, it is necessary to violate familiar presumptions and comfort zones so as to view the world differently
(Culler, 2002). Besides obtaining clarity in understanding and cataloguing interpretative methods, a further
upside to this exercise in transgressive thinking is the outreach it offers to other disciplines. This is because
post-structuralist premises and the ‘linguistic turn’ are based on a revised understanding of how knowledge
of any kind, and therefore science of any kind, is constituted.
To do this, our discussion will become more historical and thus centred in the ideas through which the ‘linguis-
tic turn’ has taken place and post-structuralist premises have been formulated. These developments have
undercut long-established traditions and distinctions in philosophy. Many philosophers are also opposed to
the presuppositions that will be outlined here. Moreover, the standpoint in question is not coincident with tra-
ditional understandings of hermeneutics (Critchley, 2001). And many of the thinkers and academics who pur-
sue these burgeoning studies come from other disciplines entirely, but often address political phenomena and
ideas. Perhaps the best way to think about the ‘linguistic turn’ and post-structuralist premises is to consider
interdisciplinary eclecticism a virtue, rather than a vice, and to treat the propositions expounded here as a
lens or perspective, rather than as an overturning of valuable knowledge and academic practice (Carver and
Hyvärinen, 1997). However, in order to understand how this perspective works, we need to consider in more
detail the exact philosophical foundations through which science and hermeneutics were constituted as truth-
searching forms of knowledge-making.
Empiricism and Factuality

The study of politics as a science, using methods applicable to both the natural and social worlds, reaches
back to Aristotle. Famously he advocated observation and data-collection, but perhaps now less memorably,
he also based his work on a conceptual apparatus of essence and motion, teleology and hierarchy. Those
constitutive principles have been under attack since the 17th century. Subsequently the argument for an un-
derstanding of the physical world through an anti-metaphysical conceptualization of material presumptions
and concepts, such as matter and energy, and a union of experimental and mathematical knowledge-creation,
has developed and triumphed. That battle was not just a matter of abstract argumentation but was also an in-
dustrial practice through which commercial technologies and scientific research were intellectually intertwined
and experientially validated. Revised philosophies of science followed those world-changing developments,
often unhelpfully characterized as two distinct revolutions: scientific and industrial. New, materialist philoso-
phies were projected into social studies, conceived on an analogous basis and therefore scientific in practice.
German authorities were particularly, though not exclusively, influential in this process (Farr, 2003; Baumgart-
ner, Chapter 18, this Handbook).
Two important further developments, through which the ‘science’ in political science was constituted, date
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approximately to the later 1950s. Those were the behavioural protocols, typically applied to explaining and
predicting phenomena associated with political participation, and the formal protocols, typically used to gen-
erate explanatory and predictive models for strategic interaction. For political science, such interactions could
be between self-interested human individuals, or in the case of International Relations, the constituent units
were states or similar collective actors (Weber, 2001). Both sub-disciplines together constituted the self-styled
and widely accepted scientific core of the discipline. And – despite obvious differences – both were constitut-
ed through observations of phenomena that could be reduced by abstraction such that mathematical, logical
and/or statistical methods would apply.
Those methods were easily borrowed from the defining core of post-17th-century science, a powerful union of
observation, data-collection and reductive analysis. The apparent success of marginalist economics in con-
ceptualizing human behaviour and complex interactions in highly abstract, symbolically manipulable terms,
was clearly a model. Unsurprisingly, voting was conceived by some political scientists as an intrinsically or
analogously economic transaction based on strategic pursuit of self-interest. Self-interested activity by indi-
viduals was then understood paradigmatically as the kind of human interaction through which politics itself is
constituted.
What holds that view of science together – whether natural/physical or social/political – is an empiricism, that
is, a view of the world as comprised of human individual subjects, such as political scientists, who ‘know',
and objects of knowledge, such as human interactions, which are ‘to be known'. In philosophical terms that
is an ontology, an account of what exists in the world, which also presupposes an epistemology, a formal-
ization of the ways through which objects can be known with accuracy and certainty. The understanding of
what an object ‘is', thus determines, in circular fashion, the kinds of ways through which it can ‘be known',
and vice versa. If human social action is conceived as behaviour that, through observation, can be reduc-
tively objectified by means of conceptual abstraction and symbolic representation, then the methods used to
understand non-human physical objects, whether inanimate or animate, can be applied in explanatory and
predictive ways. Thus, the ontology and epistemology of materialism is complete, forming a methodological
unity within a comprehensive concept of science. In that way, scientific studies are said to be empirical, and
vice versa, and subject-object ontology and epistemology is said to be empiricist (Moses, Chapter 27, this
Handbook).
Text and Truth

Hermeneutics as the study of texts, scientifically pursued, arose within that context. Paradigmatically it posits
a knowing subject and an object to be known, the former the scientist/reader and the latter the words-on-
the-page. Originally those texts were classical, biblical and Egyptological. Analytical methods were devised,
methodological protocols developed, and explanatory results were understood as the true meaning, derived
scientifically from the text at hand. The premise and promise was that a scientific determination of meaning
would add accuracy and certainty to what had otherwise been subjectively construed from texts as meaning.
On the one hand, this model for hermeneutics can be applied reductively to any instance of language-use,
no matter how ordinary, so the limited quantity of important texts was eventually transcended. This extended
hermeneutic study to written and spoken words in general. Thus the study of texts broadened out to include
the study of languages and language-users, the former becoming comparative linguistics, and the latter be-
coming empirical linguistics. Knowledge of meanings, and of meaning-making, in both realms of study pre-
sumed that formal structures, derived from analysis, would be both explanatory and predictive. Linguistic sci-
entists would thus command knowledge of true meanings relevant to both everyday interactions and hermet-
ically encoded texts. Moreover, they would eventually command knowledge of the properties common to all
human languages anywhere. The former study would generate protocols of symbolic mapping for the myriad
ways through which individual speakers communicate meaning to each other. The latter study presumed that
the use of scientific methods would disclose a deep structure hidden within human language itself (Matthews,
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2003).
Post-Structuralism and Its Premises

However, a number of later-20th-century developments reversed the empiricism described above, precisely
by positing human language, social interaction, practical activities and meaning-making, taken altogether, as
a substitute for both ontology and epistemology. This ‘linguistic turn’ supplanted the subject-object/knower-
known structure through which empiricism is defined. Post-structuralism thus constituted a revisioning of the
human world, including sciences, technologies and all forms of human ‘being’ as meaning-making. Moreover,
it posits that scientists, researchers, indeed all human ‘knowers’ therefore function wholly within this envi-
ronment. There is thus no view-from-nowhere or otherwise disembodied or necessarily privileged point from
which truth arises. Post-structuralism is thus a critique of structures that, following the protocols of empiricism,
were presumed to be ‘there’ in the objects of knowledge, such that explanatory and predictive generalizations
were validated as accurate reflections of how things really are. Rather, on the post-structuralist view, that sit-
uation is one of projection: human ‘knowers’ are finding what is ‘to be known’ as already ‘there’ in external
structures, and so evidently discoverable. This is obviously a circular process. On the post-structuralist view,
then, objects of knowledge are themselves human conceptual constructs, not ‘things’ which have a structure
or fixed nature in themselves to be known.
Post-structuralists have argued that objects of whatever kind cannot be presumed to be constituted in them-
selves in terms that map to human conceptual constructs. As just stated, the process of knowledge-creation
must be working the other way round. Knowledge is necessarily humanly derived and socially driven, rather
than ‘there’ as structures to be ‘discovered'. For that to be so, objects would have to have already come into
existence in ways that do – or will – map to human conceptions. Thus for structuralists, certain knowledge of
things as they really are – even if only gradually and asymptotically approached – requires a metaphysical
presumption of coincidence between the human mind and everything else, or a creator-God, Himself human-
like, who made a universe that was founded on, but was mysteriously concealing of, singular truths that can
be mirrored in human conceptual constructions (Rorty, 1989). The origins of the contrary post-structuralist
arguments lie again in German intellectual achievements of the mid-19th century through which the truths of
biblical revelation of God's creation and His will were undermined, and religion was explained as a projection
of human concepts and capacities onto imaginary beings.
Physical and natural sciences were the next objects to fall within the post-structuralist critique, and for the
same reasons: the truthful and certain coincidence between what material objects are, and the human ca-
pacities and conceptions that enable knowledge-construction, cannot be presumed at the outset or in final-
ity. Rather, human-knowledge construction arises and proceeds within socially communicative practices of
meaning-making. Of necessity those meaning-making activities include the ontological-epistemological proto-
cols through which standards of validity are socially set in on-going ways. Thus the use of the natural/physical
‘hard science’ model in the social sciences, through which certitude could be obtained, was challenged by
post-structuralists, though most political scientists have chosen not to engage (Hawkesworth, 2014).
However, the above line of argument does not necessarily result in a nihilistic scepticism or judgemental vac-
uum. The fall-back and antidote is rather a pragmatic one: technologies that work and find a market, and
research projects that engage participants and find funders. While the natural/physical sciences provide very
obvious referents for those practices and successes (subject of course to varying judgements), the social sci-
ences have in general been hugely successful in engineering social change and producing modern individu-
als (again, subject to varying judgements). While some ‘hard scientists’ and social scientists might distinguish
their activities as pure or theoretical, and so create a distinction and hierarchy relative to applied technolo-
gists and disciplines, nonetheless the logic of the deconstructive argument sketched above applies across the
board. What is produced by humans is known and judged within human terms, and not in relation to anything
that is somehow external to that.
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The ‘Linguistic Turn’ and Speech-Act Theory

The legacy of hermeneutics involves more than the ‘linguistic turn’ and the dissolution of certainties suppos-
edly derived from the methodological protocols of science. Because hermeneutic researches focused on writ-
ten texts, and therefore on words, and on language and languages, the relationship of word to object, and
language to object, was made problematic. If words do not refer to things, such that the relationship is either
correct (when words mirror things accurately) or incorrect (when they do not do so accurately), then to what
do words, and therefore languages as such, refer? The answer to this question reversed the familiar refer-
entiality of empiricism. Empiricism is itself reflected in numerous locutions in many languages. Speakers and
writers use locutions that describe – rather than construct or create – a material world that is supposed to ex-
ist external to, or outside of, the conscious minds within which words and languages arise. The ‘linguistic turn’
and post-structuralist premises arose from the counter-declaration that language refers only to language, and
that descriptive statements are a trope, not a mirror of things in thought. From that perspective, language is
a closed system through which meanings arise in relation to other meanings, not through a relationship be-
tween language-user and ‘external’ world – however it is conceived or experienced.
During the ‘linguistic turn’ this form of intersubjective idealism developed two further postulates: the self-ref-
erential nature of language-use is founded on an ‘excess’ through which an open-ended instability in mean-
ing-making is definitionally inherent; and within the linguistic system there are ‘performative’ speech-acts that
are coincident and co-constitutive with social action. The former explains the creative powers through which
cultural and social change, including natural/physical scientific and technological innovation, is possible yet
always already unstable; the latter demonstrates the way that abstractions are made real and intelligible
through practices that involve citation and repetition. The now commonplace examples of performativity in
speech-acts include the marital statement ‘I do', which does not refer to marriage as an abstract idea but
rather realizes a specific social actuality when publicly performed. Thus a performative concept, and the cor-
responding illocutionary declaration, perform and construct the meaningful reality of marriage as an on-going
social institution.
More controversially, this view of human language users as meaning-makers dissolves familiar binary dis-
tinctions between the material (as invested with an inherent stability and predictable regularity from which
certainties can arise) and the immaterial (contrarily invested with instability and unpredictability, hence un-
certainty). The immaterial realm was thus in practice, and metaphorically, a home for mere opinion, whereas
the material realm was in practice, and metaphorically, a home for knowledge and – within appropriate proto-
cols – science. The dissolution of this familiar dichotomy arises from a practice-based and meaning-oriented
concept of materialization as the repetitive, citational learning through which the distinction is made socially
operative (Butler, 2011). Put very simply, we learn to talk that way, so materiality is projected as a matter of
routine in order to generate for us ‘things’ to which words are said to refer. Similarly, we learn to reject locu-
tions that fail to follow that particular repetitive pattern but are instead incorporated into another, contrasting
category. Thus, among many language-users the locutions ‘horse’ and ‘god’ map to ‘real’ and ‘unreal'; though
it is easy to imagine, or indeed experience, cultures where the opposite repetitive citation would reverse the
attribution. The history and sociology of natural/physical science, understood from that perspective, provides
many similar illustrations, as do the social sciences.
Post-Empiricism and Power-Relations

The reversal of empiricism identifies referentiality – as a truthful-or-not relationship between words internal
to the mind and things said to be external to it – as a trope within language itself. That is, we are used to
repetitive practices expressing an image of mind, world and knowledge suited to certainty. Thus the world
as variously understood within different languages, in different cultures and by different individuals, will have
such commonalities as human language users generate, and also perforce importantly such differences as
they generate. But the world will not exist in a meaningful sense until meaning-makers work together in prac-
tical activities to make meanings that more or less suit themselves. Thus, humans are what they are in and
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through their activities as language-users.
Because language has properties of excess and instability, it incites distinction-making and the institution of
differences. Those properties are thus the origin of power-relations and hierarchies, and of knowledge-claims,
whatever the terms through which these claims are expressed. From that basis arise disciplinary practices,
however physically violent or verbally rhetorical. Power hierarchies and power-plays are thus inescapable
among language-users, for two reasons: communication between language-users is always non-coincident;
and power is everywhere because language is everywhere. Or to put this in commonplace terms: human na-
ture lies in the nature of language, not in any bundle of physical, moral or divine set of properties given to, or
inherent in, human bodies, subjectivities or souls. If there were such things to be known, we would have to
know them within language, apart from which there can be no meaning-making practices.
Communication between language-users will always be miscommunication, no matter how strictly terms are
defined and deviance is punished. Though meanings are made through the social activities of which individu-
als are constituents, it does not follow that each individual interprets the meanings that are made in precisely
the same way. That is because individuals as language-users are necessarily active interpreters, rather than
passive recipients, of verbal messages from one to another. Thus, the excess that is a property of language
necessarily arises within language-users as individuals. In general terms, agreement in forms of words is con-
ditional on agreement in forms of life, which is necessarily unstable, as meaning-making among individuals
evolves (Wittgenstein, 2009: §241).
As initially practised on texts, hermeneutics presumed authorship in individuals, even if they could not be
identified authoritatively. Following a protocol that valued certainty, linguistic analysts aimed to identify mean-
ing as a singularity located in an authorial mind, conceptualized as the author's intended meaning. Truth in
hermeneutics was therefore the revelation, by means of analytical methods, of this otherwise hidden or mis-
interpreted message. However, from the post-structuralist perspective, and following the ‘linguistic turn', a re-
versal was in order: meaning-making is an active process of interpretation engaged in by readers of texts. It
is of necessity uncontrolled by authors themselves or their hermeneutic avatars. It further follows – and this
is another reversal of hermeneutics as initially practised – that social activities are themselves texts to be
read, whereas written texts were formerly considered to be the sole instance of textual artefacts. Many of the
methods developed to de-code written texts, such as symbolic analysis or semiotics, were thus adapted to
understand non-verbal modes of communication, whether gestural (e.g. bodily movements and expressions)
or representational (e.g. visual and aural communicative modes) (Chandler, 2007). Those media, of course,
may be more or less precise in conveying meanings than spoken or written words, depending on the respec-
tive circumstances of the communicators.
Structuralist approaches to meaning work from a data-set or corpus of spoken or written words. Analysis pre-
sumes that meaning is located in individual words, groups of words, locutions, repetitive patterns and the like.
The research goal is that revelatory understanding will emerge that bears on an author's non-obvious intent
or a hidden pattern in community meaning-making. The properly schooled and trained researcher is thus, like
a scientist, licensed by protocols of certainty to state otherwise obscure or obscured truths such that knowl-
edge is made available authoritatively. By contrast, post-structuralism and the ‘linguistic turn’ take meaning-
making to be constitutive of humanness itself. Human understanding is therefore a capacity common to all
language-users, an insight loosely derived from phenomenology (Inwood, 2000). Moreover, meaning-making
arises through non-verbal as well as verbal activities, and communication occurs through signs, which are
spoken or written words, and all other representational media. Communication is necessarily imperfect, so
any claims to authority and thus control are matters of persuasion. Those claims may then succeed or fail as
power-plays (Bateman, 2014). They succeed when meaning-making is institutionalized as education, train-
ing, law and convention and suchlike disciplinary methods that attempt to ensure agreement, uniformity and
certainty. They fail, at least somewhat, when – given the capacity of language-users to generate distinctions
and differences – resistance and subversion arise as contrary power-plays.

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The art of rhetoric was a classical study in the art of persuasion. However, contemporary accounts of rhetoric
are well placed to summarize what the post-structuralist perspective can do. Rhetoric has traditionally consid-
ered the speaker and concomitant stylizations or body-language that are deployed in public settings. Rather
than merely verbal statements or responses of agreement, speakers often aim to stimulate action. We are
thus close to the speech-acts considered by theorists of the ‘linguistic turn’ and to the post-structuralist view
of communication as a realm of power-play. Thus, rhetorical analysis is a good place to begin the considera-
tion of interpretative methods in detail. Moreover, the social context – public-speaking to persuade – is para-
digmatic for those who study politics, political scientists or otherwise. It is also certainly a key to the careers
of politicians and political activists. The American political scientist Richard E. Neustadt famously said, ‘The
power of the President is the power to persuade’ (Richard E. Neustadt, 1960: 1), and perhaps even more fa-
mously, Otto von Bismarck, from the practitioner side, remarked, ‘Politics is the art of the possible …’ (Oxford
Essential Quotations, 2016).
Rhetorical Political Analysis

Classical rhetoric operated in a realm of instability rather than certainty, offering technique rather than knowl-
edge, action rather than truth. It was thus marginalized as an applied art in relation to the more abstract ac-
counts of human experience pursued by philosophers within which knowledge, and therefore criteria of truth,
were the stated outcomes. Much the same marginalization and exclusion characterizes rhetorical political
analysis today as a set of methods, unless post-structuralist premises and perspectives are invoked, in which
case those methods are foundational.
At this point, we encounter the characterization of rhetors or speakers, engaged in power-plays, as necessar-
ily or at least habitually untruthful. That characterization accords with the practical, power-related character of
the activity, such as politics, but presumes a subject-object epistemology aiming at singular truths. The con-
trary, post-structuralist position resolves itself into the situation as already understood: the human world of
meaning-making is itself about relative powers of persuasion, rather than a situation in which some humans
make regrettable departures from truths that can be established with unarguable certainty.
For students of politics the situation is already one of ‘doing things with words', whether spoken or written, so
classical protocols can be adapted and updated (Austin, 2018). Using rhetorical analysis, speech can thus be
classified by genre, for example: epideictic or ceremonial; forensic or judicial; deliberative or political. Those
three genres map very roughly to the past, present and future, constructed as ideas in discourse. Genre is
thus a shortcut, for speaker and audience alike, to intelligibility. And with intelligibility there is then the possi-
bility of approximate and conditional alignments among active meaning-makers.
Rhetorically, the issue at stake in a speech can be parsed as conjecture, in relation to a truth or falsehood;
definition, in relation to what to think or not to think; quality, in relation to an action as good or bad; and cir-
cumstance, in relation to differentials in authority and power. A speaker endeavours to persuade by discovery,
that is, revealing the argument to the audience, and so marshalling appeals that are typically of three kinds:
logos, or appeals to reason; ethos, or appeals to authority; pathos, or appeals to emotion.
The dispositio or arrangement of these appeals was crucial to teaching rhetoric as an art, and can therefore
be used to analyse political speech: exordium or introduction to prepare the audience; narratio or narration
to set out facts selectively; confirmatio or proof to present the argument; refutio or refutation to reject alterna-
tives; peroratio or conclusion, to sum up persuasively. From the speaker's point of view, individual interpreters
in the audience should be more aligned in their understanding, feeling and motivation towards agreement and
action, and less aligned with alternative views, feelings of rejection and motivations of opposition.
The rhetorician will employ aspects of style or elocutio as persuasive devices within and supervenient to
speech. In appealing to logos or truth, speakers may affect a style-less mode of factuality, using the simple,
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direct language of the literal; in appealing to ethos or authority, they may deploy overt mannerisms that repet-
itively and therefore performatively reference legitimated power; in appealing to pathos or emotion, they may
deploy any number of verbal images or tropes to elicit positive feelings about themselves or negative feelings
about others. All those devices of style rely on denotative and connotative aspects of meaning-making: the
former referentially specific and limited; the latter associative and suggestive (Martin, 2014).
Classical rhetoricians identified hundreds of rhetorical schemes, too many to list here. Indeed, those lists were
the core of their methodological contribution to political studies (Lanham, 1991). Rhetorical analysis considers
repetition in various forms, antithesis and binary contrast, puzzle and resolution. Most famously, we have the
rhetorical question, a device in which the speaker already knows the answer, and the audience either already
knows it, too, or knows that the speaker knows it and will reveal it on the spot. Rhetorical analysis, while
speaker-focused, is also founded on audience-reception. Analytically that can be parsed down to individuals
who may – or may not – interpret the devices as the speaker intends, and therefore may – or may not – be
persuaded.
Imagery or tropes are at the fine-grained end of rhetorical analysis. Figures of speech are connotative prac-
tices of association, typically founded on metaphor and simile as ways of transferring meaning from one term
to another. Tropological analysis extends to hyperbole, or exaggeration; irony, or saying one thing and mean-
ing another; paradiastole, or a reversal of moral significance through deliberate misnaming; and numerous
other ways of using language to effect persuasion (Carver and Pikalo, 2008).
With televisual and digital media, delivery or actio has become increasingly important, given that communi-
cation from speaker to audience can be expanded when recorded material is shared, sometimes across plat-
forms and to world-wide audiences. Moreover, politicians are encouraged by that situation to access theatrical
coaching and actor-appurtenances to make their performances persuasive. Voice, gesture, dress, embodi-
ment, props, lighting and make-up are all important constituents not just of performance but of identity. Brand-
ing is understood as an image to which repetitive citation can refer performatively (Howells and Negreiros,
2018). Rhetorical analysis, conducted this way, reveals how truths are constructed as persuasive practices in
speaker-audience situations. Analytically the object is to show how this is done, and to construct plausible ac-
counts of effectivity. Those results will be derived from observation in the full sense, rather than from limiting
the object of study to a words-in-transcription, that is, a reduction of experiential data to verbal units.
Note the term ‘plausible’ in the paragraph above. As an interpretative method, rhetorical political analysis itself
must persuade an audience that an analysis is meaningful and significant. But this persuasive communication
can occur only in relation to the criteria that each interpreter brings to the communicative context. Interpreters
are always at liberty to make individual judgements, even if they keep these to themselves and outwardly
dissemble. Post-structuralist premises are thus founded on the indeterminacy of language and the inherent
uncertainty in any one human about knowing another.
Discourse Analysis and Deconstruction

Discourse analysis and deconstruction arose within the development of the ‘linguistic turn’ and post-struc-
turalist premises. Together these developments summarize the performative approach to meaning-making as
embodied and enacted in social circumstances that are inherently imbued with power and hierarchy (Howarth,
2000). Other methodological approaches to communication, derived from Kantian philosophy, or from empiri-
cal linguistics and ideology-critique, will be considered separately below. There are thus profound differences
in presuppositions underlying what might otherwise seem to be a common, indeed commonplace term: dis-
course.
Discourse refers here to speech and text, though in another post-structuralist reversal, text has taken priority
over speech. That priority is asserted notwithstanding the obvious fact that humans learn to speak before they
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can read and write, and that reading and writing postdate the existence of speaking humans. Moreover, text
is understood here to include any mode of human expression that communicates meaning, even when no
written or spoken words are involved. Thus, discourse in this broadly defined way includes images, both still
and moving, sound, movement including dance, and all the symbology of semiotics (Mills, 2016). Understood
that way, discourse analysis invites methodological eclecticism, borrowing insights, concepts and procedures
arising in art history, aesthetics, photography, cinema-studies, media and cultural studies and communication
theory. Given the global ubiquity and evident effectivity of digital social media, notably in political communica-
tion and campaigning, discourse analysis offers a powerful framework that embraces real-world complexities
(Weldes, 2014).
From the post-structuralist and performative perspective, written texts are in the first instance physical objects,
whether inscribed on paper or on a screen, or rendered visible in some other medium, or made aural through
fluid vibration. Words in texts are thus not transparent windows used by ‘knowers’ to view meaning as objec-
tively ‘there’ in a common conceptual space. Rather, texts are themselves objects with ‘surfaces’ presented
‘to be known’ by interpreters for whom meanings are variously ‘there', but subjectively in individual conscious-
nesses. Written texts thus have surface properties which can be analysed using methodological concepts
and protocols that reveal how objects are constructed so that meaning-making takes place. That approach
does not look for an underlying meaning, but rather promotes an exploration of the textual surface by different
interpreters. Therefore, a variety of meanings will emerge as readers engage with texts. Discourse analysis
presumes that human communicative relations are inherently antagonistic and conflictual because they are
constituted in and through articulatory practices of meaning-making undertaken by individuals as readers. Ar-
ticulation is the construction of nodal points where meanings are partially and temporarily fixed or ‘sutured'.
Logics of equivalence and difference can then be traced in written texts as sequences of nodal points. It is
through those nodal points that social practices are defined, stimulated and promoted. Social practices as
meaning-making activities, and written texts as meaning-making objects, are thus mutually constitutive. As
with linguistic excess, those processes of meaning-making are open-ended and never-ending.
The presumption of antagonism in social relations generates the concept of the discursive ‘other', a moment
of negation that sparks meaning-making as an articulation of differences into an unstable equivalence. Since
that unstable equivalence already contains differences, and therefore inherent antagonisms, articulations of
equivalence are necessarily vulnerable to re-formation as further differences, and similarly along endless
chains of signification. In more formal and even more abstract terms those procedures presume that any giv-
en concept has a constitutive ‘outside', i.e. anything is what it is, only because it is not any number of other
things. And they presume that human meaning-making arises from conscious and sub-conscious emotions of
fear and anxiety that are never really resolved into stability but rather constitute inherently what we are. The
former view is derived from the philosopher G. W. F. Hegel, and the latter borrowed from Sigmund Freud, the
founder of psychoanalysis.
As meaning-makers humans have subjectivities through which agency arises, though agency in this frame-
work does not presuppose a stability of identity or a consistency in consciousness, rational or otherwise.
Rather, subjectivities arise in and through subject positions, which are products of meaning-making activities
into which individuals are interpellated, or ‘hailed’ (Montag, 2002). However dominated individuals may then
be, or however constrained they feel, linguistic ‘excess’ is the medium through which complicit or subversive
agency arises and is made meaningful. The concept hegemony provides an explanatory framework through
which, in political terms, individuals may be, or may be said to be, consenting to oppressive structures. Or,
conversely, they may be working to rearrange power-relations as a matter of resistance. Conceived on this ba-
sis and in these terms, discourse analysis necessarily invokes deconstruction as a method. While the above
protocols explain how meaning is performed in social activities, deconstruction mandates historical research
in order to establish the conditions of possibility that enabled a text of that kind to appear as meaningful.
Research is directed genealogically towards preceding texts, and thus to former meaning-making activities.
A given text only makes sense as a dialogical successor to former ideas and practices, so deconstructive
analysis embraces diachrony as well as synchrony. Deconstruction works from a hermeneutics of suspicion,
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enabling researchers to identify essentializing, naturalizing and universalizing logics in texts. Those logics
work to persuade readers that meanings are thus secured as certain and moral. Deconstruction, which pre-
sumes the undecidability of concepts, and reveals the power-plays inherent in meaning-making practices, is
an important, though non-formulaic, tool in political analysis.
Rather than providing researchers with a method to follow formulaically, the analytical perspective arising
from post-structuralist premises and the ‘linguistic turn’ promotes creativity and individuality in researchers,
as well as innovation in methodology and novelty in results. However, under the general heading of discourse
analysis there are contrasting approaches, which sometimes generate unproductive hostilities, or simply mu-
tual misapprehension. Here are two further approaches, which also contrast with each other.
Communicative Action and Discourse Ethics

A theory of communicative action, or in some versions discourse ethics, uses a Kantian methodology to intuit,
formulate and propound an ideal speech situation through which rational individuals communicate dispas-
sionately in order to reconcile their differences and to achieve consensus. Reasoning from first principles, it
is possible, on this view, to deduce transcendentally, i.e. abstractly from logic rather than empirically from ev-
idence, a set of rules through which argumentative discourse should proceed. Using these rules as analytical
tools, rather than as practical constraints, analysis can thus reveal defects and dysfunctions in real-life situ-
ations. The rules can be summarized in relation to dialogical participants as: inclusion and open admission;
free questioning; freedom of assertion; openness in expression; and exclusion of coercion.
As a diagnostic tool those rules are ideals, but subject to revision. Counter-arguments can be shown, by in-
voking performative contradiction, to presuppose what they object to. The communicative action approach is
thus the inverse of the post-structuralist discourse analysis discussed above. That view was to some extent
argued in opposition to the presumption within the communicative action approach that there is a singular
ideality of consensus to which speech and behaviour ought to conform. Post-structuralist premises are also
in opposition to a view that antagonism and conflicts are necessarily defects in, rather than inherent con-
stituents of, humanness. Where post-structuralism sees persuasion and power as constituting of humanness,
discourse ethics sees morality and values. Many researchers in political studies prefer to position their results
positively in relation to the morality and values, working from the premises of communicative action, rather
than to put themselves into an ambiguous position in relation to political judgement and action, as post-struc-
turalists do.
Critical Discourse Analysis

Critical discourse analysis, self-styled CDA, arose from the traditional hermeneutics that promised the discov-
ery of hidden meanings. Those meanings were said to be concealed in texts, whereas properly trained re-
searchers applying science-like protocols could reveal them accurately (Machin and Mayr, 2012). The ‘critical’
in CDA was derived from so-called critical theory, which posits a political realm of interest- and/or class-driven
ideology (Freeden, 2003). Ideologies articulate an outlook or worldview systematically and persuasively. But
they are in some sense – to be revealed by means of intellectual critique – misleading, selective, parti pris
and suspect. Critical theory and ideology-critique derive loosely from Marxism and the writings of Marx and
Engels, who argued that the ruling ideas in politics, law, religion, morality and suchlike are not derivative of
timeless truths, but rather historical products. Therefore, they are malleable effects of meaning-making. De-
spite overt claims to be in the general interest, or indeed everyone's individual interest, such systems of ideas
are covertly articulated so as to benefit some classes in a society to the detriment of others (Bronner, 2017).
Although derived from empirical linguistics, within which claims to scientificity rely on a value-neutral stance
of objectivity, CDA has reversed the enterprise in order to embrace an egalitarian political perspective. And
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like post-structuralist approaches to discourse as meaning-making, it has also embraced visuality. The tool
kit elaborated in the how-to volumes generated within CDA overlap considerably with the eclectic mix of con-
cepts developed by discourse analysts working from post-structuralist premises. The difference between the
two arises, however, in two things: the singularity of the critical project for CDA, that is revealing a hidden
truth; and the necessary positioning therefore of the researcher as superior, through training and credential-
ization, to the ordinary reader. By contrast, the post-structuralist approach, as discussed above, embraces
indeterminacy in meaning-making, rather than the singularity of the hidden truth. And it acknowledges un-
certainty about meaning-makers, rather than proceeding from mere suspicion. Taking the meaning-making
involved in discourse analysis itself to be persuasive, rather than definitive, thus relieves discourse analysts
working from post-structuralist perspectives from charges of authoritarianism and elitism.
Critical Realism and Social Constructivism

So far we have pursued interpretative methods on post-structuralist premises related to the ‘linguistic turn'.
And we have briefly noted the two contrasting starting-points: discourse ethics and ideal-speech, on the one
hand, and critical theory and ideology-critique, on the other. Two further alternatives are now on the horizon.
Critical realism was a response to the way that post-structuralists embraced uncertainty in judgement and
identified meaning-making with power. For critical realists this could be resolved with a conditional but Kantian
argument, namely that humans should be acting as if certainty in ethical and scientific judgement is attain-
able, even if there is no unarguable basis for indubitable deduction. And similarly they argue that knowledge-
making should proceed as if humans are capable of knowing how any phenomenon really is in itself, thus
expecting human categories and all else in the world to arrive eventually at coincidence. That position is thus
a heuristic presupposition, licensing certainty but on a conditional basis. That tactic, so it was argued, avoided
the problems of relativism. Relativism implies that the ultimate absence of certainty in judgement necessarily
disallows the invocation of any criteria at all on which judgement can be soundly based (Benton and Craib,
2001). A post-structuralist response is that resolving differences into relative powers of persuasion presumes
that countervailing powers are possible and are themselves founded on judgements. For judgements to be
effective, human agents must make meaningful some courses of action as opposed to others. Or put simply,
any alleged foundational and thus indubitable certainties, whether of ethics or science, are themselves perfor-
matives that enact, via meaning-making communities, what they purport to describe (Chambers and Carver,
2008).
Constructivism references post-structuralist premises and the ‘linguistic turn', as described above, but only
to the point that the existence and properties of the material world come into question. Thus it is said that
humans construct the social world in and through performative concepts. Those meanings are projected into,
and arise out of, social activities that are meaningful and intelligible, precisely because they are constructed
in that way. However, the material world, and the sciences thereof, are typically bracketed off from considera-
tion, thus referencing a social-/material-presumed binary which divides objects of knowledge that are different
in essence. However, following the discussion of materialization provided above, the post-structuralist riposte
to constructionists is that concepts of the material, and all other categories of science, arise performatively
within human communities. Thus material technologies, as well as social ones, are seamless with processes
of discovery and validation.
As methodological premises and useful heuristics, both critical realism and constructivism function within po-
litical studies as approaches that incorporate many of the interpretative methods considered here.
Visuality and Communicative Objects

Theorizing from post-structuralist premises aims for complexity rather than simplicity. It thus rejects the sci-
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entific tradition which has, for some centuries, celebrated reductionism, parsimony and elegance. The ori-
entation towards complexity is a clue to the inclusion of visual meaning-making not only within, but crucially
important to, discourse analysis as practised on premises derived from post-structuralism and the ‘linguistic
turn'. Words, whether written or spoken, are essential to meaning-making, and – through the preservation of
written texts and repetitive intertextual citation – to communicative practices. But then so are visuality and
aurality.
Images and sounds are important meaning-makers, though they need not, and in many cases do not, occur
in conjunction with written or spoken words. Modern cultures are logocentric in conflating writing and speech
with concepts, and thus finding images and sounds problematic as meaning-makers in communicating ideas.
Like written and spoken texts, images mean different things to different people. As the commonplace saying
goes: one picture is worth ten thousand words. Like words, images can be denotative, or representational,
and connotative, or associational. Similarly, they evoke feelings and emotions. And rhetorically they can per-
suade or dissuade. Like people they ‘want’ to be looked at, to be engaged in dialogical meaning-making, and
to be social creatures and political agents (Mitchell, 2005). Of course that is a projection of humanness into
physical objects, but then that trope licenses an interpretative analysis of non-verbal communications. Non-
verbal communications, perhaps because of their ubiquity and potency, are often even more effective mean-
ing-makers than purely verbal media.
Thus meaning-making does not have to come to humans only from other humans via the physical media as
described. Rather, meaning-making within human social activities is done in conjunction with further physical
objects and phenomena. Thus images and sounds do not merely represent concepts, albeit defectively and
imprecisely. Nor are they merely vehicles for conveying meanings that are necessarily only verbal. Rather,
images and sounds convey conceptual and emotional messages, which may or may not be easy to put into
words. As communicators of concepts through which we experience sociality as meaning-making, they are
indispensable to being human. This understanding of meaning-making extends even more to the built envi-
ronment. That is because the instantiation of concepts, such that meanings are communicated more or less
effectively, and then read and interpreted variously by individuals, are a constituent of architectural theory and
practice, and similarly with respect to interior design (Yanow, 2014c).
Discourse analytical methods thus include picture-space, geometry, composition, colour, light, perspective,
symbolism, culture, audience, intention, economics, reception and any number of similar categories devel-
oped in art history and aesthetics (Rose, 2012). For photography, many of those apply similarly but with addi-
tions of ‘the gaze', viewer-camera positioning, framing and cropping, the window-on-reality effect and similar
technical considerations (Hand, 2012). For moving images, whether cinematic, animation or amateur video,
a grammar of narrative meaning-making has been derived from literary studies to which technical terms are
analogous: editing and cuts are similar to the ways that prose and poetry shift time and space; montage and
fade-out mimic narrative devices that proceed episodically; mise en scène and set-dressing condense the
continuous prose of narration and description. To the dramaturgy of theatrical performances cinema adds
camerawork understood as close-up, long-shot, focus-pulling, panning, zoom, dolly shot, camera motion and
many other techniques – taken as analytical tools – through which a film can be read. Reading a film is thus
portraying it dialogically as a meaning-maker (Monaco, 2009).
Narrative analysis is applicable to any medium in which someone tells a story, whether it is a novelist or
film-maker. This includes authorial voice in a novel or voice-over in a movie, or an interviewee in response
to an unstructured or semi-structured question from a researcher (Bevir, 2006). The method is also applica-
ble to non-verbal communicative objects, such as pictures or photographs, individually or sequentially, when
viewers construct a narration that puts images into words. In commonplace terms, a story has a beginning,
a middle and an end, and is narrated in prose or poetry. In relation to living human subjects researchers will
necessarily have a self-reflexive account of what they are doing, and research projects are themselves nar-
rations with a narrator.

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Over and above the rhetorical, symbolic and metaphorical or tropological considerations that are operative
in discourse analysis, narrative analysis requires genre-classification. This includes comedy, tragedy, satire,
romance and the like, each of which will have defining features. It also requires consideration of the narrator's
point of view and reliability; tests of consistency and continuity in relation to space, time and character; and
crucially, reconstruction of social mythologies, through which facts and fictions are understood. It also appre-
hends concepts of identity, through which self-understandings are pursued in dialogical relations of recog-
nition and misrecognition. Narrative analysis offers a powerful way to explore meaning-making (Charteris-
Black, 2005).
Aural meaning-making, other than speech, is the area where there is the least consensus on analytical cat-
egories and methodological tools. So far it relies on rather banal staples of musical appreciation, such as
the association of minor keys with sadness, or the use of evocative genre-distinctions, such as the associ-
ation of march-time rhythms with militarism (Franklin, 2005). As recording and playback technologies have
developed, music has become very widely accessible in text-less and disembodied modes. In that way, it is
increasingly experienced apart from live performers or moving images with dialogue. In genres of pure sound,
with increasing reduction of, and isolation from, background noise, listeners are encouraged to be meaning-
makers independent of authorial or other instruction. Cinematic sound design is highly developed, including
even subliminal and other aural effects. But even within multi-media studies, analysis of sound as itself mean-
ing-making, rather than meaning-enhancing, represents a methodological opportunity (Sexton, 2007).
Conclusion
A perspective that follows post-structuralist premises and the implications of the ‘linguistic turn', as we have
done here, affords researchers the most extensive array of interpretive methods, and the most promising
possibilities, for knowledge-creation in the study of politics. However, knowledge-creation that proceeds from
other premises, e.g. the subject-object empiricisms through which protocols of reduction, deduction and in-
duction are deployed, are sometimes extended to include data-collection from non-verbal media. In that way,
such media-specific methods can apply within political science (Banks and Zeitlyn, 2015). Empirical research
into the effectivity of political campaigns, for example, can take up visual and aural data with appropriate tools,
thus improving on intuitive and untutored observations.
The practice of obtaining data from non-verbal sources inevitably raises questions as to the comparative va-
lidity of results. The use of interpretative methods, appended to empiricist social science, will produce knowl-
edge that always looks subjective in relation to the researcher. And it will look uncertain in relation to repro-
ducibility of results, predictive power of models, or explanatory value of conclusions. Taken on other terms,
namely those of post-structuralism and the ‘linguistic turn', interpretative methods will open up a non-reduc-
tionist understanding of politics as human social interaction arising from power-differentials. It will also nec-
essarily promote an all-round consideration of the meaning-making activities through which political relations
actually operate (Yanow and Schwartz-Shea, 2012).
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• discipline
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n27

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Methodology: Qualitative and Quantitative
Approaches1
Contributors: Nathaniel Beck

Chapter Title: "Methodology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches1"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Methodology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches1

Nathaniel Beck
Introduction
Political methodology deals with all issues related to how to do empirical political research (non-empirical
work, such as pure formal or normative theory, is excluded here). Methodology, as it is understood here, sim-
ply refers to the ways in which we acquire knowledge and comprises a multitude of specific methods and tech-
niques. As such, it is embedded in an epistemological tradition of ‘critical rationalism’ (Karl Popper: 1963) and
‘scientific realism’ (Moses, Chapter 27, this Handbook). This has been summarized as the ‘twofold conviction
that the world consists of causal mechanisms that exist independently of our study – or even awareness – of
them, and that the methods of science hold our best possibility of our grasping their true character’ (Shapiro,
2005: 8–9). While it is often confused with narrower topics such as statistics, methodology is a broad area
that deals with every aspect of political research, both quantitative and qualitative. While some methodologi-
cal issues are more relevant to certain subfields or types of research, all political science is subject to similar
standards and logic. While political methodology is related to more general social science methodology, there
are specific issues that distinguish political methodology, while of course there is a shared logic and standards
across the empirical social sciences. Since political science is itself defined by substantive questions, there
is much importing of methods from other disciplines into political science. Questions of what is imported and
the relevance of imported methods are important issues in political methodology. This entry discusses some
of the major advances in this field.
While political methodology deals with empirical research, there cannot be any purely empirical research.
Every empirical study involves some relationship between a theoretical concept and its empirical referent.
Even very narrow empirical research, such as the measurement of electoral turnout in a given locality in a giv-
en period, requires a theoretical assessment of what is electoral turnout. For example, are people who are of
legal age to vote but excluded from the process because of a prior felony (as some are in the United States)
counted in the denominator? While empirical studies of voting turnout are less complex theoretically than
studies of, say, whether being a democracy causes a nation to be more pacific, both studies involve a mix
of theoretical and empirical analysis and both can be assessed using the same logic. Thus, issues of mea-
surement are always critical; such issues have become even more critical as technology makes new forms
of data (video, blogs) available, or it makes it possible to easily analyze data that we have always used but
found hard to deal with (text). The ability to deal with new sources of very complicated data, and, with modern
computers, the ability to code massive amounts of non-quantitative data, as well as the ability to collect indi-
vidual data via the internet, are amongst the most exciting developments in political methodology (Wagschal
and Ettensperger, Chapter 16, this Handbook).
Similarly, there can be no difference in the underlying logic of qualitative and quantitative research. While ob-
viously the specific tools will be different, if the question of interest is why countries have differing regulatory
systems, we may pursue this in a number of ways. But, in the end, all such studies must be able to answer
whether the evidence used leads to the conclusion asserted. While process tracing through official papers of
decision makers is different than regressing regulatory rules on political variables, both may use one type of
quantitative method while students of cross-national comparative politics may use another type, these sub-
fields are also subject to the same fundamental logic. This point has been forcefully made in recent years
in important books by Gary King, Robert Keohane and Sidney Verba (1994) and by Henry Brady and David
Collier (2010). The interrelationship (both similarities and dissimilarities) between quantitative and qualitative
analysis, and how to combine both types to improve research, is another research area in political methodol-
ogy that is seeing much discussion.
Some political science research is purely descriptive: how many people vote, did more people vote last year
than this year, and the like. As noted, even for this simple issue, serious measurement issues arise: which
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people vote and what does it mean to vote. Obviously, such issues are simpler than asking how many coun-
tries are democracies, but the methodological logic does not change. Most political science research, howev-
er, is not simply descriptive. While sometimes we only care about associations, much research uses causal
language, metaphors and ideas. Thus, while we might only be interested in whether there is a correlation be-
tween being a democracy and the amount of public goods provided, we are often more interested in whether
there is a causal relationship, such that being a democracy leads to more public goods being provided. In
purely associational studies, the variables are all treated symmetrically; when using the language of causality
there is always a variable that is being caused and one or more variables doing the causing. Issues of as-
sessing causality are in the forefront of current discussions of political methodology, whether quantitative or
qualitative. These issues can all be considered under the heading of research design.
Finally, when the above issues have been dealt with, there is the issue of how to get the data to speak clearly,
and how to assess what inferences can be drawn from the data (be it qualitative or quantitative). This is the
realm of statistics (for quantitative studies). Obviously, the use of sophisticated statistical methods has mush-
roomed in political science, at least partly as a function of the increased computer power that is now com-
monly available. But while this part of methodology is often seen as highly mathematical and complicated, it
is usually the simplest part of political methodology. It is also the case that the most sophisticated statistics
cannot save a poor research design or poor measurement; by contrast, good research design often leads to
simple statistical analysis. This entry begins with developments in data and measurement, then goes on to
discuss research design, then measurement and only then concludes with a discussion of statistical methods.
Data and Measurement

Empirical research deals with data (observations), and the earliest empirical work, that of Aristotle on constitu-
tions, took as data the various Greek constitutions. Data comes in a multitude of forms, ranging from reading
diaries or internal records of decision making, through field observation and (unstructured or semi-structured)
interviews with local leaders, to the analysis of carefully collected economic statistics or a variety of highly
structured survey data. Every type of research has certain types of data that are more commonly used, but
all types of data are subject to the same standards and issues. There is a difference between journalism and
political science, and much of that difference has to do with standards for data. Both journalists and political
scientists may interview political leaders, but the way they collect and code that information is usually quite
different.
Modern technological developments have had an enormous impact on political science data. Much of the
data we use is textual (laws, party manifestos, records of debate and deliberation, court decisions, newspa-
per accounts, minutes and records of administrative procedures, amongst many others). Our discipline has
always used such data, but coding this data was extremely difficult and time consuming, leading to such data
being underutilized. Now much of this data comes in machine readable form, and any data available in hard
copy can be scanned and put into such a form. Thus it is now relatively easy to code documents for the use of
different types of words (or themes or tropes or whatever one likes). Machines can quickly search the records
of various newspapers to code for various types of political events, a task that used to require a large team of
graduate students and a very large budget. With modern computations, it is relatively easy for any investiga-
tor to code this textual data in a way that meets the needs of an individual research project. This is one of the
most exciting advances in data collection in our discipline, an advance that is well under way. The possibilities
for the analysis of textual data are almost limitless. While small bodies of text can be analyzed qualitative-
ly, much modern text analysis works on enormous corpora (often generated by social media). Such corpora
require quantitative analysis and recent years have seen many breakthroughs and new methods (Wilkerson
and Casas, 2017).
The analysis of surveys has been a mainstay in our discipline for the last half-century or more. Until recently,
analysts were at the mercy of the survey organization; conducting a survey was a multi-million-dollar task.
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Thus electoral analysts in each country worked with the same standard survey collected by some national
research organization; research could not go beyond the questions asked by that organization. With mod-
ern advances in communications and computers, it is now relatively easy for researchers to design their own
surveys to suit the needs of a specific research project. We are also seeing more standardized surveys, so
students of elections can now analyze a similar set of questions in almost any European country (and there
are similar efforts in other parts of the world, with the Afrobarometer, the Latinobarometro and the World Val-
ues Survey). At the same time, a researcher wanting to study a specific event can put a survey in the field in a
short space of time and at a reasonable cost. Larger survey houses can monitor populations over the course
of an election, and even change or add questions as issues arise over the course of a campaign. Critical to
this is the ability to monitor a survey on a day-to-day basis. In past times, it might have been months or years
until survey data became available; with the new technology such data is available on a daily basis (Cautrès,
Chapter 28, this Handbook). Thus, for example, it was possible to track changes in the British electorate in
2010 and their responses to the introduction of debates into the British campaign.
Modern technology also makes it easy to imbed experiments into a survey. Thus one can give different re-
spondents different scenarios, or different question wordings or whatever one likes, and these different treat-
ments can be chosen randomly. This technology has greatly increased the use of field experiments. The in-
credible growth of the internet has been enormously important here. Various survey organizations in many
countries give the researcher access to a huge pool of respondents, as well as the tools to quickly design a
survey instrument and to allow the researcher to take advantage of experimental manipulation in the ques-
tions (subject only to ethical constraints on such manipulation). Internet surveys can be undertaken at very
low cost, and are within the budget of even a PhD student. While there are still many issues in the use of the
internet in this manner, we are clearly seeing more and more use of the internet (both for reasons of cost and
sample size, and because other modes of interviewing are becoming more problematic).
Once the data has been collected, numbers must be assigned. This is the process of measurement, which
relies both on concept formation and (for quantitative studies) various methods often associated with psycho-
metrics. Qualitative scholars have paid much attention to concept formation, and, in conjunction with tools
such as Charles Ragin's (1987, 2008) Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), much progress has been
made. Students of comparative politics have paid much attention to how concepts generalize across geo-
graphic locations, and how we can generalize across locations without having too much ‘conceptual stretch-
ing'.
At the same time, statistical and computing advances have allowed researchers to move beyond the psycho-
metric techniques that were available 20 years ago. Today there is vibrant activity in multidimensional analy-
sis, and in recent years, scaling techniques, both uni- and multidimensional, have been put on a much firmer
theoretical basis. The new textual data has brought to the forefront issues such as how to locate political par-
ties in a multidimensional issue space, and new statistical methods have allowed for great advances in the
location of individual legislators in such a space.
The last decade has seen a great increase in the amount of data sharing (largely through the impetus of fund-
ing agencies) as well as journals requiring authors to make available replication data sets. While this works
very well for quantitative data, it is more problematic for qualitative data (interviews, field observation note-
books and the like). However, as it becomes easier either to collect this data in digitized format or to convert
it to such a format, it can be expected that it will be as easy to make qualitative data publicly available as it
now is for quantitative data (though obviously there are more issues of confidentiality and the like).
Research Designs
Political scientists have relied heavily on observational studies (whether quantitative or qualitative). However,
while there is some interest in pure description, there is usually more interest in making causal interpretations
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from the data. Thus, while we begin with simply observing that pairs of democracies usually do not go to war,
we are more interested in the question of whether, as countries democratize, they become less likely to go to
war. Finally, we try to deepen the explanation, asking what facet of democracy makes democracies less likely
to fight each other.
The question of how we can infer causality from observational data has vexed philosophers as long as there
have been philosophers. The meaning of causality is a vibrant topic in modern philosophy (Baumgartner,
Chapter 18, this Handbook). Applied researchers have attempted to find ways to assess causality, and, at
a minimum, to attempt to rule out other, non-causal explanations for findings. In the above example, being
a democracy may not really be the causal variable; perhaps, instead, the real causal variable is economic
development, and richer countries are simply more likely to be democracies. Thus the observed association
(correlation) between democracy and peacefulness could be artifactual or spurious. Both quantitative and
qualitative researchers have devoted enormous attention to this issue.
On the purely qualitative side, researchers have paid great attention to Mill's Methods (John Stuart and Mill,
1843). Thus we see large numbers of comparative case studies, with researchers choosing the cases so as
obtain variation on the key dependent variable and the causal variable, but little or no variation on other vari-
ables. Researchers also choose cases for theory testing based on the cases that are likely to prove hardest
for the theory to explain. Researchers are also taking advantage of differences in designs where two cases
are compared for two different times, where the cases were originally similar but a key variable (and hope-
fully only that key variable) has changed in one case but not the other. Moving to larger numbers of cases,
researchers have used various configurational techniques to see how variables are related to each other, and
to study complicated causal paths. Great attention has been paid to necessary and sufficient conditions and
to designs which can distinguish whether a condition is necessary, sufficient, both or in some more complicat-
ed relationship to a variable of interest (Wagemann, Chapter 20, this Handbook).
Qualitative researchers have often chosen their cases based on issues of research design or the importance
of their cases; quantitative researchers, conversely, have often chosen cases to maximize generalizability,
either via national surveys or large cross-country analyses. But trends in quantitative research are tending
to blur the difference between qualitative and quantitative designs (with both designs subject to similar stan-
dards about inferring causality). All of these are attempts to bring experimental insights into political science.
One relatively new development which shows the convergence of various approaches is the ‘analytic narra-
tive’ (Bates et al., 1998). Here researchers attempt to show how some important development in history can
be explained by modern analytic theory. While these analytic narratives cannot test analytic theories, they
can make such theories more or less plausible. There is much controversy about whether this tool can really
be used to either help validate a theory or to explain an important historical event; can a clever user of the
tool explain anything, or, as Jon Elster (2015) put it, are they simply ‘just so’ stories? However, this joining of
modern analytic (usually formal) theory and careful historical evidence shows how two very different traditions
can be joined in a potentially fruitful manner.
Political science studies are most frequently observational. Other fields, such as medicine, rely more heavily
(though far from exclusively) on experiments. In medicine the gold standard is the clinical trial, where subjects
in a selected pool are randomly assigned to either a ‘treatment’ or a ‘control’ group, and where, under appro-
priate conditions, one can infer whether the treatment causes a better outcome.
Experiments are much harder in political science. We cannot assign countries randomly to be either democ-
racies or not, nor can we assign voters to be randomly rich or poor. We can, however, set up a laboratory, and
then randomly assign participants in an experiment to a treatment or control condition. Thus, for example,
we can study whether people prefer ‘fair outcomes’ by having pairs of subjects bargain, where each pair is
randomly assigned to some initial endowment or price system. While this is an exciting new area of politi-
cal science, issues of generalizing from experiments to the real world (external validity) will always limit the

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use of laboratory experiments in our discipline. However, where experiments are possible, we can be much
more certain about assessing whether some political treatment had a causal (and not spurious) effect on an
outcome of interest. Experiments may be particularly useful for testing formal theories of politics, since those
theories are themselves highly abstract representations of the political universe.
Experiments need not be limited to a laboratory; it is perfectly possible (and now with modern technology
even easier) to conduct field experiments. The move from the laboratory to the field increases external validity
at the cost of our being less certain about our causal inferences (internal validity). Perhaps the first examples
of this came in conjunction with surveys, where different people could randomly receive different question
wordings or question orders. It was easy to move beyond this to providing different people with different in-
formation randomly (subject of course to ethical guidelines about dealing with human subjects, which do not
allow for, at a minimum, misleading subjects). Perhaps the most common field experiments have to do with
the effect of various attempts to motivate people to vote, and to what extent voting turnout can be influenced
by various communications strategies (Green and Gerber, 2008).
Field experiments are now also common in the assessment of various interventions. Thus, if we want to know
if certain types of political interventions (say national-level monitoring of local corruption), and if the area of
intervention is chosen randomly (because the state cannot monitor all localities), it is then relatively easy to
study the impact of the anti-corruption intervention. Of course, this depends on the willingness of the state
to intervene randomly, something they are not always (or often) willing to do. On a simple level, we can of-
ten study such things as educational reforms by comparing students who were randomly selected for the re-
form with those who applied but were not selected in a lottery. New programs which are oversubscribed often
choose participants in this way. Of course if we simply compare those in the program with those not in the
program, we do not know if the program, or factors which led people to choose to be in the program, led to the
observed outcome, and so no causal inference is possible. But there is more and more demand for careful
evaluation of programs (such as aid programs sponsored by various large foundations), and so this type of
approach will become more and more common. This is a major step for applied researchers who want to see
whether innovations actually work (Bassi, Chapter 22, this Handbook).
A somewhat different though related strategy is to keep laboratory control but move the laboratory from the
research university to real world settings. In a university laboratory we can study how undergraduates in re-
search universities bargain. In field laboratories (again made possible by technological innovations) we can
study how a wider group of people bargain. Researchers can also imbed in these experiments more ‘real
world’ features. Thus, in some particularly exciting experiments on the role of ethnicity and trust, some people
bargained with people of their own ethnic group, while others simply bargained with a randomly selected per-
son. Thus, we can now make advances in studying group trust with studies that are both at least somewhat
externally valid while still allowing for reliable causal inference.
But perhaps the strongest convergence of qualitative and quantitative thinking comes in what Donald T.
Campbell and Julian Stanley called ‘quasi-experiments’ in their path-breaking 1963 book on research design.
Unlike experiments, some external force (political or natural) has ‘assigned’ one group to a treatment and
another to a control. Since this is not a true randomized experiment, researchers must show that the treat-
ment was assigned in such a way that the assignment process was independent of the outcome. Thus, for
example, the British drew boundaries in Africa as if they were random (that is, following various geographi-
cal markers); thus one ethnic group might be divided between two countries, and one can then see whether
there are differences in the behavior of the same ethnic group in the two countries. In the study of (McCauley
and Posner, 2015)there were two ethnic groups each split across two countries, with the division into coun-
tries being ‘as if’ random; Posner could then see whether political and social rivalries between the two groups
differed as a function of the larger political structures in each country. We are seeing more and more such de-
signs. These research designs obviously have high external validity, though they lack the clear ability to show
causal effects, since the assignment to groups was not totally random. But researchers are taking advantage
of ‘almost random’ natural assignments to study the effects of changing laws (with laws cutting natural labor

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markets artificially, so the effect of, say, a change in the minimum wage law in half the labor market can be
compared with what happened in the same labor market not subject to the change). This approach is very
exciting, though of course one must work hard to show that the assignment process was effectively random.
From a methodological standpoint, it does not matter whether the data collected from the two groups is quan-
titative or qualitative, and, in general, both types are collected. But even if the data from the two groups comes
from large surveys, we are still comparing only two groups.
A related research design, which brings together both quantitative and qualitative researchers, is the differ-
ence-in-differences design. In a simple before and after comparison we do not know if the intervention in
between the observations caused the observed change. If we simply compare two units, one with an interven-
tion and one without, we do not know if the intervention or something else caused the observed difference.
The difference-in-differences design asks the researcher to find two similar units where one unit had an inter-
vention (say a change in a law) and the other did not. We need to be able to observe both units both before
and after the intervention in one unit. If there is a bigger difference in the unit with the intervention then we
have evidence that the intervention had a causal impact. As before, this design has good external validity but
it does not rule out all other causal explanations. And, as before, we can compare many units, leading to a
quantitative design (so long as the units were similar beforehand) or we can do a simpler two cases differ-
ence-in-difference design, allowing for more in-depth analysis of the two before and after cases. The study of
causality has also been a big issue in statistical analysis. But even without statistical innovations, all empirical
researchers have clearly been impacted by new thinking about using good research design to infer causality.
Statistics
Multiple regression is clearly the workhorse of the quantitative political scientist. But political scientists have
been quick to utilize related methods that better fit the data analyzed. A quarter of a century ago researchers
still found methods like logit and probit for dichotomous dependent variables to be either just at or just beyond
their grasp. Today these methods are commonplace. Similarly, researchers with ordered dependent variables,
or event count dependent variables, or length of time dependent variables, typically know how to find the cor-
rect methods (and all commonly used software makes it easy to use these methods in practice). While the
gains here are often, but not always, small, they usually come at no price, so there is no question that re-
searchers should match their choice of method to the type of data being analyzed. These issues, typically im-
portant in cross-sectional research, are, by and large, now solved problems (King, 1989; Ward and Ahlquist,
2018).
As computers have become more powerful, so have our methods. Thus, it is now possible to analyze more
complex models, such as hierarchical models or spatial models of voting, using Markov chain Monte Car-
lo (MCMC) methods (Jackman, 2011). As with maximum likelihood before it, this method has moved from
being an exotic state-of-the-art procedure to one being commonly used by graduate students; as with max-
imum likelihood, current software developments have made this method much more accessible to applied
researchers. The other new development, which also depends on powerful computers, is replacing the stan-
dard linear specification with highly complicated non-parametric models using machine learning (Hastie et al.,
2009). While the jury is still out on whether these methods will replace workhorse linear methods, there is no
question that machine learning is vital for measurement when using complicated text or visual data.
Similar strides have been made in the analysis of time series. While in the past the important issues of time
series (which often have enormous consequences for results) were ignored, over the last quarter of a cen-
tury the discipline has become much more sophisticated. Thus most researchers analyzing time series get
the technical details right. Econometricians, at the same time, have made great strides in studying data that
is trending (or, more technically, non-stationary). Political scientists have been quick to pick up on this, and
we see much fewer spurious regressions. So while the issues here are more complicated, and there are still
open issues about trending series, as with cross-sectional analyses, time series analyses in political science
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are now reasonably well done.
In comparative politics we have data that consists of time series observed over a number of countries: time
series cross-sectional data. Many articles now analyze such data, and the discipline has gotten good at an-
alyzing such data. Similarly, we can have cross-sectional surveys with repeated observations on each indi-
vidual: panel data. The analysis of such data has also become commonplace, with the appropriate methods
often used. Finally, there have been great advances in data where individuals are observed over multiple units
(say, common surveys in different countries): multilevel data. Again, there have been great strides recently in
the analysis of such data, and the correct analysis of multilevel data has also become more common.
This is not to say that all statistical issues have been solved. Most current methods assume that observations
in one unit are independent of observations in other units. But this assumption is clearly false for political sci-
ence. What goes on in one country affects its neighbors and trading partners; a dyad going to war must have
impacts on a large number of other dyads. Recently political methodologists have been investigating methods
for modeling spatially dependent data, and great strides are being made in this area.
Another active area of research is on ecological data, that is, data where interest is on individuals but only
aggregate data is observed. Political science is rich with aggregate data, particularly voting data collected at
the precinct level. But often interest is at the individual level. For example, who voted for the National Social-
ist Party in Germany in the 1930s? We have lots of data on aggregate votes at the precinct level, and some
knowledge of the social characteristics of such precincts. Obviously we would like to do surveys, but these
are impossible for events in the past. Since William Robinson's (1950) classic work on the ‘ecological fallacy’
we have known that it is not simple to make inferences about individuals from data collected at a higher level
of aggregation. However, recent advances have shown that we can use such data to gain insights into indi-
vidual data (and also to show when the data cannot support such insights).
An important issue that is the subject of much discussion is how to interpret statistical results. Political science
has been dominated by the null hypothesis testing framework, where we calculate the probability of obtaining
the data observed if the null hypothesis (almost always that two or more variables are unrelated) is correct. If
this probability is low enough we ‘reject’ the null hypothesis, otherwise we do not reject. This approach is high-
ly problematic, since rejecting the null hypothesis does not imply that there is a strong relationship between
variables and failing to reject the null hypothesis does not mean that there is no relationship between vari-
ables. There is now active discussion in the social sciences and amongst journal editors as to moving beyond
the hypothesis testing framework, and the subsequent issue of what should replace it (see. e.g. Blakeley and
Gal, 2017 and ensuing comments).
In the last few years, there has been much discussion of moving to a Bayesian paradigm. Much of this is dri-
ven by the computing power, rather than the interpretive possibilities, made possible by a Bayesian approach.
Bayesian interpretation assumes we know something about the world, expressed as a statistical ‘prior distrib-
ution’ on some parameters of interest. This prior is combined with the information in the data, the ‘likelihood',
to produce a posterior distribution. Statements about the parameters of interest can be made based on this
posterior distribution. There is much controversy on how to use prior information, and much controversy on
the issue of different scholars having different priors. But this is a very active area of current research, both
in political methodology and beyond, and Bayesians ideas (as well as computational methods) are making
strong inroads in political science (Jackman, 2011).
Statistics and Causality

Regression, and its maximum likelihood cousins (limited dependent variables, event counts, event history,
time series) estimate a model of a dependent variable conditional on an observed set of independent vari-
ables; these independent variables are assumed to be exogenous, that is, they are determined outside the
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system being modeled and hence can be taken as given. For pure description this is fine. But we generally
want to make causal inferences. To take the simplest regression case (and all holds in the more complicated
cases mentioned above), we believe the data was generated for unit i by the following process
yi = βxi + εi
where x refers to either a single independent variable or a vector of such variables and ε is a standard un-
known error term. Clearly β can be interpreted descriptively, that is, as the slope of a line (or plane) that best
fits the points. But can it be interpreted causally, that is, do we believe that if for a given unit x increases by
one point that y will increase by β points? (Obviously we will have to use an estimate of β, but this discussion
holds even if we know the value of β for sure. This is not an issue of estimation.)
There are a number of reasons that the relationship between x and y could be non-causal. The simplest is
that there is some other variable, z, that causes both x and y. For example, there may be a good sized β in
a regression of spending on public goods on democracy, but it may be that it is really how rich a country is
that is causing both spending on public goods and democracy; there may be no causal relationship between
democracy and spending on public goods in the sense that simply making a country more democratic, but
keeping everything else the same, may lead to no increase in spending on public goods.
Traditionally this was dealt with by including z in the regression and seeing if the coefficient on x changed.
This is not an unreasonable way to proceed. However, it can be problematic. First, it assumes that the effect
of x and z on y are linear and additive. For just the two variables, this means that we are assuming that
yi = γxi + δzi + εi
where x and z are now scalars. While the details are a bit more complicated, this procedure estimates the
effect of x on y by subtracting off from each observation δzi. But if the effect of x on y varies with z, or if the
linear additive model is otherwise incorrect, this correction is, alas, not correct.
But this is not the only problem. Let us say x is binary (democracy/non-democracy) and let z be national in-
come. Can we make a poor autocracy comparable (in terms of public goods spending) to a rich democracy by
simply adding δz (z is income) to its y (spending on public goods)? Given that there are few rich autocracies
or poor democracies, this approach depends a lot on extrapolation well outside the data and so depends on
a strong belief that the linear additive assumptions are correct.
Recently researchers have proceeded in a different way, at least for the binary x case. For each democracy,
they attempt to find one or more autocracies that are very close on various exogenous variables that might
influence x and z (what Judea Pearl has called ‘back-door paths’ between x and y, and what Paul Rosenbaum
has called ‘confounders'; Pearl, 2009; Pearl and MacKenzie, 2018; Rosenbaum, 2017). If one has eliminated
all potential ‘confounders’ by matching on them, then the difference in means between the democracies and
autocracies will give us the effect of democracy on y. Of course, this means that the various confounders must
be observable and measured in the data set (and there are many technical issues that must be resolved by
the researcher).
What if we cannot match all the democracies with autocracies? These unmatched cases are simply dropped
from the analysis. Thus we do not have to extrapolate well beyond the data, but this limits us to studying
causal impacts in comparable cases; thus, for example, we cannot say what would happen if Denmark were
to become an autocracy. This is almost certainly the right degree of modesty.
This matching literature is undergoing rapid development at the current time (for a summary, see Morgan and
Winship, 2014). Issues that must be studied include how to handle continuous (or multivalued) xs and how
to deal with studies where we cannot focus solely on one independent variable of interest. There are also

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many technical issues that are continually being dealt with, such as what does it mean for two cases to match
and how many and which cases should be dropped from an analysis because they do not match. But clear-
ly this approach is often superior to multiple regression (and when multiple regression is correct, it provides
roughly the same answer). Perhaps more importantly, even if one decides to continue to run regressions, the
insights of the matching and causality literatures are of great value. There are two difficult issues in multiple
regression on which statistics give few insights: which independent variables to include in the regression and
which cases should be studied. The matching approach suggests that only variables which are on back-door
paths between the key independent variable and the dependent variable should be included in the regression.
Equally important are variables on front-door paths, where x causes z and y should not be included in the
regression. Thus if some variable is a consequence of x, if we include it in the regression, we may incorrectly
conclude that x has no causal impact on y.
In terms of which cases to include in a regression, the matching literature tells us that for any given potential
causal variable, some cases give us no leverage because it is impossible to match cases where the causal
variable is present to where it is absent. This is often not a problem in survey analysis but can be a major
problem in the study of comparative and international politics. We often analyze a group of countries because
they belong to a data reporting organization; the matching approach gives a more principled way of starting
to think about which cases should be included in an analysis. And, just as importantly, the cases to include
vary with the causal variable being studied. But, as with simple matching, we then must remember that the
causal effect that is estimated is a function of which cases are studied.
The matching approach (and multiple regression) assumes that we can observe the various confounders
that impede causal inference. But what if they cannot be observed? There are several approaches that are
promising, though, as with any method, they must be used with care. One is to model what is known as se-
lection and the other is to use what are known as instrumental variables. These deal with issues of selection
bias and endogeneity.
Selection bias is a critical empirical issue. In applied work, if we want to see if some new type of school pro-
vides better outcomes, and we compare outcomes of those who attend the new school against a sample from
other schools, we may find that the new type of school seems to work either because better students choose
to go the novel school or because students who have knowledge of themselves and who have good reason
to believe that the new type of school will work for them will choose the new school. The former problem is
always critical, while the latter is critical if we wish to encourage everyone to utilize the new type of school.
This problem was formalized by the Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman in the 1980s. He was
interested in the returns to education (in terms of wages) of women; we only observe the wages of women
who choose to enter the labor market. This may lead to underestimating the effect of education on women's
wages, since women with less education may only enter the labor market if they have some reason to know
that they will do well in that market. Alas, such reasons are usually not observable in a data set.
In political science, we may be interested in the effect of being involved in a scandal on the electoral success
of incumbents running for re-election. But those who see little chance of re-election may choose not to run,
and those who were involved in a scandal but chose to run anyway may have private reasons to know that
they are likely to do well. Are campaign ads effective? Perhaps people who already like a candidate are more
likely to see that candidate's ads.
Similarly, in international relations, if we only study the outcomes of wars, many nations that are militarily
weak may simply choose not to fight; thus the weak will fight only if they have some private information that
they have a chance of winning, and so we may underestimate the effect of military strength on winning a war.
Similarly, does international mediation actually help solve conflicts? Perhaps mediators only take on their task
when they think success is likely. In comparative politics, autocrats that believe they can remain in power if
they liberalize are perhaps more likely to liberalize. These are just a few examples, but selection bias is per-

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vasive in observational studies.
One solution is to match those who select some treatment (war, watching an ad or whatever) with those who
chose not to do so. But if the data set does not contain enough information to match on critical variables
(nations that are militarily weak but have other, unobserved, private reasons to believe that war is in their in-
terests) this approach does not work. Heckman suggested a two-equation model, one for selection and one
for the outcome given selection, with the errors in the two equations correlated, so that nations which should
not have gone to war but did for unobservable (error term) reasons will also be more likely to do better, again
for reasons that are in the error term. Note also that the various research design issues (experiments, quasi-
experiments, etc.) can also be a critical tool for dealing with selection bias. But even if there is no statistical
solution available, and we are not lucky enough to observe a good quasi-experimental situation, understand-
ing the nature of the problem is critical for causal inference.
The other issue is endogeneity. Does high income lead to good institutions or do good institutions lead to
high income? Do voters who like some candidate assume his position is close to theirs, or does closeness
on issues lead voters to choose that candidate? Disentangling whether x causes y or y causes x is critical
to political science. And observational data on cross sections cannot help answer this question, since, as is
well known, association tells us nothing about causation. For the above two examples, we would observe the
same exact data regardless of the causal process. The research design tools discussed previously can sort
out these issues; if x changed for some reason external to the system (perhaps because of some natural
event) then we could study whether x causes y and is not simply associated with it.
In the 1950s, economists associated with the Cowles Foundation at Yale thought they could solve the problem
by estimating a series of equations, one for x and one for y. Of course, these had to be estimated jointly,
and this technique came to be known as the estimation of simultaneous equations. Interest in this approach
waned as it became obvious that we simply lacked a strong enough theory to allow the estimation of such
equations. This theory, at a minimum, was necessary to tell us that there was some exogenous z that affected
y and not x, and some other exogenous w that affected x and not y. At least in political science it seemed hard
to find such exogenous variables with such asymmetrical effects.
Interest in part of this approach, instrumental variables, started to reappear in the 1990s and now has become
an extremely active area of research. The basic idea is that we are interested in the causal impact of, say,
economic growth on having a civil war. However, in a cross-sectional study we would worry that civil wars
hurt economic growth. The instrumental variable approach is to find some exogenous variable that affects
growth but only affects civil wars through its link with economic growth. In an ingenious study, Ted Miguel,
Shanker Satyanath and Ernest Sergenti (2004) decided that, for Southern Africa, rainfall would be a good
instrument. They had to convince themselves that rainfall only affected the outbreak of civil war through eco-
nomic growth (since it is clear that rainfall is exogenous). The method of instrumental variables, in its simplest
form, then regressed both civil wars and economic growth on rainfall (both regressions are fine since rainfall
is exogenous). Having the effect of rainfall on both variables, they could divide these effects and then obtain
a good estimate of the impact of economic growth on civil wars without worrying about the reverse direction
of causality.
Research on instrumental variables, both on the theory on when they are useful and also in various applica-
tions, is one of the most vibrant current research areas in political science. It is hard, but not impossible, to
find good instruments. There is much current research on what properties a good instrument should possess
and if and how empirical researchers can test whether a given instrument is a good one.
Conclusion
Political methodology was not even considered a field for research 30 years ago. The world has changed
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remarkably. The American Political Science Association (APSA) has subfield groups for both quantitative and
qualitative methodology; these groups are amongst the largest such groups in the Association. The last few
years have seen a huge increase in specialized short courses in methodology, both quantitative and quali-
tative, in all parts of the world, including those regularly organized by the European Consortium for Political
Research (ECPR) and the International Political Science Association (IPSA). Almost all departments of polit-
ical science now require methods training of all of their PhD students.
Thirty years ago the focus was on statistical inference. While many still focus on that issue, the advances over
the last three decades have made the estimation of many complicated models quite easy. Today there is an
incredible revolution in data collection and measurement, and renewed interest in research design, especially
as it relates to making causal inferences. There has been huge growth in thinking about experimental and
quasi-experimental approaches to studying critical questions.
While qualitative and quantitative researchers often go their separate ways, there is surely renewed interest in
what these two approaches have in common methodologically (and where they appropriately differ). In short,
political methodology has been one of the great success stories of our discipline over the last 30 years.
Note
1 This is a revised and updated version of my chapter in the International Encyclopedia of Political Science a
revised and updated version of Beck (2011).
References
Bates, R. H., Avner Greif, Margaret Levi, Jean-Laurent Rosenthal and Barry R. Weingast (1998), Analytic
Narratives. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Beck, Nathaniel (2011), Methodology, in: Badie, Bertrand, Dirk Berg-Schlosse and Leonardo Morlino (eds.),
International Encyclopedia of Political Science, pp. 1557–1567. Beverly Hills: Sage.
Blakeley, B. McShane and David Gal (2017), Statistical Signifcance and the Dichotomization of Evidence,
Journal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 112, No. 519, pp. 885–895.
Brady, Henry E. and David C. Collier (Eds.) (2010), Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools and Shared Stan-
dards,
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Campbell, Donald T. and Julian C. Stanley (1963), Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Re-
search. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
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ed. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.
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Qualitative Research. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

McCauley, John F. and Daniel N. Posner (2015), African Borders as Sources of Natural Experiments: Promise
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Miguel, Edward, Shanker Satyanath and Ernest Sergenti (2004), Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict: An In-
strumental Variables Approach, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 112, No. 4, pp. 725–753.
Mill, John Stuart (1843), A System of Logic, reprinted 1967, Toronto: University of Toranto Press.
Morgan Stephen L. and Christopher Winship (2014), Counterfactuals and Causal Inference: Methods and
Principles for Social Research, (
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Schlosser, Dirk and Morlino, Leonard (eds.). Thousand Oaks, Ca.: Sage. 2011.
Pearl, Judea (2009), Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference,
2nd
ed. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Pearl, Judea and Dana Mackenzie (2018), The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect. New
York: Basic Books.
Popper, Karl R. (1963), Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, London: Rout-
ledge.
Ragin, Charles C. (1987), The Comparative Method, Berkeley: University of California Press.
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Robinson, William S. (1950), Ecological Correlations and the Behavior of Individuals, American Sociological
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MT: Harvard University Press.
Shapiro, Ian (2005), The Flight from Reality in the Human Sciences. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Ward, Michael D. and John S. Ahlquist (2018), Maximum Likelihood for Social Science: Strategies for Analy-
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portunities and Challenges, Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. 20, pp. 529–544.
• qualitative approaches
• qualitative methodologies
• quantitative methodologies
• methodology
• research design
• political research
• empirical research
• surveys
• measurement
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n28

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Mixed Method and Multimethod Research and Design
Contributors: Manfred Max Bergman

Chapter Title: "Mixed Method and Multimethod Research and Design"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
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Mixed Method and Multimethod Research and Design

Manfred Max Bergman
Introduction
According to Denzin and Lincoln:
Qualitative research is a situated activity that locates the observer in the world. Qualitative research
consists of a set of interpretive, material practices that make the world visible. These practices trans-
form the world. They turn the world into a series of representations, including field notes, interviews,
conversations, photographs, recordings, and memos to the self. At this level, qualitative research
involves an interpretive, naturalistic approach to the world. This means that qualitative researchers
study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of or interpret phenomena in terms
of the meanings people bring to them. (2018: 10)
In contrast, Flick suggests:
[The g]uiding principles of [quantitative research] have been used for the following purposes: to
clearly isolate causes and effects, to properly operationalize theoretical relations, to measure and to
quantify phenomena, to create research designs allowing the generalization of findings, and to for-
mulate general laws. (2009: 13)
If we consider these influential conceptualizations on qualitative (QL) and quantitative (QN) methods, it is dif-
ficult to imagine they can be combined in a single research design. For example, Johnson and Onwuegbuzie
proclaim:
The goal of mixed methods research is not to replace [qualitative and quantitative] approaches but
rather to draw from the strengths and minimize the weaknesses of both in single research studies
and across studies. If you visualize a continuum with qualitative research anchored at one pole and
quantitative research anchored at the other, mixed methods research covers the large set of points
in the middle area. If one prefers to think categorically, mixed methods research sits in a new third
chair, with qualitative research sitting on the left side and quantitative research sitting on the right
side. (2004: 14–15)
But how would we ‘interpret phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them’ and concurrently ‘iso-
late causes and effects … [and] formulate general laws’ in a single research design? How would such a com-
bination constitute drawing from each other's strengths and minimizing weaknesses? Can QL and QN meth-
ods represented as two points, implying that there are no within-group variations between them? And can
they indeed be understood as opposites? Combining QL and QN components in one research design may ei-
ther be impossible due to their incompatibility, thus undermining claims about the potentials of mixed method
research (MMR) and designs, or they must be radically reconceptualized. In this chapter, I will conceptually
disentangle MMR and multimethod research and designs, outline three developments since the early 20th
century, and appeal for a careful revision of how we think of and work with mono-, mixed, and multimethod
research and designs.
Conceptual Clarification
At the most general level, MMR and multimethod research combine at least two different research methods
in one research design. MMR and multimethod research are related, although the academic literature pro-
poses three distinct variants. Some use the terms interchangeably, often objecting to the term ‘mixing', given
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that, strictly speaking, mixing is not part of any research design. Proponents of this position argue that, at
best, methods are combined, blended, merged, or integrated into a single research design, but they are nev-
er mixed. According to this position, MMR is a misnomer and the term multimethod-, blended-, or integrated
research should be preferred. While ‘mixing’ in this context is indeed misleading and arguably unaesthetic,
I am unconvinced that the proposed alternatives represent clear improvements. A second group of authors
argues that multimethod research designs include any combination of QL and QN, while MMR must include
at least one QN and at least one QL component. From this perspective, combining two or more QN methods,
combining two or more QL methods, or combining at least one QN and at least one QL method in a single
research design are variants of multimethod research but only the latter qualifies as MMR. The problem with
this nomenclature is that it does not differentiate adequately between MMR and other multimethod variants.
The third variant differentiates between MMR, which includes at least one QN and one QL component, and
designs that combine only QN or only QN components. Here, only the latter two are considered multimethod
designs. Thus, combining two or more QN components in one research design would be referred to as a
quantitative multimethod research design, and combining two or more QL components in one design as a
qualitative multimethod design. For this chapter, I will use this third variant, and I will focus mostly on MMR
because it is the most challenging of all method combinations. However, most of what is covered in this chap-
ter applies also to multimethod research.
Methods triangulation is another, although outdated, term that is often equated with MMR or multimethod de-
signs. Drawing primarily from trigonometry, surveying, or navigation, triangulation is used metaphorically in
the context of research designs. In navigation, for instance, triangulation refers to the process of determining
or verifying a position in a given territory based on measurements relative to remote points. For example, if
the distances to one of the two remote points are known, and if the distance between the two points is known,
then it is possible to pinpoint an exact location because the three distances form the sides of a triangle. As I
will show in a subsequent section on the purposes of and justifications for MMR, using triangulation metaphor-
ically to describe MMR or multimethod designs has its limits and should, therefore, be avoided.
Finally, a few thoughts on the components to be combined in MMR and multimethod designs. One way to dif-
ferentiate methods relates to data collection and data analysis. Examples of data collection methods include
non-participant observations, narrative interviews, focus groups, diary entries, a collection of newspaper ar-
ticles or blogs based on specific selection criteria, responses to closed-ended survey questions, and experi-
mental data. Examples of data analysis methods include regression analyses, structural equation modeling,
multilevel modeling, social network analysis, multidimensional scaling, correspondence analysis, quantita-
tive or qualitative content analysis, discourse analysis, narrative analysis, and dramaturgical analysis. When
combining research components in MMR and multimethod designs, it is important to separate collection and
analysis techniques. For example, statistically analyzing survey responses is neither, although we are com-
bining two components: a data collection and a data analysis method. Instead, this is an example of quanti-
tative monomethod research (sometimes also referred to as single method design). A Foucauldian discourse
analysis based on open-ended responses from a survey would be considered a qualitative monomethod re-
search design, although it combines non-numerical survey data with discourse analysis. MMR and multi-
method designs are identifiable by the combination of either data collection or data analysis methods. Thus,
a quantitative multimethod design could include a regression analysis from data that was gleaned from a
computer assisted personal interview (CAPI) as well as experimental data from a subset of the survey par-
ticipants, or it could include a factor analysis from a set of responses in a questionnaire, where factor scores
were subjected to a regression analysis. Analogously, a qualitative multimethod design could be based on
a thematic analysis from a set of focus groups and one-to-one interviews of the same persons, or it could
include a preparatory thematic analysis of focus group transcripts before subjecting the results to a discourse
analysis. Finally, an MMR design could combine a qualitative analysis of narrative interviews with an analysis
of responses to standardized survey questions, or it could be based on a quantitative as well as a qualitative
analysis of a collection of newspaper articles. Whether different data sets ought to be collected from the same
source, whether different sources can provide data for the same project, or whether a given data set ought
to be analyzed in multiple ways will depend on the substantive issues associated with the research project.
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However given their added complexity and limitations, MMR and multimethod designs are not inherently bet-
ter than monomethod designs. Selecting and justifying MMR and multimethod research and designs should
be based on substantive considerations and the availability of resources and skills, rather than principle.
Justification for MMR

The aims and benefits of MMR and multimethod designs appear simple: to take advantage of the strength of
each method and, thus, overcome their respective weaknesses, as stated in much of the literature on MMR
(e.g. Johnson and Onwuegbuzie, 2004; Tashakkori and Teddlie, 1998, 2003, 2010). But what, precisely, are
their respective strengths and weaknesses? For example, are the biases introduced by interviews expunged
by adding a survey or experiment to a research project? Does the reporting of frequency counts and signifi-
cance tests from themes embedded in newspaper articles render a narrative analysis more objective? Is het-
eroscedasticity eliminated by using the same variables in two different QN analyses within a single design?
Of course not! Yet much of the debate on combining research components in one research design is based
on arguments that often imply exactly that. This is due in part to the way in which, particularly from the early
1980s, QL methods were explicitly associated with constructivism and interpretive methods, while QN meth-
ods were often by default, with positivism, implying incorrectly that there is only one kind of constructivism,
one kind of positivism, and that they ostensibly occupy opposite ends of some continuum. The excerpts at
the beginning of this entry are well-established representatives of this historically evolved division. This state
of affairs among QL and QN researchers led some academics to propose an ‘Incompatibility Thesis’ and the
thus arising ‘Paradigm Wars’ (e.g. Lincoln and Guba, 1985; Tashakkori and Teddlie, 1998). If, as it is argued
even today, QL and QN methods are based on different ontological, epistemological, and axiological premis-
es, then a mixed method approach would not be possible (Bergman, 2008; see also Moses, Chapter 27,
this Handbook). For example, if QL researchers presume that all research endeavors are value-laden and
thus subjective, and if QN researchers assume that all research endeavors must be value-free (as one of the
preconditions for objectivity), then how can these incompatible positions be combined in one research de-
sign? Based on the presumption of a fundamental divide, even incompatibility, between QL and QN methods
and the thus implied necessity to justify its practices, mixed method researchers have devised theoretical,
conceptual, and empirical strategies, which, as an unintended consequence, have led to three interrelated
weaknesses: uncritical adoption of the QL–QN divide, theoretical fuzziness, and unnecessary formalizations
of MMR designs.
In this section, I will outline the reputed differences between QL and QN methods, review briefly how MMR
has attempted to deal with these differences, assess the plausibility of these differences, and propose steps
toward a new generation of theory and application relating to QL and QN methods, and, by extension, whether
and how to combine them. Ultimately, I will argue that contemporary MMR and multimethod theory, design,
and applications lack a sufficient grounding, and that an alternative grounding will not only improve the justifi-
cation for MMR and multimethod designs, but it will also broaden their scope and applicability. In the process,
a third generation of MMR thinking will, serendipitously, have the potential to expand the scope and practice
of QL and QN methods. In other words, I will argue that the growth and exploitation of MMR has been ham-
pered considerably by how QL and QN have been ontologically, epistemologically, axiologically, and habitual-
ly constrained, especially by theory and, to a lesser extent, research applications. A careful re-examination of
their possibilities and limits will reveal that research design possibilities are far richer than currently imagined,
thus introducing new possibilities in relation to data collection and data analysis.
Qualitative vs. Quantitative?

Before dealing with when, how, and why to combine methods, we should first reflect on what it is that we are
combining. It is difficult to identify the origins of the idea that QL and QN methods represent fundamentally

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different approaches in research and knowledge production. It could be argued that the divide originated with
epistemological divergences between Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle on what constitutes knowledge – as ‘jus-
tified true belief’ or ‘universal knowledge’ for example, and whether knowledge is based on observations or
true premises. A study of the pre-Socratic philosophers Xenophanes, Heraclitus, or Parmenides reveals that
the possibilities and limits of obtaining knowledge were debated even earlier. Knowledge was often presented
as invariant across different observers or circumstances of observation, or as identical to perception. The de-
gree to which information from our senses and, by extension, empirical observations, played a role in acquir-
ing knowledge has been widely debated long before and after Socrates. Another possible origin of the current
division between QL and QN methods could be attributed to the systematic epistemological differences be-
tween British empiricists, such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, and the rational philosophers of the 16th
and 17th centuries, such as René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and Gottfried Leibniz. Although influential in
understanding the foundations of modern social science, the current QL–QN divide is also driven by ideolog-
ical, political, and strategic positions. The current mainstream position is to consider QL and QN methods as
belonging to separate paradigms (e.g. Bryman, 2012; Denzin and Lincoln, 2018; Silverman, 2017; Tashakko-
ri and Teddlie, 1998, 2010). Notable in this regard is that the focus on the fundamental differences between
QL and QN approaches has reached its zenith in the late 1980s and 1990s with the publication of an entire
battery of influential texts (e.g. Brewer and Hunter, 1989; Danziger, 1990; Denzin and Lincoln, 1994, 1998;
Flick, 1998; Lincoln and Guba, 1985; Maykut and Morehouse, 1994; Reichhardt and Rallis, 1994; Silverman,
1993; 1997). While written for purposes other than whether QL and QN methods are sufficiently compatible
to combine them in one research design, they nevertheless dictate the MMR canon. Mainly for pragmatic rea-
sons, texts on MMR from the 1990s have adopted this division with the advantage that MMR tapped into an
existing narrative on the possibilities and limits of QL and QN research. However, integrating into the MMR
architecture the conceptual constraints of QL and QN methods also hampers its adequate theoretical ground-
ing. MMR theory and applications are unnecessarily bounded by historically evolved, incommensurate posi-
tions that are often anchored in ideological and political stances. Although many textbooks and handbooks
written since 2000 argue that the Paradigm Wars have been overcome, a closer inspection of important texts
on research methods in the past two years reveals that things have not changed much since the 1980s. Iron-
ically, the underpinnings of the obsession in methods debates on truth and knowledge is premised by specific
strategic, political, and ideological foundations.
Based on this heritage, numerous ontological, epistemological, axiological, and habitually ascribed qualities
are attributed to QL and QN methods. According to excerpts from the methods literature, researchers from
the QL tradition ostensibly embrace a constructed or co-construct reality, accept the existence of multiple re-
alities, or posit that reality does not exist. They embrace the interdependence between the researcher and
the research subject, accept the value-ladenness of the research process and its output, prefer to work with
a relatively small number of cases, and they thus accept the impossibility of generalizing QL findings – many
claim that generalization is not possible in any case. They furthermore reject the possibility to identify or dis-
tinguish between causes and effects, and they insist that QL research is fundamentally inductive and ex-
ploratory (Carver, Chapter 24, this Handbook). QN methods, in contrast, are cast in opposition to QL meth-
ods: researchers engaging in QN research ostensibly believe in a single and empirically accessible reality,
the necessity of separating the researcher from the research subject to avoid research bias or to maintain ob-
jectivity, aim to conduct value-free research, are able to generalize findings beyond the contextual limits of the
researched units and research situation, work with large and representative samples, and, ultimately, identify
universal, causal laws by testing falsifiable hypotheses via the hypothetico-deductive model of science (Beck,
Chapter 25, this Handbook).
Variants of such differentiations between the so-called paradigms can be found in a number of influential texts
(e.g. Bryman, 1988, 2012; Creswell, 2003; Cresswell and Plano Clark, 2007; Fielding and Fielding, 1986;
Mertens, 2004; Tashakkori and Teddlie, 1998, 2010). They tend to reproduce previously published lists, often
categorized according to ontological, epistemological, and axiological reflections (e.g. Crotty, 1998; Denzin
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and Lincoln, 1994; Lincoln and Guba, 1985). Considering the qualities attributed to QL and QN approach-
es more closely, however, theorists and researchers engaging in MMR have to maintain a strangely incom-
mensurable position toward the division of labor between QL and QN methods: On the one hand, they must
accept and emphasize the divergent qualities attributed to each approach, which on ontological, epistemo-
logical, and axiological grounds are clearly incompatible. On the other, they put forward the proposal that the
strengths of each paradigm can be combined fruitfully within one single research design.
Interestingly, research practices have not followed the research methods literature. For example, many QN
projects across all social science disciplines exist that are based on small, non-representative data sets (e.g.
Pett, 2002), and there are many types of statistical procedures that do not aim at testing hypotheses but,
instead, are mainly exploratory. Examples of these are cluster analyses, factor analyses, multidimensional
scaling, network analyses, or correspondence analyses. Even experiments, possibly the most rigorously de-
fended QN methods due in part to their association with the natural sciences, tend to work with relatively
small samples, and the units of analysis are rarely originate based on a random sample. By contrast, there
are many QL researchers, who do not embrace a constructivist paradigm but, instead, embrace materialist
and realist perspectives. For example, a medical anthropologist studying interactions between an HIV-posi-
tive mother and her HIV-negative baby may not necessarily embrace constructivism, here in terms of the virus
and risk of infection, to produce interesting and relevant research results. In contrast to habitual claims made
in the methods literature, it is even possible to mix constructivist and materialist perspectives in QL, QN, or
MMR. For example, a questionnaire may explore the construction of gender identity by a set of characteristics
that respondents from different social classes attribute to themselves or others. The researcher may decide
to treat class membership as a realist-materialist social category, and the characteristics attributed to gender
as a social construction associated with class membership. In this example, a QN study mixes constructivist
and realist-materialist perspectives. It is also possible to mix constructivism and realism-materialism in qual-
itative research. For example, a QL researcher may be interested in how the concept of ‘terrorism’ is con-
structed differently across election cycles and events. Here, the researcher designates election cycles and
specific events as realist-materialist categories, while exploring the content and context within which the term
terrorism is used from a constructivist perspective. In sum, it is up to researchers to decide on whether and
to what extent they want to employ a realist-materialist, constructivist, or other perspective. The decision on
the ‘truth-value’ of the research categories, data, or results should be made based on the research purpose
and theoretical framework; in short, on substantive grounds, rather than on principle. The point here is that,
irrespective of whether researchers pursue QL, QN, or MMR, they need to decide on whether or which part
of their research needs to be constructivist, realist-materialist, or both.
Drawing together the major distinctions between QL and QN approaches, one has to wonder why the charac-
teristics attributed to them are so diametrically oppositional in the methods literature, especially when consid-
ering their shared subject space. Should we not be more suspicious of such clear and clean distinctions, their
mutual exclusivity, especially if we reflect on the complex, messy, and compromise-laden research process?
I wonder whether such distinctions are made in an attempt to maintain an uneasy truce between two highly
specialized, politicized factions, rather than to demarcate two kinds of methods and approaches. And if it is
indeed a negotiated settlement between stakeholders, rather than a fair representation of the actual possibil-
ities and limits of different research approaches, what are QL and QN methods losing as a consequence and
how does this settlement affect the possibilities and limits of MMR?
The Response of the Second Generation of MMR Theory to the Presumed Dif-
ferences between QL and QN Research
The response of the first generation of mixed method researchers to the presumed difference between QL

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and QN can be summarized in one word: none. This is due in part to the fact that researchers were routinely
combining different data collection and analysis methods since the very beginning of the social sciences, well
before the term ‘mixed methods’ was coined. At around the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, there
was little orthodoxy about how to conduct social science research, mainly because of the relatively unsophis-
ticated research components, including sampling, data collection, and data analysis. In contrast to today, it
was not difficult to acquire adequate knowledge and skills on research methods to conduct empirical social
science research (for a historical review, see Brannen, 1992; Tashakkori and Teddlie, 1998).
The increasing influence of French socio-philosophical theory of Lyotard, Baudrillard, Deleuze, Barthes, Fou-
cault, Derrida, and many others to mainstream social science from the 1970s led many qualitative researchers
and theorists to proclaim a link between constructivism and QL (Brannen, 1992; Tashakkori and Teddlie,
1998). Consequently, QL and QN researchers devised new justifications, while MMR adopted a shallow in-
terpretation of philosophical pragmatism as a way to deal with this emergent incompatibility. A careful reading
of pragmatism – founded by Charles Saunders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, and rooted in Kant's
Critique of Pure Reason (1781) in which the latter attempts to bring together rationalism, Hume's skepticism,
and empiricism – reveals that pragmatism is itself incompatible with constructivism and positivism. Thus, and
at least meta-theoretically, mixed method researchers have actually maneuvered themselves into contradic-
tions because pragmatism fails to resolve the tensions between the adopted QL-constructivist and QN-pos-
itivist positions. Pragmatism, philosophical or conventional, does not resolve incompatibilities between con-
structivism and positivism.
The Third Generation of MMR Theory as an Alternative Response to Presumed

Differences between QL and QN Research
There are more elegant and consistent ways to deal with the apparent contradictions without glossing over
some of the central ideas in research methodology. But even if this hurdle has been successfully overcome,
it remains unclear why and how methods should be mixed. Will MMR get us closer to objectivity? Should we
mix different theories, types of data, analyses, interpretations, or all of the above? Considering such issues
and anticipating the plethora of complexities introduced by them, one wonders whether mixing methods is
indeed an improvement over monomethod designs.
Instead of embracing MMR over QL or QN designs on principle, MMR should instead be considered based
on the specificities of the research purpose as well as the available skills and resources. It is much easier and
more convincing to justify and conduct MMR based on substantive grounds, rather than based on general
principles. Given that the most successful researchers rarely, if ever, develop ontological, epistemological, or
axiological defenses of their methods when presenting substantive findings, it is always surprising to me to
find, first, the consistency with which these topics are covered in the methods literature and, second, how su-
perficial this treatment is, especially if we consider that we have about 3,000 years of writings on epistemology
and ontology at our disposal. Instead of reproducing classifications or dichotomies that are rarely convincing,
that may be inconsistent with the purpose and goals of a research project, and that are routinely ignored in
research applications, researchers ought to make explicit which data collection and analysis methods best
connect to the research question, theoretical grounding, and research purpose. In addition, skill, time, and
funding should also be taken into account before embarking on MMR. The possibilities and limits of methods
are far better conceptualized and integrated into a research design based on the qualities of specific sam-
pling, data collection, and data analysis methods, rather than attributing overgeneralized qualities to QL, QN,
and MMR.

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Recasting the Justification for MMR Designs

What may be more difficult to accept for proponents of the conventional QL–QN divide as outlined above
may indeed be liberating for those engaged in MMR. Reconceptualizing MMR as a substantively justified re-
search design also maintains the focus on the research purpose. From this vantage point, the justification
and interest for MMR is also much easier to defend. Of the four justifications found among MMR projects
(Bergman, 2008, 2010), the two least convincing are also the most frequently employed. The first of the less
successful justifications can be called holism, where MMR designs are justified based on providing findings
that are considered more complete, due to the combination and thus additive value of the QL and QN compo-
nents. Whatever data was used and whatever analyses were conducted, however, any additional data set or
analysis relevant to a project is likely to provide additional insights or further qualifications such that research
findings will always remain incomplete because they will always remain conditional and partial, regardless of
the number of research components employed in a single project.
The second unconvincing justification for MMR can be called perspectivism, where a researcher adds a QL
or QN component to a QN or QL study to gain an additional perspective. Mixing methods in order to ‘produce
a fuller picture of the empirical domain under study’ (Erzberger and Kelle, 2003: 469–70; see also Brewer
and Hunter, 1989, 2006) is a necessary but insufficient justification for MMR. While related to holism, it is
nevertheless an improvement because this justification acknowledges the conditionality and partiality of any
research result. Thus, adding an additional perspective may extend or qualify research findings in important
ways. However, similar to holism, any additional data set or analysis may provide yet another perspective.
Thus, just adding more detail to a research project is not yet sufficient to warrant an additional QL or QN com-
ponent.
The third justification for MMR is also the oldest. Here, MMR is used as a form of validation, a purpose that
comes closest to the meaning of triangulation as discussed above. Initially developed in pyschonometrics for
QN by Campbell and Fiske (1959), a matrix of intercorrelations between measures was designed for cross-
validation, specifically in relation to convergent and discriminant validity of psychological constructs. Transfer-
ring this idea to MMR, convergence refers to the degree of overlap between the results from the QL and QN
components, which may imply a cross-validation of results. In this variant, the more the results from different
components of the MMR or multimethod design converge, the more they cross-validate each other. An inter-
esting development in this regard is that divergent results may not be indicative of invalidity of at least one of
the research results. Instead divergence may give rise to important qualifications of results or instigate further
investigation into a subject matter. For example, when the results of a questionnaire on voting intentions di-
verge from the results of a focus group on voting intentions, it may not necessarily mean that at least one of
the results are invalid. Instead, it may give rise to a deeper understanding of the formation, communication,
and group dynamics associated with voting intentions.
In my opinion, the most interesting justification for MMR is complementarity. Conducting exploratory, unstruc-
tured interviews to identify important underlying dimensions of thought among a target population before de-
veloping a questionnaire is an example of a sequential MMR design that is based on complementarity. The
QN component is complemented by the initial, exploratory QL component, which may provide important in-
sights into the knowledge base and sensitivity of the researcher or respondents, appropriate wording, and
important underlying dimensions. The questionnaire is complemented by the findings from the initial QL com-
ponent such that the final research results could have only been obtained from the interdependence between
the two components.
In sum, MMR is best justified not according to vague and untenable dichotomies between QL and QN meth-
ods, nor by a problematic appeal toward a greater range of evidence, but by substantive justifications that
pertain directly to answering a research question in accordance with a theoretical framework, research pur-
pose, and available skill sets and resources. And even then, the results of MMR will always remain conditional
and partial.

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Conclusions
The conventional divide between QL and QN research approaches is based on questionable premises. To
justify its jurisdiction, MMR theory has absorbed the lines of demarcation at the cost of theoretical inconsis-
tency and vagueness. Worse still are the thereby created unnecessary limitations that are imposed on the
capabilities of different data collection and analysis methods, and by extension on MMR theory, designs, and
capabilities.
A more consistent and viable justification for MMR and multimethod research is to reconsider the assumptions
underlying QL and QN methods. The current assumptions embedded in the methods literature not only ham-
per a theoretically grounded integration of QL and QN research into one single research design, but limit
applications of different data collection and analysis methods. MMR and multimethod designs will need more
elaborate explanations with regard to the purpose and use of each data collection and analysis method, as
well as how and for what purpose the specific set of methods are combined. Thus, MMR cannot claim to
bridge the unbridgeable gap between positivism and constructivism. However, if coherently and consistently
applied, it is indeed possible to frame an MMR project within a constructivist, realist-materialist, or pragmatist
perspective. In other words, these and other frameworks are all possible, once we become aware of the dif-
ferent theoretical and analytical levels that separate theory, data collection, and data analysis.
Ultimately, MMR does not automatically or in principle provide better answers to research questions, and it
is unlikely to replace well-designed monomethod research designs. But under specific substantive consid-
erations, MMR will indeed produce findings that transcend the limits of monomethod research. As practical
applications of research methods usually and successfully contradict or transcend strict meta-theoretical doc-
trine, I am convinced that we are at the beginning of a new generation of not only MMR and multimethod
design, but also of monomethod research designs, all of which will turn out to be more capable and powerful
once they have repositioned themselves in relation to current interpretations of the philosophies of science
and knowledge.
References
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Research, 4, 3, 171–175.
Bergman, M. M. (2008). The straw men of the qualitative-quantitative divide and their influence on mixed
methods research. In: M. M. Bergman (Ed.), Advances in Mixed Methods Research: Theories and Applica-
tions. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
Brannen, J. (1992). Mixing Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Research. Aldershot: Avebury.
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matrix. Psychological Bulletin, 56, 2, 81–105.
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Johnson, R. B. and Onwuegbuzie, A. J. (2004). Mixed methods research: A research paradigm whose time
has come. Educational Researcher, 33, 7, 14–26.
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titative, Qualitative, and Mixed Methods (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
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usual Distributions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
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(2nd edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
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es. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
• research design
• mixed methods
• research methods
• qualitative research
• quantitative research
• data collection
• data analysis
• surveys
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n29

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Ontologies, Epistemologies and the Methodological
Awakening1
Contributors: Jonathon Moses

Chapter Title: "Ontologies, Epistemologies and the Methodological Awakening1"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Ontologies, Epistemologies and the Methodological Awakening1

Jonathon Moses
Introduction
At the close of the last century, Alexander Wendt provided some sage advice to practitioners of international
relations. For Wendt, ontology
is not something that most international relations (IR) scholars spend much time thinking about. Nor
should they. The primary task of IR social science is to help to understand world politics, not to rumi-
nate about issues more properly the concern of philosophers. Yet even the most empirically minded
students of international politics must ‘do’ ontology, because in order to explain how the international
system works they have to make metaphysical assumptions about what it is made of and how it is
structured. (1999: 370)
Political scientists, more broadly, also ‘do’ ontology (and epistemology too!) – whether they recognize it or
not. Like other methodological decisions, it is prudent to reflect on the consequences of these choices and
consider (explicitly) how those decisions might affect the outcomes of our research. After all, key theoreti-
cal and substantive differences turn critically on ontological issues. These differences manifest themselves
in a smorgasbord of epistemological choices, many of which are unresolvable (given the different underlying
ontological positions). Understanding how these (ontological and epistemological) challenges combine and
influence our research project is the subject of methodology (Moses and Knutsen, 2019: 4–5).
This chapter provides a basic introduction to these terms (ontology, epistemology, methodology) for the prac-
tising political scientist. My objective is to avoid the most woolly vocabulary and arcane sidebars often found
in the literature, and focus on those aspects that are most relevant to the practising, empirically minded, po-
litical scientist. As we shall see, it is quite difficult to separate questions of ontology and epistemology, so I
will briefly introduce each of them, before moving quickly to a discussion of how they are inter-related. While
there is no agreement about the nature of the relationship between epistemology and ontology (which came
first: the chicken or the egg?), there is a robust consensus on the need to be aware of one's epistemological
and ontological assumptions (e.g. Hay, 2006: 8; Furlong and Marsh, 2007). This chapter aims to build that
awareness.
Two Rising Stars

Ontology is the study of ‘being', or the study of ‘what there is'. For philosophers, the potential solution set can
be huge, and often very abstract: they wonder about what it means to exist, or why something came into exis-
tence (e.g. Quine, 1948, but see also Hofweber, 2018). For example, three classic questions of ontology are:
‘is there a god?', ‘are there numbers?’ and ‘do universals exist?'. Maurizio Ferraris (2016) provides a useful
summary
The task of ontology, but also aesthetics, logic, ethics and so on, is to make people think about and
understand our world and, if possible, make it better by then interacting with more specialised forms
of knowledge.
From these philosophical exchanges a rather specialized vocabulary has developed for established ap-
proaches (e.g. foundationalism, objectivism, but also metaphysical realism, internal realism, scientific realism,
speculative realism, new realism and others), the names of which often migrate into social science. (Ferraris,
I should note, is an exception: he has an accessible, ironic and playful style.)

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Most political scientists have a more down-to-earth approach to ontology. Rather than trying to establish the
essence of some particular object or concept, our concern is focused on how such an object appears to us,
and whether its ‘appearance’ might be affected by our subsequent investigation. This is because the onto-
logical certainty of social facts (e.g. sovereignty) is quite different from that of natural facts (e.g. hydrogen).
Hence, when discussing ontological questions in political science we are usually concerned with the particular
nature of our object of study, and whether those objects can be (or are) affected by our investigation.
The practising political scientist's concern with ontology can be mustered into two camps. The first camp con-
tains a group of political theorists, who trade in ‘social ontologies', where the subject of inquiry is the world (of
objects, identities, relationships, etc.) investigated by social scientists (see, e.g. Schatzki, 2003; Hay, 2006;
Lawson et al., 2007; Jackson, 2008; Michel, 2009; Cruickshank, 2010; Ikäheimo and Laitinen, 2011). This
work is closest to that of traditional philosophy, and can be seen as part of a long tradition in political theory,
where concepts and ideal-types are defined, explained and carefully considered. Hence, social ontologists
ask questions such as: is there such a thing as false consciousness? Can ideas cause political phenomena?
Are political preferences stable? What are human rights? What is the nature of sovereignty? Social ontolo-
gists examine the nature of complex political concepts and ideal-types, often as a harbinger to more empirical
study.
The second camp consists of more empirically minded political scientists, who have become aware of the
methodological constraints associated with competing ontological viewpoints. It is here that we see the largest
growth of interest in recent years. Many contemporary political scientists have been introduced to methods
and approaches that grew out of the natural sciences. In doing so, we inadvertently inherited many of the
ontological assumptions of natural science. As the discipline has grown, developed and matured, it has be-
gun to examine these assumptions more critically. The result is what we might think of as a methodological
awakening.
For these political scientists, ontology is used to reference the fundamental assumptions we make about the
nature of the world we study: how we imagine our own social world to be (Hall, 2003: 374). For example, is
the world that we study made up of atomistic, interchangeable parts, causally related to one another in gener-
alizable patterns, but independent of the observer, or is it more reasonable to assume that the objects of our
study are idiosyncratic, suspended in webs of human significance, where causal connections are complex
and contingent? This is the sort of pressing ontological question that taunts the practising political scientist,
and the answer to questions such as this have significant consequences for how we choose to design our
studies.
One main task of the methodological awakening has been to get political scientists to recognize when they
are engaging with ontological issues, and to make them more aware of the consequences of their (often im-
plicit) ontological choices. Following Blaikie (1993: 6), we should recognize that political scientists are ‘doing’
ontology when they adopt a particular approach (or any number of common assumptions or axioms) to their
study of political behaviour. These assumptions include issues such as what exists (or doesn't), what they will
look like, how we can ‘capture’ their essence, how our subjects of study will interact, etc.
More often than not, we simply inherit the ontological position of the literature we engage or follow; after all,
we tend to approach a particular question from the standpoint of the existing literature. As we seek to go be-
yond, or add to, the existing literature, however, we need to consider first whether that literature provides an
appropriate ontological foundation, upon which we can build. The methodological awakening in political sci-
ence is about drawing attention to these underlying ontological assumptions and considering how they affect
or influence our research output.
I think about this challenge every time I read (and/or lecture on) the contemporary literature on democratic
theory. According to John Dryzek, ‘[t]he essence of democracy itself is now widely taken to be deliberation,
as opposed to voting, interest aggregation, constitutional rights, or even self-government’ (2000: 1). Although

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I am rather sceptical of the claim, it is not renegade among political theorists who work in the area. Yet, most
political scientists that I know working on empirical studies of democracy rely on an indicator of democracy
(e.g. POLITY IV or Freedom House) that largely ignores issues of deliberation2. If democracy is about delib-
eration, and our most common indicator for democracy does not measure deliberation, what are we actually
measuring? At this point, ‘what is democracy?’ becomes an ontological question3.
Consider now the way we study political preferences. Much contemporary work on political behaviour finds
it convenient to assume that preferences are fixed and independent of our investigation. We try to predict
and understand political preferences with reference to past (revealed) behaviour, and to do this we assume
that preferences will be stable as we move into the future. Despite this common assumption, there is a mul-
ti-billion-dollar campaign industry and apparently extensive (albeit clandestine) international efforts afoot to
change political preferences in a particular direction. Is it meaningful to assume that political preferences are
fixed? If we assume preferences are fixed, will they stay that way? What does it mean when analysts assume
that the nature of a given subject matter is different from that of the practitioners?
A couple of pressing concerns arise from these two simple observations about democracy and preferences.
First, when we begin to question the ontological status of the things that we study, we raise awkward ques-
tions about their independence (from the observer). At the most mundane level, this suggests a need to be
concerned about investigator influence – that in studying the world we may be inadvertently changing it. For
example, when we use survey methods to enquire about political preferences, we need to be concerned that
our questions are not somehow influencing the responses. In more spectacular cases, our research could
even result in self-fulfilling prophesies or Pygmalion effects4.
A second concern is a recognition that the nature of our inquiry should influence the way that we conduct
that inquiry. In the same way that you would not measure the volume of a fuel tank with a ruler (a litre gauge
would be more appropriate), political scientists need to be sensitive to the nature of our subject matter (and
our objective, as analysts). For example, if the causal relationships that interest us are contingent on time and
context, we cannot capture these with tools that assume causal relationships to have constant and indepen-
dent effects across time and space. It is here that we step over into the realm of epistemology.
Epistemology
Epistemology is a more familiar concept than ontology and it has made greater inroads into our discipline.
Political scientists are more comfortable employing the term. Indeed, among our tribe there are even those
who study ‘epistemic communities’ (Haas, 1992). As with my introduction to ontology, I intend to detour much
of the philosophical discussion and focus on how practising political scientists employ the term, and what it
means for our sundry research agendas.
Epistemology, quite simply, is the study of knowledge, or how we know. It seems to surprise many students
of political science that there is no settled path to truth. The power of history, a regression table or a formal
equation may appear to offer unequivocal evidence of knowledge that we have about the world. When inves-
tigated more closely, however, we frequently find that the social relationships we study are not as settled as
the conventions of mathematics, periodic tables or the laws of gravity. The world of social facts is often eva-
sive.
Consider a simple example: how do we know if there are ‘universal human rights'? In considering this dicey
question, we can clearly see how ontological and epistemological concerns are closely inter-related. The defi-
nition of human rights has varied from time to time, and from place to place, as has their practice. Like justice,
it would seem that human rights are relative, not universal: their definition varies with the nature of political
authority. But those who advocate for human rights, do so on the basis of their universality. How, then, is it
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possible to establish the existence of ‘human rights'?
Following Aristotle (1946 [c. 350 bce]) (and mainstream political science today), we might hope to pursue an
inductive approach, in a firm belief that ‘observation shows us'. But observation can only reveal particular/
actual examples of human rights, as practised (or not). It is not possible to observe a political concept or
ideal-type such as the existence of ‘universal human rights'.
If observation is insufficient to prove the existence of universal human rights, which other ways are there to
knowing? The long tradition of Western political thought offers a clue. When Socrates argues for a just state in
Plato's Republic (1941 [c. 360 bce]), he engages with Thrasymachus along very similar lines: Thrasymachus
argues that justice is relative and will vary from place to place, and over time. Socrates holds that justice is
transcendental and unchanging (i.e. universal), and its essence can be discovered by means of reason (di-
alectics). By Plato's account, a reason-based approach is superior for studying essential (universal) concepts;
but Aristotle (and Thrasymachus) prefer a more inductive approach to studying the world.
Over time, and across cultures, we find a wide and varying array of sources to knowledge. Depending on
where and when you grew up, you might refer to a god (or gods), a myth(s), an elder or authority, to human
reason, or to good old sensory perception. Philosophers interrogate these sundry epistemological sources to
discern about the necessary and sufficient conditions of knowledge; the source of knowledge, its structures
and limits, etc. Practising political scientists – like scientists in general – tend to prioritize rational and empiri-
cal sources of knowledge more than any of the others – at least in principle.
It is because of this convention that political science departments have long encouraged the development of
both deductive (formal/normative theory) and inductive approaches to the study of politics. But it is only re-
cently that the discipline has begun to consider how these methodological choices might be framed by our
underlying ontological assumptions about the world that we study.
As with ontology, it is possible to distinguish between the philosophical literature on epistemology and the
way the term is often employed by practising political scientists. Readers who are looking for an accessible
introduction to the philosophy of science approach, should refer to Steup (2018).Political scientists embrace
a pragmatic approach to epistemology. Here too, it is possible to discern two camps. In one camp, we find
a group interested in the way that political actors can be motivated into action (and the role that knowledge
plays in that motivation). We might refer to this group as political epistemologists. This group is perhaps most
evident in the long tradition of work that considers the role of ideas in influencing outcomes, as well as in
the recurring battles between materialists and idealists about the nature and influence of ideas in the political
world (e.g. Weber, 1976 [1905]; but also Goldstein and Keohane, 1993; Hall and Taylor, 1996; Blyth, 2003).
In short, political epistemologists study political ideas and knowledge – both as dependent and independent
variables, and as products of political behaviour and institutions.
In the other camp are a group of political scientists interested in epistemological issues by way of the method-
ological awakening introduced above. The concern in this camp is perhaps broader, in that these scholars
are questioning how we can secure reliable information about the political world we study, or the validity of
information gathered by competing epistemological approaches. In this group, there is more explicit reflection
on the tricky nature of the relationship between ontology and epistemology, as analysts question the utility of
different epistemological tools, under varying ontological assumptions.
The nature of the relationship between ontology and epistemology can be illustrated by reference to a couple
of simple examples. Consider first, a glass of water and a freezing element. We know that by sufficiently cool-
ing the water, we can transform it from a liquid to a solid state (i.e. ice). The hydrogen and oxygen molecules
in the water are unaware of the natural laws under which they labour: they simply respond. Hence, it is easy

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to predict that water cooled to at or below 0°C will turn into ice. This is the world of natural science, out of
which many of our approaches to social science have evolved. Testing for causation is simply a matter of
manipulating or controlling for variation across the component parts (or ‘variables') in a way that can account
for reliable (consistent) patterns.
But what if the hydrogen molecules in that glass of water were afraid of freezing? What if they used their
knowledge about the laws of physics, and organized collectively in order to thwart those laws? If this could
happen, it would make it difficult to speak with confidence about laws of nature, and we would need to begin
thinking about relationships in terms of probabilities and strategic interactions, such as: what is the likelihood
that the hydrogen molecules will revolt, under these conditions, and at this temperature? In a world where
molecules can be radicalized, the real freezing point of water might actually be something other than 0°C, but
we cannot witness this freezing point because under such conditions the hydrogen molecules have resisted
effectively. What, then, is the real freezing point of water?
In the social sciences, we frequently experience the effects of will and reason, and the results should make
us question the nature of the knowledge that we produce. For example, one of the most famous claims in
modern social science is Marx and Engels’ 19th-century prediction of an imminent revolution, due to a con-
flict of material interests between increasingly exploited workers and wealthy capitalists (Marx and Engels,
1948 [1848]). As the conditions of workers deteriorated under capitalism, Marx predicted a period of short-
term crises, culminating in a workers’ revolution that would establish socialism, and eventually a communist
society.
Was Marx right? There are three possible answers to this query. First, it is possible to see the absence of a
proletarian revolution as evidence that Marx's predictions were wrong: capitalism did not collapse under the
weight of class conflict – case closed. Second, it is possible that capitalists employed Marx's theory to change
the underlying social conditions, deflecting the revolution. Like the molecules afraid of freezing, capitalists
(and their lackeys in government, read Marx) were made aware of the real possibility that worsening work-
er conditions would prompt a revolution. In response, they improved worker conditions (and the surrounding
welfare state) to stave off the promised revolution. In this answer, knowledge about the world was used to
change the world in a way that undermined the truth (originally) generated by that knowledge. Here the lack
of a revolution can be used to argue for the truth of Marx's claim. Finally, it is possible that Marx's theory is
still in play, but only the timeline for testing has been extended: the effort to placate workers has proven to
be relatively short-lived, and we are again witnessing increased inequality, falling wages and an increased
concentration of capital. In this view, it is just a matter of time before Marx's predictions are borne out. Here
too, the lack of a revolution does not necessarily falsify Marx's theory.
The point of this example is not to convince readers about the likelihood of a revolution, but to focus attention
on how our knowledge might affect the world that we study. It also illustrates the intricate ways in which onto-
logical and epistemological issues intertwine. In these two examples (radicalized molecules and workers), we
avoided normative issues, and concentrated on theories that could generate empirical predictions.
But there is an additional dynamic to much political analysis, one less familiar to natural scientists: the need
to consider subjective and/or moral perspectives. This is necessary given the nature of human knowledge,
agency and consciousness. Does political reality reveal itself in the same way to women and men? Work-
ers and employees? Lefties and righties? Do political scientists have a moral responsibility to report (or not)
findings that could negatively affect social conditions? If we know that a scientific finding reflects a specific
(say vested) interest – and not a universal truth – should we reject it outright (even if it is evidently true)? If
we know that a scientific finding will change conditions in unacceptable ways – say we can demonstrate that
blue-eyed people are intellectually incapable of voting, or that ‘human rights’ is the ideological invention of a
Western elite – how do we balance moral/subjective value against the empirical veracity of the claim? Should

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sapere aude (dare to know) be a motto we embrace when knowledge comes steeped in politics and/or deliv-
ers contentious lessons? These too are epistemological concerns.
As Foucault reminded us: ‘We must not imagine that the world turns toward us a legible face which we would
have only to decipher; the world is not the accomplice of our knowledge’ (1984: 27). When the world shows
us many different faces, there can be no single way to interpret or know that world: different observers will
see different things, depending upon where they stand. With this insight, it makes little sense to assume that
knowledge can be objective or universal – epistemology will reflect particular social conditions and their re-
lationships. Our particular experience (as women, or workers, or ageing white academics) will shape what
we know, but also how we know, or how we think about knowledge. It is from this realization that ‘standpoint
epistemology’ grows, where ‘a standpoint is the perspective from which one views the world, social relations,
and hence reality’ (Hirschmann, 1989: 1229).
Consider the motivations for an individual voting. The legitimacy of representative democracy rests on the
willingness of citizens to vote for candidates that can represent them. Democratic communities rely on a ro-
bust civic culture to check abuses of power, legitimize governmental power and authority, assess contending
claims and choose their leaders. I do not think it is controversial to suggest that we should encourage citizens
to vote in elections. At the same time, the rational choice tradition of political science has long recognized
that it is not rational for individuals to invest the time and energy to vote, as the expected reward is far less
than the effort exerted (e.g. Downs, 1957). When political scientists teach this view of the world (as I do every
year), we encourage our students to see voting as irrational. In doing so, we implicitly discourage our students
from voting. Consequently, the theory can become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Like the economics graduates
that have been shown to be more selfish than their peers, we may be producing political science graduates
that are less politically active than their peers (e.g. Frank et al., 1993). Is ‘voting is a waste of time’ the lesson
we want to convey to our students? By arguing that the world appears to work in a particular way, and in
convincing most practitioners that this is the way of the world, we can actually change the world to reflect that
initial appearance (Popper, 2002 [1957]). How, then, can we weigh the benefits of the knowledge produced
against the potential costs that such knowledge can afflict on our society?
These series of questions and examples are aimed to prompt the curious reader to think critically about the
nature of the world s/he studies before deciding on the most appropriate approach for that study. We have
seen how ontological and epistemological issues are tightly intertwined, and difficult to separate. For that rea-
son, the remaining discussion will address both concepts concomitantly.
A Methodological Awakening
I hope that you now have a basic understanding of ontology and epistemology, and that your interest in them
has been piqued. If this is the case, you are not alone: in recent years, there has been an explosion of inter-
est in these concepts – even though ontological and (especially) epistemological concerns have a very long
history in political science.
This methodological awakening can be seen in the three figures below, which are derived from a Web of Sci-
ence topic search of their core collection (from 1945) for two terms (‘ontolog*’ and ‘epistemolog*'), conducted
on 25 July, 2018. This search was limited to articles in the fields of ‘political science’ and ‘international rela-
tions', and resulted in 674 hits for ‘ontolog*’ and 689 hits for ‘epistemolog*'.
The aggregate pattern of use for each term, as it developed over time, is seen in Figure 27.1. Here we can
see a conspicuous rise in the number of ‘recorded counts’ for each term after the turn of the millennium. Cu-
riously, the number of references to ‘epistemolog*’ has dropped off in recent years. A very similar pattern is
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also evident in a parallel English book search that I ran on the same day on Google Books’ Ngram Viewer
for ‘ontology+political science’ and ‘epistemology+political science’ (Ngram, 2018). Here too, a rapid drop in
references to ‘epistemology+political science’ is evident, but starting much earlier (in the mid-to-late 1990s).
Figure 27.1 Aggregate Web of Science results
As the Web of Science search draws from a larger universe, I analysed the aggregate results in hopes of
uncovering possible regional patterns. Using the Web of Science indicator for country/region, which uses the
nation-base for the host institutions of all associated authors, I created six world regions and compared devel-
opments across them, as seen in Figures 27.2 and 27.3. Not all countries are represented, only those which
have hosted an author (institution) that is caught in my search net. These countries were then grouped by
combining basic geography with a pinch of pragmatism5.
Figure 27.2 Regional trends for ‘ontolog*’ search, Web of Science

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From the figures, we can conclude that there has been a significant rise in interest in, and use of, these terms,
and it appears to be driven mostly by European and North American authors. A smaller, and subsequent in-
crease is evident in the regions from the rest of the world, suggesting a lagged effect – but I do not have any
evidence to support this hypothesis. What I can say is that our interest in ontological issues continues to grow,
while an interest in epistemological issues seems to be declining in recent years, except among European
authors (see Figure 27.3).
Figure 27.3 Regional trends for ‘epistemolog*’ search, Web of Science

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While the growing use of these terms is evident, an underlying explanation is not. Hay (2006) suggests the
reason may be that political science, as a discipline, has become less confident and certain of its capacity to
access the truth. I wonder if the reason is not just the opposite: that political scientists are becoming more
confident, allowing them to step out from under the shadows of natural science. In other words, political sci-
entists have begun to explore alternative ways of thinking and knowing about our subject matter.
Another, related, explanation for this rise in interest is the attention it is getting from the writing of an influential
thought-leader in the United States and a series of new textbooks in Europe. With regard to the former, I am
thinking of Peter Hall's 2003 contribution, which was foreshadowed in a 1996 piece he wrote with Rosemarie
Taylor (Hall and Taylor, 1996), and finds its deeper roots in Charles Ragin's (1987) ground-breaking book on
The Comparative Method. With this work, a generation of young comparativists became more aware of the
ontological foundations of their work.
The focus of Peter Hall's (2003) contribution was on recent developments in the field of comparative politics.
In particular, Hall noted that ‘a substantial gap [had] opened up between the methodologies popular in com-
parative politics and the ontologies the field embraces’ (2003: 374). Comparative politics had traditionally
embraced an ontology, imported from the natural sciences, which assumed that the world we studied was
‘governed by causal relationships that take the form of lawlike regularities operative across space and time’
(2003: 377). This ontology fuelled the development of variables-oriented research, searched for correlations
by way of ‘disciplined configurative inquiry’ (à la Verba, 1967) and depended on effective typologies.
Hall argued that the discipline was now negotiating an ‘ontological shift’ (2003: 379), where new theories of
strategic interaction and of path dependence were challenging that (old) naturalist ontology. These new ap-
proaches draw from a different ontology, less reliant on timeless causal regularities and much more sensitive
to constitutive influences. Consequently, Hall warned that
our ontologies have outrun both our methodologies and standard views of explanations. Compara-
tive politics has moved away from ontologies that assume causal variables with strong, consistent
and independent effects across space and time toward ones that acknowledge more extensive en-
dogeneity and the ubiquity of complex interaction effects. (ibid.: 387)
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Coming from a scholar of Peter Hall's calibre, this single chapter had a significant influence on the way that
the next generation of American political scientists began to think about their work. It was now both legitimate
and expected that scholars pay more attention to ontological issues, and to prioritize ontological considera-
tions when deciding on an appropriate method.
In Europe, the effort at focusing on these concerns has been more sustained, in that it has found an insti-
tutional foothold in what might be called the Birmingham school, and its influence on Macmillan/Palgrave's
‘Political Analysis’ book series. In particular, two popular titles in this series have highlighted ontological and
epistemological issues. The first of these is Theory and Methods in Political Science (Marsh and Stoker, 1995,
2002, 2010; and Lowndes et al., 2018), about which Bates and Jenkins trumpeted: ‘Marsh and Stoker are to
be commended for virtually “doublehandedly” introducing the importance of ontological and epistemological
reflection for political science students’ (2007: 58). The second leading title in this effort is Colin Hay's (2002)
Political Analysis, another product of the Birmingham curriculum. Hay takes ontological diversity as his point
of departure to explore the boundaries of the political, questions of structure, agency, power and the dynam-
ics of political change.
Another Macmillan/Palgrave textbook, although not in this series, is Ways of Knowing, which I have co-au-
thored along with Torbjørn Knutsen (2007, 2012, 2019). This text takes explicit inspiration from Peter Hall's
(2003) argument to narrow the gap that separates the implied ontologies and the methods employed by so
many of today's social scientists (Moses and Knutsen, 2019: 5). It does so by introducing two main ontological
positions, naturalism and constructivism, and then showing how a handful of common methods (experiments,
statistics, small-N comparisons, case studies) are used in different ways and toward different ends, when em-
ployed in different ontological contexts.
With the success of these very different textbooks, European students are being introduced to political sci-
ence by approaches that are explicitly sensitive to diverse ontological and epistemological concerns. When
this impetus is combined with the sort of response we have seen to Peter Hall's piece, there is reason to hope
that the methodological awakening witnessed in the figures above will continue into the future.
Use Value
To demonstrate the utility of thinking about the underlying ontological and epistemological claims in contem-
porary political science, I propose to map some of the most familiar and influential arguments in contemporary
political science onto a very simple two-dimensional space. Along one axis, I take the simplistic ontological di-
chotomy introduced in Moses and Knutsen (2019: chapters 1, 2 and 8), which distinguishes between natural-
ist and constructivist ontologies, and stretch it into a continuum. I realize that this is a huge oversimplification,
as it shrinks a cacophony of ontological positions onto a simple two-dimensional space. But let us suspend
our critical disbelief for just a moment and assume that all work in political science can be placed somewhere
along this simple ontological continuum.
On the right-hand side of this continuum, we can locate authors who assume that there is a single Real World
out there, independent of our experience of it, governed by laws or patterns that can be predicted, and that
we can gain access to that World by thinking, observing and recording our experiences carefully. I think that
a variant of this ontological view dominates contemporary social science, and political scientists rely on it to
reveal patterns that exist in nature but are often obscured by the complexities of life. Knutsen and I call this
ontological viewpoint naturalism, as it seeks to discover and explain patterns that are assumed to exist in na-
ture. Others often refer to this ontological position as positivistic or foundational.
At the opposite end of this continuum lie those who doubt the naturalist's view of the world, as many of the
patterns that interest them are seen to be ephemeral and contingent on human agency. For these political
scientists, the patterns of interest are not firmly rooted in nature but are a product of our own making. There
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is not one Real World, but many: each of us sees different things, and what we see is determined by a com-
plicated mix of social and contextual influences and/or presuppositions. It is for this reason that I refer to the
left-hand anchor point to the imagined continuum as constructivist: it recognizes the important role of the ob-
server and society in constructing or influencing the patterns we study as political scientists. Others might
refer to this ontological position as interpretivist or antifoundational.
Both of these endpoints constitute ideal-types individual authors that are willing to fully embrace a naturalist
or constructivist ontology tend to be relatively few in number. Most of us find ourselves somewhere in the
middle of this imagined continuum, adopting a somewhat more naturalist or constructivist worldview. Some of
us commit to an ontological perspective as if it were like our own skin; others are more willing to change onto-
logical viewpoints along with the underlying conditions, as if ontologies were a sweater (Marsh and Furlong,
2002; Marsh et al., 2018).
I now propose that we make the same radical abbreviation to the epistemological space. Instead of the variety
of epistemological approaches that I referred to at the outset of the chapter, let us focus on the two main
ways of acquiring knowledge in contemporary political science: reason-based and empirically-based, or de-
ductive and inductive, approaches. Here too, I ask for the reader's credence, and recognize this to be a giant
simplification. We can then imagine a vertical continuum that stretches from approaches that rely entirely on
rational, formal and mathematical approaches (at the top), to those that are committed to observational and
experiential approaches (at the bottom). In the middle, where most practising political scientists will be found,
we find a balance or combination of deductive and inductive approaches.
We have now imagined a 2×2 space, covering both ontological and epistemological positions (albeit admit-
tedly simplified ones), upon which we can place individual pieces of scholarship (see Figure 27.4). Each of
the four resulting quadrants describes an important theoretical tradition within contemporary political science.
Each theoretical tradition provides something different and useful to the study of the political world. For ex-
ample, we can position the rational choice tradition in the upper right quadrant, where scholars embrace a
naturalist ontology and deductive approaches. The behaviouralist tradition is located in the lower right quad-
rant, as Behaviouralist tend to share a naturalist ontology, but seek evidence of this worldview by using more
empirical means.
On the left-hand side of this Cartesian space, we can distinguish between political theory (upper left) and
sceptical (lower left) approaches, reflecting their embrace of either rational argument (Political Theory) or em-
pirical evidence (Scepticism). In both cases, we find work that is more cognizant of the way that our knowl-
edge can affect the world that we study. After all, the point of normative political theory is to convince us of
the attractiveness (or not) of alternative (still possible) worlds, compared to the empirical real world, in which
we live. Here we find scholars who recognize that there are other worlds out there, better than our own (and
waiting to be made).
I will now position eight well-known examples in the four quadrants, to give an idea of how this sort of typology
might be employed. My criteria for selection was simple: each of these pieces is representative of a particu-
lar theoretical tradition (quadrant); each is influential or well known; and they are personal favourites, for one
reason or another. Obviously, one can argue over the exact positioning of any particular piece in this 2×2
space, but this general framework provides a parsimonious way of thinking about, and organizing, contempo-
rary work in political science.
Figure 27.4 A methodological mapping

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In the upper right quadrant, home to the Rational Choice tradition, we find scholars whose work aims to reveal
stable and predictable patterns in the political world with reference to deductive (mostly mathematical) ap-
proaches. Anthony Down's (1957) economic theory of political action is exemplary of that tradition, in that he
builds a reason-based argument, atop a list of axioms, in an effort to demonstrate that ‘the political structure
of a democracy can be viewed in terms of a set of simultaneous equations’ (1957: 137). It is worth noting that
there is not one single piece of empirical evidence in this remarkably influential piece. Przeworski and Waller-
stein's (1988) piece is similarly committed to a naturalist ontology, but it comes at it from a radically different
political/ideological perspective. Przeworski and Wallerstein aim to show that the capitalist state is not struc-
turally dependent upon capital, so that it is possible to change the distribution of consumption between wage
earners and capitalists – even radically – without undermining continued private investment. While Przeworski
and Wallerstein rely on a sophisticated formal model to make this argument, they also demonstrate a stronger
willingness to engage with empirical studies and examples, and even entertain the possibility that the patterns
they uncover may be contingent on social factors. For that reason, I have placed their piece closer to the
centre of the diagram (relative to Downs).
In the lower right quadrant, which captures the Behaviouralist tradition in political science, I have chosen one
of my favourite descriptive pieces: Stein Rokkan's (1967) chapter on the main cleavages in Norwegian poli-
tics. We can then compare this with Ronald Inglehart's (1971) influential APSR article on post-materialist val-
ues. As with the Rational Choice selections, these two pieces come from different eras in the history of politi-
cal science, and a more nuanced methodological view is clearly evident in the more recent pieces. Rokkan's
chapter offers a detailed description of Norway's political development, a description he uses to build a case
for his five stable and persistent dimensions (or cleavages) of political conflict (1967: 389). Rokkan offers the

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classic example of induction: his pages are filled with table after table, and figure after figure, all of which are
aimed to reveal stable patterns, consistent with a naturalist ontology. Inglehart demonstrates a similar faith in
the ability to reveal strong patterns by inductive means, but for Inglehart the data is survey-based, not official
historical statistics, as it was for Rokkan. Inglehart (1971: 997) is explicitly ‘tapping’ into inherent and persis-
tent patterns in political opinion, but he introduces a stronger dose of theory, and even seems to recognize the
possibility of contingent influences that would play havoc on the relationships he hopes to predict (e.g. ibid.:
1008). It is for these reasons that I have placed Inglehart's argument closer to the deductive and constructivist
fields (relative to Rokkan).
Political Theory is positioned in the upper left quadrant of Figure 27.4, in recognition of its embrace of rational
approaches and its explicit willingness to propose and conceive of alternative worlds. John Rawls is perhaps
the most famous political theorist of our time, and his 1985 article in the Philosophy and Public Affairs journal
offers an accessible and succinct introduction to his thinking. Rawls also draws heavily from a rational choice
tradition, and relies on an axiomatic (deductive) approach. This makes it relatively easy to place him in our
imagined 2×2 space. Rawls aims to provide a practical, not metaphysical, argument for justice as fairness,
while avoiding ‘claims to universal truths, or claims about the essential nature and identity of persons’ (1985:
223). In this light, Rawls distances himself from a naturalist view of the world, and presents justice as fairness
‘not as a conception of justice that is true, but one that can serve as a basis of informed and willing political
agreement between citizens viewed as free and equal persons’ (ibid.: 230). For these reasons, this article be-
longs on the constructivist side of the ontological divide, but Rawls remains strongly committed to a deductive
approach, and still signals strong links to the naturalist tradition.
A very different sort of argument, but one that still belongs in the Political Theory quadrant is Nancy
Hirschmann's (1989) ‘Freedom, Recognition and Obligation: A Feminist Approach to Political Theory'.
Hirschmann unabashedly embraces a feminist standpoint approach (1989: 1229) in an insightful demonstra-
tion of how ‘choices exist in contexts. Indeed, choices are so deeply embedded in contexts of relationship,
emotion, value and taught belief – all of which are social phenomena, deriving from relations with others and
not from a purified or natural self’ (1241, emphasis in original). This is a masterful example of a deductive
argument that recognizes the constructed/situational nature of the truths we see around us. But Hirschmann
is also willing to reference more empirical research, especially when she draws from the field of psychology.
For that reason, I have placed her piece deeper in the constructivist camp but closer to the inductivists (than
Rawls).
The final, bottom left-hand, quadrant is the most difficult to name. I have played with ‘post-modern’ and ‘con-
structivist', but have decided to describe this space as belonging to a Sceptical tradition. In this quadrant, I
have included two very different pieces: Robert Cox's (1981) Millenium piece and one of the most readable
pieces ever published in the APSR: Larry Preston (1995). Both articles avoid generalization and recognize
the contingent nature of knowledge. Cox opens his piece by recognizing that ‘Academic conventions divide
up the seamless web of the real social world into separate spheres, each with its own theorising’ (1981: 126).
This is the foundation, upon which he rests his most famous argument that ‘Theory is always for someone
and for some purpose’ (ibid.: 128, emphasis in original). Cox's approach is to examine the existing literature
in a way that appears very inductive (even if the material surveyed is itself largely theoretical). In this way,
his account is much closer to Hirschmann's than it is to Preston's. Preston relies on a handful of personal
histories and anecdotes to show how ‘[t]heoretical language passes over and distorts the differences it would
understand. Theory more attentive to difference needs to gain access to the meanings that circulate within
different lives, especially as reflected in literary writing of those who, themselves, speak and write from sites
of difference’ (1995: 941). In describing the difficulty of capturing difference, and how often these descriptions
are necessarily inauthentic, Preston demonstrates the strongest constructivist ontology among the pieces I
have selected: ‘Dig all the way down into the identity or subjectivity and there isn't any person-with-a-voice to
be found’ (ibid.: 950).

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Conclusion
Whether we recognize it or not, ontology and epistemology are part and parcel of what we do as political sci-
entists. In this regard, we are like the orator who was greatly surprised when told that she had spoken prose
over all those years. Recognition of the importance of ontological and epistemological issues seems to be on
the rise, as recent years have seen a veritable methodological awakening in the literature. This chapter aims
to feed that awakening by sensitizing the reader to the often implicit methodological decisions we make about
ontology and epistemology when designing and conducting our research projects.
In particular, this entry has described and documented that methodological awakening, and provided some
ideas about the forces that may be propelling it. Political scientists of all shades are increasingly aware of the
importance of reflecting about the consequences of adopting (or inheriting) a particular ontological or epis-
temological foundation. To help practising political scientists see the importance of these decisions, and to
demonstrate the spread of ontological and epistemological choices that are available, I have devised a simple
framework that can be used to compartmentalize the contemporary literature. Any and every piece of political
science might be placed in this stylized space, and contrasted against others. To illustrate the utility of such
an approach, I have compared eight influential examples from contemporary political science.
With such a framework in hand, young scholars might think critically about the dominant ontological and epis-
temological positions in their own particular area of research. For example, students who are interested in
voting behaviour might recognize the dominance of what I have called the Behaviouralist tradition in their field
of study, and begin to wonder how that tradition might be challenged in the face of more deductive and/or
constructivist approaches. Such a simple mapping allows us to see how our own particular area of research is
often pigeonholed in a given ontological or epistemological tradition (for better or for worse). This realization
might prompt us to consider alternative ontological and epistemological vantage points in an effort to break
out of the status quo. It is even possible to map developments in the discipline over time, and to see how they
gravitate to a particular quadrant or the other (or head toward the centre) at different points in history.
Most importantly, I hope this framework can help us think critically about the sort of (too often implicit) as-
sumptions that underlie the main traditions, within which we work. Such a framework may offer a useful and
practical means to address the concerns voiced by Peter Hall (2003) about the need to narrow the gap that
now separates the implied ontologies and the methods employed by so many of today's social scientists.
Notes
1 I would like to acknowledge the helpful comments of Torbjørn Knutsen and Michael Alvarez. I, alone, am
(obviously) responsible for the resulting product
2 The exception to this rule is the Discourse Quality Index (see Steenbergen et al., 2003), but it tends to be
used by a smaller sub-set of political scientists. I hasten to note that the newer ‘Varieties of Democracy’ index
does include deliberation, along with electoral, liberal, participatory and egalitarian principles in its index. See
V-Dem (2018).
3 It should be noted that someone who is not attuned to ontological issues will assume the ontological cer-
tainty of her subject matter, and recognize this to be a problem of validity: i.e. is she using an appropriate in-
dicator to capture the essence of democracy (which is assumed to be solid)? A more methodologically aware
political scientist will use this mis-match to question the ontological status of the democracy being measured.
4 For examples of the former, consider the Hawthorne effect, as described in Moses and Knutsen (2019:
56–7). For examples of the latter, see Moses and Knutsen (2019: 275–7).
5 In particular, North America includes United States, Canada, Cuba and Mexico; Europe includes Austria,
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Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece,
Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Scotland, Serbia,
Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Wales; Middle East and Africa includes Ethiopia, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Nige-
ria, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey; Asia includes India, Japan, People's Republic of China, Singa-
pore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand; South America includes Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia,
Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela; while Oceania is limited to Australia and New Zealand.
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• ontologies
• ontology
• epistemology
• scientists
• preference
• democracy
• political behavior
• realism
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n30

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Survey Research
Contributors: Bruno Cautrès

Chapter Title: "Survey Research"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Survey Research
Bruno Cautrès
Introduction
Survey research is among the most important methodological instruments of modern social sciences. Con-
ducting a survey could even be qualified as the major activity of social scientists. From the early stages of
modern social sciences to the latest contemporary developments, ‘surveying’ social and political phenomena
is certainly the most unifying mode of investigating the world across the disciplines and the methodological
paradigms of social sciences. Presenting an exhaustive panorama of ‘survey research’ is not only quasi-im-
possible to do in a one-chapter exercise, but also destined to be no longer up to date very quickly. There have
been many rapid technical developments in the field of social science surveys in recent years and the survey
research field became a gigantic one, composed of many different sub-topics, each of them highly special-
ized.
Rather than proposing to cover everything but lightly, this chapter made two choices: first, to present some
major issues in the design of surveys in restricting the word ‘survey’ to quantitative surveys; second, to extend
the survey research issues to the analysis of survey data. This double substantive choice is driven by two in-
tellectual motivations: first, we propose that something unifies the two most important processes of producing
a survey, the ‘measurement’ process and the ‘representation’ process. Then, we propose that something also
unifies the design and the analysis of a survey. A good survey is a complex set of procedures and protocols
that requires at the same time a division of labor between specialists but also a very strong integration among
them. The making of a survey is a chain of processes, but nothing would be more damaging to the quality of
a survey than a strict separation between the different tasks corresponding to these different processes. The
making of a survey is also linked to the ultimate objective: the statistical analysis of the data collected through
the survey. Making a survey/analyzing a survey are actually one and the same task.
Designing a Survey with the ‘Total Survey Error’ Perspective

Typically, survey research targets a key scientific objective: to make possible ‘inferential knowledge’ about the
world. Making ‘inferences’ is part and parcel of the survey instruments and techniques since the beginnings of
the survey paradigm. A survey is actually a set of procedures, methods, and techniques targeting two types
of inferences: a ‘measurement’ inference (measuring unobservable concepts) and a ‘statistical’ inference (the
question of representation, in other words the possibility from the survey to infer the results to a larger popu-
lation). Every step in the making of a survey, any technique used in this framework, has one of these two in-
ferential perspectives and often both at the same time. According to Groves, ‘a survey is a systematic method
for gathering information from (a sample of) entities for the purposes of constructing quantitative descriptors
of the larger population of which the entities are members’ (Groves et al., 2009: xv).
For an organization or an institution, deciding to conduct a survey is always an important and strategic de-
cision. Doing a survey is not without any risk; a survey produces and delivers key indicators and any orga-
nization or institution expects these indicators to be reliable information. Recent trends in public policy, for
instance, attribute to data collected by surveys a major role in evaluation. This importance is particularly the
case with quantitative surveys. The outcomes of a quantitative survey are numbers and these numbers are
‘sampling estimates', in other words estimations of the ‘true’ reality (the so-called ‘parameters').
Estimating accurately the parameters of an empirical reality is the final objective of a survey and this infer-
ential perspective has gained more and more relevance. But the making of a survey is also a question of
costs. The cost–benefit balance is an integral part of the making of a survey. Contrary to common wisdom,
according to which budget limits for a survey is only a negative constraint, we propose another interpretation.
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If organizations and institutions have to become aware that survey quality involves high expenditures and that
good social and political surveys cost a lot like in any other discipline, the budget limits also have their good
side. Without budget limits it is likely that surveys would be conducted in non-sensical fieldwork, with hours of
interviews, too complex and long questionnaires, and many repetitions of existing data.
The obligation to think about the cost–benefit balance of a survey had certainly another positive consequence,
an increasing demand for the quality of data produced by surveys, particularly quantitative surveys. The con-
cept of ‘total survey error’ reflects this new requirement. If producing a survey has become both more costly
in terms of budget and more strategic in terms of the validity and reliability of its results, then every effort
must be made to reduce the risk of error and bad estimation. If this has already been the case before, and
has always been a key issue in surveys, research into survey methodology has evolved considerably and
progressed on one essential point. The ‘total’ error, the one that will lead to producing a poor estimate, can
be broken down into a series of ‘partial’ and ‘local’ errors. In an ideal world, errors should not be made, but in
the real world, the world of multiple constraints on survey production, some mistakes can be avoided, others
can be corrected even if they are made.
The concept of ‘total survey error’ is nowadays considered as the theoretical and empirical reference frame-
work for the quality control of data produced by surveys. Jon Krosnick, Paul Lavrakas, and Nuri Kim define it
as follows:
The total survey error perspective is based on the notion that the ultimate goal of survey research is
to accurately measure particular constructs within a sample of people who represent the population
of interest. In any given survey, the overall deviation from this ideal is the cumulative result of several
sources of survey error. Specifically, the total survey error perspective disaggregates overall error in-
to seven major components: coverage error, sampling error, non-response error, specification error,
measurement error, adjustment error, and processing error. (Krosnick et al., 2014: 431)
According to Groves et al., the concept of total survey error can even be described as a ‘unified perspective’
of survey methods:
Over the past two decades, a set of theories and principles has evolved that offer a unified perspec-
tive on the design, conduct, and evaluation of surveys. This perspective is most commonly labeled
the ‘total survey error’ paradigm. The framework guides modern research about survey quality and
shapes how practising survey professionals approach their work. The field arising out of this re-
search domain can appropriately be called ‘survey methodology'. (Groves et al., 2009: xv)
Groves et al. argue that one way of learning about surveys ‘is to examine each type of error in turn, or studying
surveys from a “quality” perspective’ (2009: 41).
This modern and recent perspective on the quality of data produced by a survey can be synthesized using
two figures proposed by Groves et al. (2009). The first graph shows the steps involved in conducting a survey:
from the most general, defining research objectives, to the most specific, producing data and publishing an
‘educated’ version. It must be understood that the published and disseminated data are not necessarily the
raw data collected. A real editing work of the raw collected data must be carried out: the coding or recoding
of the data after their collection. The corrections and weighting procedures are essential steps before ‘survey
statistics’ can be published. But the main interest of this graph is to show that before the fieldwork starts, the
process of producing a survey has two separate branches that are intended to unify and gradually converge.
These two branches are the bases from which the two types of inference (see Figure 28.1) are possible. We
see that on the right side of this graph we find what concerns inference in the classic sense of the term, sta-
tistical inference; but on the left side, we find everything that concerns the other inference problem, that of
‘representation’ in the sense of ‘measurement'.

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Figure 28.1 The different steps of a survey

Source: Figure slightly adapted from Figure 2.4 in Groves et al. (2009: 47).
The seven components of the ‘total survey error’ mentioned above can be reframed in a slightly different way
(but very close to it) by using the second figure coming from Groves et al. This second figure develops fully
the ideas of the ‘total survey error’ (Figure 28.2).
Figure 28.2 The two parallel processes of controlling the ‘total survey error'
Source: Figure slightly adapted from Figure 2.5 in Groves et al. (2009: 48).

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Now we are zooming in a very detailed way on the two parallel but converging processes of inference. All
over these two processes, a set of seven types of error are the components of the ‘total error': each error type
is a ‘partial’ or ‘local’ source of the ‘total error'.
As can be seen, correctly estimating a ‘survey statistic’ is the result of a relatively complex methodological
process, which requires sustained attention at all stages. We can really talk about a ‘production chain’ of
survey research, which aims at a double inferential objective (measurement and representation). In the very
synthetic scheme proposed by Groves et al. the word ‘error’ regularly appears at all stages, as a threat to the
validity and reliability of the statistics produced at the end. The main types of errors that the second graph
identifies are the necessary steps for any reflection on the production of a survey.
Measurement Issues
The four blocks of the measurement process are the steps that lead to the production of what is called an
‘edited response'. This vocabulary is particularly interesting and metaphorical: the data that are published at
the end of the measurement process are ‘constructed’ data. Without being part of a constructivist epistemol-
ogy, the modern approach to survey research assumes that at all stages of the development of a survey im-
portant choices are made and that the produced/published statistics are actually the result of an intellectual
construction.
‘Construct validity’ is among the most important issues in the measurement process. According to Paul J.
Lavrakas (2008), ‘in the context of survey research, construct validity addresses the issue of how well whatev-
er is purported to be measured actually has been measured'. Construct validity implies ‘face validity’ (validity
‘at face value') but the reverse is not necessarily true. A survey item that would measure the popularity of
the President by an item about the way the country is run by the current administration would certainly have
some face validity, but certainly not construct validity. Evaluating the strength of construct validity requires an
attention to many empirical aspects: the wording, the formatting, the place of the item in the questionnaire, the

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mode of administration of the questionnaire, the response style of the respondent. In other words, a high con-
struct validity depends not only on the strict meaning of ‘validity’ (the instrument measures what it is supposed
to measure), but also on the empirical context of the questionnaire and fieldwork. At the end, the statistical
analysis is the ultimate step in judging the construct validity: if the construct is valid, its measurement must
correlate with criterion variables. In other words, a high construct validity means that the items capture the
variance of the phenomenon that is supposed to be measured.
The basic idea of a measurement error consists in a difference between a measured quantity and its ‘true
value'. Measurement error in itself is not the problem. When a valid construct is empirically measured, the
operationalization of the measure can generate errors like in any observation or experiment. The real con-
cern is when the error is not a so-called ‘random error', but when it has a ‘systematic’ origin, caused by a
wrong calibration of the measuring instruments. If ‘random errors’ are unavoidable (due to the sampling of
the respondents and due to the empirical process of measuring), the ‘total survey error’ perspective aims at
controlling and reducing the avoidable part of the measurement error, the systematic error part. According to
Paul Biemer, the measurement error:
includes errors arising from respondents, interviewers, survey questions, and various interview fac-
tors. Respondents may (deliberately or unintentionally) provide incorrect information in response to
questions. Interviewers can cause errors in a number of ways. By their speech, appearance, and
mannerisms, they may undesirably influence responses, transcribe responses incorrectly, falsify da-
ta, or otherwise fail to comply with the survey procedures. The questionnaire can be a major source
of error, if it is poorly designed. Ambiguous questions, confusing instructions, and easily misunder-
stood terms are examples of questionnaire problems that can lead to measurement error. (Biemer,
2010: 823)
The set of errors described as ‘processing error’ come typically from editing, coding, data entry, or programing
errors. These kind of errors can sometimes be difficult to detect, particularly when it comes to coding and
data entry errors. If a numerical code has been wrongly attributed to one case, the error may be impossible to
detect if that case is the unique error among hundreds or thousands of observations. This kind of error arises
during the data processing stage. For example, in coding open-ended answers related to economic or socio-
demographic characteristics, coders may deviate from the coding protocol procedures. The errors that occur
in a particular survey are strongly influenced by survey planning, and to some extent the survey's resources
(e.g. staff and budget) and constraints (e.g. elapsed time between data collection and publication). In general,
resources and constraints weigh heavily in the data collection mode selected, with each mode resulting in
different types of processing errors.
Representation Issues
Because the major objective of a survey (at least for a quantitative survey) is to produce accurate estimates
of the population parameters, the early stages of the representation process are of crucial importance. As
can be seen in the second figure, the representation process is mostly about sampling issues. The sample
procedure itself comes only in a third position in the sequential order of producing the survey statistics. Be-
fore achieving a sample, we must consider the serious issues before: defining the ‘target population’ and its
correspondence with the ‘sampling frame'.
It looks trivial to mention here, but it is a major issue. We must clarify, before anything else, which population
the survey intends to cover. An example comes from election studies: they want to analyze the electoral pop-
ulation, the one having voting age and voting rights. But, an interesting perspective for election studies could
also be to analyze the population of the young citizens that will become voters soon, in between the begin-
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ning of the survey and the election date. In a recent and large panel study of the French voters, for example,
the decision has been taken to also cover the population of the ‘first voters', those young citizens that would
become voters during the span of the panel study1.
Once the targeted population has been correctly defined, the empirical implementation of this objective can
be more complex than expected. A sampling frame, composed of the list of sampling units, must be available
(for extracting the sample) but it must also correspond to the defined population. A series of gaps between
the two can compromise the initial objective of representing the population. These gaps are called ‘coverage
error’ problems. This is a major source of bias in a statistic, when the target population does not coincide or
correspond exactly with the population actually sampled. The source of the coverage error can be diverse
but essentially results from ‘undercoverage’ or ‘overcoverage’ of segments of the population. ‘Undercover-
age’ occurs when members of the target population are excluded (for instance if an age limit is given for the
sampling, when the objective is to cover all the population). ‘Overcoverage’ concerns the opposite, when a
segment of the population is erroneously present in the sample when it should not (for instance a national
sample of residents when the objective was a national sample of voters). The net coverage error is the differ-
ence between the two. As summarized by Herbert Weisberg, coverage error issues raise not only sampling
questions but also considerations about the mode of administration of a survey:
[C]overage error produces bias when a large part of the target population is omitted from the sam-
pling frame, and when the mean of the sampling frame thus differs from that for those omitted from
it. Concern that many households did not have a telephone led to avoidance of telephone surveys
until the 1970s when the coverage rate for telephones in the US finally went above the 90% level.
Internet surveys still suffer from serious coverage problems. (Weisberg 2008, 226)
Coverage error issues are thus still a matter of major concern in the new context of web-survey design. Face-
to-face and area probability frames are certainly still the best mode of administration of surveys. Telephone
interviews became obsolete (problem of directories, problem of cell phone-only households, dual frame of
landline and mobile phones – dealing with overlap issues in sampling) and mail surveys, too (mail survey
is possible only if we have an up-to-date and accurate list of the population, which is problematic in many
circumstances due to the mobility of some segments of the population). For the web-surveys, the coverage
error issues are due to the fact that no ultimate and good frame has been developed for sampling the internet
population (digital divide; multiple email addresses problems), despite major efforts done recently in this field.
The coverage errors can have a negative effect on the sampling error, particularly on one of the two facets of
the ‘sampling error'. Basically speaking, ‘sampling error’ consists of two components: ‘sampling variance’ and
‘sampling bias'. The first one:
[is] the part that can be controlled by sample design factors such as sample size, clustering strate-
gies, stratification, and estimation procedures. It is the error that reflects the extent to which repeated
replications of the sampling process result in different estimates. (Krotki, 2008)
The second one:
results from a systematic source that causes the sampling estimates, averaged over all realizations
of the sample, to differ consistently from their true target population values. Whereas sampling vari-
ance can be controlled through design features such as sample size, stratification, and clustering,
we need to turn to other methods to control and reduce bias as much as possible. (ibid.)
This point is particularly critical for survey research: if the sampling variance of an estimate is part of the sam-
pling frame (by definition a sample generates estimations, we call it ‘sample statistics', and by definition the
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estimation may fluctuate randomly from one sample to another), the sampling bias is a concern. The sam-
pling variance is the random component of the sampling error when the sampling bias indicates a systematic
(non-random) error which is present whatever the sample size or how many times the sample is drawn.
Correcting for both sampling errors (the random part and the possibly systematic one) is a major task in
checking and validating the survey estimates. The correction requires us to know the population parameters
and this concerns an essential point: the sampling strategy. Probability samples (when the units of analysis
are extracted from the population by a random selection) only guarantee that corrections can be applied to
the estimated parameters. Applying weighting procedures to correct for sampling error is not undoable with
non-probability samples like quota samples, but is more complex, less direct, and certainly less precise. Cor-
rection for sampling errors when the sample does not come from a random selection out of an exhaustive list
of the population is less precise since the base of correction is not the individual units of the population but
(in the case of quota samples) the grouping of individuals into the quota groups.
But even if the coverage of the survey is good and the sampling error is restricted to the sample variance of
the statistics, another source of error can damage the quality of the estimate: the ‘non-response error'. This
error occurs when the survey, particularly in its interview stage, fails to get responses to some indicators and
questions. The non-response error creates two types of problems for the survey: first, the decrease in sample
size (due to non-response) results in larger standard errors for the estimated statistics; second, and perhaps
more importantly, it creates a systematic bias since the non-respondents differ from respondents within a
sample. In other words, it is very likely that non-response is not a random error.
This error not only concerns the interview process (some questions, items, or indicators may generate non-
response for different reasons: complexity or bad phrasing of the questions, mis-specification of the items
for instance), but it also concerns the delicate stage of the contact with the respondents. Some segments of
the population might be ‘reluctant’ to respond to surveys, particularly social and political surveys. Converting
the ‘reluctant respondent’ into a ‘participant respondent’ is a critical issue. Important experiments have been
conducted in the context of the European Social Survey (ESS) to convert the ‘reluctant respondent’ and to
persuade her to participate and respond to the questionnaire. It has been shown that some respondents need
to be re-contacted several times before accepting to respond which has a major effect on the distribution of
the estimates. For instance, the sampling distribution of the measurement of authoritarian values is deeply
affected by non-response errors and may vary very significantly according to the number of contacts needed
with the respondents.
A last but not least threat to the quality of survey data is what are called ‘adjustment errors'. The particularity
of this source of error is that it concerns potential errors committed after the data collection. These ‘post-sur-
vey adjustments’ refer to a series of statistical adjustments applied to survey data prior to data analysis and
dissemination, but after data collection. Typically this concerns technical tasks like ‘data editing', missing data
verifications, and eventually imputation, weighting, and disclosure limitation procedures.
As summarized nicely by Michael Young:
[D]ata editing may be defined as procedures for detecting and correcting errors in so-called raw sur-
vey data. Data editing may occur during data collection if the interviewer identifies obvious errors in
the survey responses. As a component of post-survey adjustments, data editing involves more elab-
orate, systematic, and automated statistical checks performed by computers (…) Data editing begins
by specifying a set of editing rules for a given editing task. An editing program is then designed and
applied to the survey data to identify and correct various errors. First, missing data and ‘not applica-
ble’ responses are properly coded, based on the structure of the survey instrument. Second, range
checks are performed on all relevant variables to verify that no invalid (out-of-range) responses are

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present. Out-of-range data are subject to further review and possible correction. Third, consistency
checks are done to ensure that the responses to two or more data items are not in contradiction.
(Young, 2008: 597)
But the ‘adjustment errors’ can have sources other than errors made when editing the data. Missing data
imputation and weighting adjustments are also critical questions. Imputation and weighting adjustments are
actually standard find tools for dealing with missing data in surveys. As can be seen, ‘adjustments errors’ may
have their origins in the ‘non-response errors'. The way the missing data are dealt with (for instance in elimi-
nating the individual units of analysis having some missing data) and the choices operated to imputate some
values in replacement of the missing information can turn into errors rather than correcting for them. Normally,
the statistical objective of weighting and imputation is to reduce the potential bias of survey estimates due to
item non-response or sampling error. But this can be achieved to the extent that we know and can identify
correctly the mechanism which has produced these two errors. If the sampling error is not correctly identified,
if the process that generated missing data is not known, then the correction could be problematic.
Analyzing Survey Data

Once the data have been collected and, in an ideal world, the ‘total survey error’ has been corrected in total
or for some of its components, then we may start the analysis of an ‘edited data set'. The analysis of survey
data is an integral part of survey research. Not only is this not an independent step in the conduct of the inves-
tigation, it is part of it from the beginning. No survey questionnaire is produced independently of data analysis
issues. It can even be said that the entire intellectual and methodological construction underlying the conduct
of a social or political survey has no other objective than to allow data analysis. If the survey design aims to
produce statistical estimates from which the collected data are subjected to a series of statistical inferences,
the survey analysis also aims at inference: the survey analysis can indeed be assigned the same objectives
as those of the survey design: representativeness and inference.
The statistical analysis of survey data can be interpreted as an extension of survey design by other means:
the objective is the same; it is to produce high-quality survey statistics. To achieve this objective, the statistical
analysis of survey data employs different procedures, all of which fall under what can be termed ‘data quality
control'. This data quality control is one of the most crucial steps in the phase following the completion of the
field survey.
The Construction of Attitude and Measurement Scales

One of the most common practices for analyzing survey data is to create synthetic measures that group in-
dicators together. The analysis of the data is thus based on a methodological paradox. On the one hand, the
development of the questionnaire leads researchers to wish for a great richness of indicators: academic sur-
vey questionnaires (for example those of the European Social Survey or European Values Studies) are often
very long, with interview times that can appear excessive (in wave 8 of the European Social Survey the aver-
age interview time was 65 minutes with a standard deviation of 27 minutes, which reveals a large variance in
the styles of responses to the questionnaire). On the other hand, the objective of analyzing the data collected
through this long questionnaire is in fact to reduce the measurements to large synthetic indicators.
A methodological tension thus exists between the length and multidimensionality of the survey questionnaire
and the reduction of this complexity to large synthetic indicators. This tension is a central element of the social
science survey paradigm. This paradigm is based on an extremely solid and important methodological and

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intellectual foundation, bequeathed to survey analysis by one of its most important founders, Paul Lazarsfeld
(Lazarsfeld and Rosenberg, 1955). In his work, he proposes that the main objective of sociological surveys
is a measurement objective: the empirical transition from ‘concepts to indicators'. Lazarsfeld inscribes this
objective in a four-step framework that continues to inspire the development of social science surveys and
questionnaires.
In Lazarsfeld's scheme, the first step is for the researcher to develop an abstract and imaginative represen-
tation of a theoretical problem: the aim here is to sketch an abstract theoretical construction, an imagined
representation called a ‘concept’ (Elkins, Chapter 19, this Handbook). The second step turns towards the op-
erational decomposition of the concept into its different components. These components are referred to as
‘facets’ or ‘dimensions'. The third step is to define the type of data needed to empirically measure the se-
lected ‘facets’ or ‘dimensions'. To do this, the researcher can rely on ‘indicators'. The latter are elements that
can be collected in the empirical world and whose link with the concept is defined in terms of probability. This
last point is crucial to understanding the plurality and multidimensionality of the indicators present in a survey
questionnaire.
Indeed, if the link between the dimensions of a concept and its indicators is probabilistic, it means that each
indicator is only a potentially imperfect measure of each dimension. This relationship is not ‘deterministic',
unless one could measure perfectly or (an even more demanding methodological condition) if one could per-
fectly summarize a dimension with a single indicator. The plurality of indicators that are proposed to measure
a dimension of a concept is therefore based on the central assumption that the concept and its dimensions
cannot be perfectly measured by a single indicator. The objective of a survey questionnaire is thus to define
indicators each measuring a particular facet of a concept. If the indicators are plural, the choice of a particular
indicator is based on a rule of ‘interchangeability’ of indicators: according to this fundamental rule, different
indicators can be used to measure a dimension of a concept in an equivalent way. This rule, which is easi-
er to establish as a theoretical principle than to apply in empirical reality, prevents the answers given to the
questions from being directly comparable to the meaning of the concept. Here we find Lazarsfeld's strong
hypothesis relating to the ‘probabilistic’ nature of the relationship between the concept, its dimensions, and its
indicators.
The fourth and last step of Lazarsfeld's analytical scheme is the construction of synthetic indicators, com-
posed of several indicators, constituting the indices of the dimensions of the concept. This step is essential
for the quality control of the data collected by the survey and even more so for the validation of the measure-
ments. This is one of the most fundamental challenges of survey analysis and its practices: the analysis of
correlations between items or between questions makes it possible both to construct synthetic indices and to
verify whether the indicators work well according to the initial plan, i.e. in their ability to measure the different
aspects of the dimensions of the concept.
The Measurement of the ‘True Score'

Survey analysis and its ‘Lazarsfeldian’ tradition on all these questions are related to another discipline and re-
search perspective of the social sciences: psychometry and the theory of the ‘true score'. There is a very clear
intellectual proximity and methodological familiarity between the development of synthetic indicators and what
psychometrics call the ‘true score’ of a measure. To fully understand this familiarity and its methodological
importance for the quality control of survey data, we must return to a number of key concepts in the analysis
of survey data.
By attempting to construct synthetic indicators, we actually assess their operational and empirical capacity in
terms of ‘validity’ and ‘reliability'. The statistical analyses (see below) that make it possible to construct syn-
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thetic indicators aim to provide an essential response to two main concerns of survey analysis: do we mea-
sure what we claim to measure? is the measurement obtained of sufficient quality? To answer these essential
questions from any empirical measurement perspective (for any scientific research device or program the
question of measurement is probably the most central question), reference is made to two key concepts of
measurement theory: ‘reliability’ and ‘validity'. Reliability (or fidelity) is confirmed when an instrument is used
several times under the same conditions and produces the same results. Validity is high when an instrument
really measures the phenomenon you attempt to measure. A chemist's example is often used to explain these
two concepts. He records the temperature: if his thermometer always indicates 2 degrees more than other
calibrated thermometers, there is a validity problem. If the chemist is short-sighted and has difficulty reading
the thermometer and the values he records are only approximate: there is a problem of reliability (Nunnally,
1978). Reliability and validity can be affected by many sources of errors that can be grouped into two main
categories: ‘random errors’ and ‘systematic errors'. The true score model is a framework that proposes to
take into account these two main categories of errors. It breaks down the result of a measurement into three
essential elements: the ‘true value’ supposed to correspond to the reality of the phenomenon studied, random
error, and systematic error. We can now see the intellectual proximity between the design of the survey, with
the ‘total survey error’ perspective, and the analysis of the survey data, with the psychometric ‘true score’
perspective. Fighting against measurement or representation sources of errors is in fact looking for the best
estimate of the ‘true score'.
All the efforts to construct a survey questionnaire actually aim to reduce the importance of random error as
much as possible and to fight resolutely against systematic error. If the random error is related to the observa-
tion and empirical measurement, the probability that it will be revealed during an observation should normally
be small and randomly distributed. This is where the perspectives of psychometrics and Lazarsfeld's original
intuition about the probabilistic nature of the link between indicators and the facets or dimensions of concepts
come together. By contrast, systematic error is a measurement bias that deviates from the ‘true score’ in a
non-random way. An example provides a clear understanding of this distinction. Imagine that a survey ques-
tionnaire of political attitudes includes several indicators measuring different aspects of ethnocentrism. The
objective of the measurement is to produce an ethnocentrism score characterizing the population studied: this
‘true score’ will be inferred from the score estimated by the synthetic indicator constructed by combining, for
example, the different ethnocentrism indicators present in the questionnaire. It is possible that a discrepancy
exists between the ‘true score’ and the ‘estimated score': if the indicators that have been chosen are both ‘re-
liable’ and ‘valid', this discrepancy is a simple random fluctuation and the score estimate does not systemati-
cally deviate from the ‘true score'. But a more dramatic error could have occurred in the questionnaire: one of
the indicators (or, even worse, several of them) could be tainted by a systematic measurement bias. Thus, if
one of the indicators concerned the measurement of anti-semitic prejudice, it is not impossible that this would
disturb the estimation of the ‘true score’ of ethnocentrism. Although ethnocentrism and anti-semitism are cor-
related, they constitute two different phenomena. The systematic bias here would be less severe if one of the
indicators in the construction of the synthetic ethnocentrism index actually measured a phenomenon with a
weak correlation.
Manifest Indicators and Latent Variables

The construction of synthetic indices is not based solely on the assumption that they allow us to estimate the
‘true score’ of the dimensions or facets of concepts. This construction is also based on another hypothesis,
which is the real pillar of the Lazarsfeldian design of the survey. Synthetic indices are in fact the ‘real vari-
ables’ sought. These cannot be measured directly for operational reasons. Let us take the example of the
measurement of authoritarianism. An interviewee cannot be asked to define himself directly on an ‘authori-
tarian’ scale. If a survey questionnaire included an indicator of the type: ‘generally speaking, would you say
you are an authoritarian person', this indicator would produce responses with a ‘social desirability’ bias be-
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cause few people probably want to be labeled as ‘authoritarian'. Moreover, the use of the word ‘authoritarian’
would undoubtedly cause misunderstandings given its both abstract and polysemous character (authoritar-
ian in politics? In the relationship to others? In private life?). These are the reasons that actually led to the
measurement of authoritarianism by indirect indicators. In France, for example, one of the indicators used to
measure authoritarianism is an attitude towards the restoration of the death penalty (which was abolished in
France in 1981).
In the Lazarsfeldian tradition, opinion indicators are referred to as ‘manifest variables': they reveal (in a ‘man-
ifest’ way) the hidden political attitudes of the people who respond to the survey. The questionnaire thus be-
comes a conversation in which the respondent is indirectly led to reveal his psycho-sociological attitude traits
without being hurt, without being questioned in a too intrusive way. An intimate relationship unites this phi-
losophy of measurement and the neutrality of observation and the observer towards the responding person.
Thus, a ‘good’ questionnaire is not only characterized by the fact that the indicators are both ‘valid’ and ‘reli-
able': their formulation (their wording), their number, the order in which they are presented to the respondent,
are all elements that must facilitate spontaneous expression and be as faithful as possible to deep attitudes.
The questionnaire and its indicators then make it possible to reveal ex post not only the ‘true score’ but also
the ‘true score of the true attitude', the so-called ‘latent variable'.
Statistical analysis plays a fundamental role here. Multivariate statistical analyses are used to test all these
choices and hypotheses. Two main statistical schools cohabitate in the world of survey data analysis. The
dominant one is certainly the ‘regression model world’ that aims at modeling the relationships between a
so-called ‘dependent variable’ and its ‘explanatory factors’ (Beck, Chapter 25, this Handbook). Coming from
the scientific tradition of Galton and Gauss, the regression-based statistical analysis looks at the ‘true score’
question mostly through the issue of model specification. Is the model function an accurate representation of
the causal chain driving the accurate estimate of the ‘dependent variable'? The ‘true’ score for the regression-
based analysis is the estimated one through a link function and a particular specification of the model. A very
‘hard’ perspective in regression analysis could say that ‘truth’ is the estimation, providing the link function and
the model specification are valid and correct. The residuals of the regression model would be like the random
error in that case, respecting the important assumption of the regression model that error is stochastic and
randomly distributed. Needless to say, this perspective and assumption needs a lot of verification and empir-
ical checks. Assuming that the link function and the model specification to be correct is one thing, to prove it
is something else. The regression-based set of methods is in fact particularly exposed to the issue of selec-
tion bias and endogeneity, two critical points that can totally ruin the perspective to get the ‘true score’ in the
estimation.
A second statistical school or paradigm is the set of ‘data reduction techniques', like principal component
analysis and broadly speaking the ‘factor analysis world'. To separate it from the ‘regression model world’ for
analytical reasons is called for when the reality is more complex. Some factor analysis developments and
methods are actually model-based (in psychometrics in particular or in structural equation models). But we
can say that the main difference is that data reduction aims to reduce the dimensionality of the edited data
base, i.e. to reduce the number of columns of the data base (the variables) to a smaller set of ‘components',
‘dimensions', or ‘factors'; or to reduce the number of rows of the data base (the units of analysis) to a smaller
set of groups, or types, or clusters. The data reduction techniques are sharing a closer familiarity with the ‘true
score’ perspective than the regression-based techniques. These methods are fully in line with Lazarsfeld's
perspectives about ‘manifest’ and ‘latent’ variables. Running a factor analysis is in fact searching the ‘true
score’ in the unobserved latent variable. The set of items or questions developed in the questionnaire are the
manifest measures of the ‘secret’ latent variable that can be accessed only through the discovery of the latent
variable as a combination of the manifest indicators.
The research attitude of the researcher using this data reduction framework is very coherent with the logic
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of drafting the questionnaire and going from the concepts/constructs to their indicators. The best survey re-
search strategy, the optimal one, is indeed to anticipate in the questionnaire design the future data reduction.
This is paradoxical: the same researcher develops a long and complex questionnaire and later uses statistical
analysis to summarize and reduce it to a small set of latent variables. This paradox in the process of produc-
ing a survey sometimes makes it very hard to obtain funding: the accumulation of data that are not used is in
fact impressive. It is not easy to convince funding agencies that you need a long time for interview and many
items will not be used by themselves, but only as elements of composite scales or latent variables.
Conclusion
Survey research is today at a crossroads, as has probably never been the case before. The developments
of online accumulation and availability of data (part of which can be qualified in the ‘big data’ perspective:
Wagschal and Ettensperger, Chapter 16, this Handbook) poses a series of serious questions to the paradigm
of survey research. Can we do survey research as before? After the end of telephone interviews are we going
to see the end of face-to-face interviews? If web-surveys and online interviews become the dominant way
of conducting surveys, what about the developments of data bases for sampling internet respondents? What
are going to be the ‘data’ collected by surveys? Still numerical codes, or texts, images, emotions? These are
only a few of the many challenging questions that the digitalization of societies and the social sciences are
raising.
Note
1 The survey is a very large panel study of French voters, called ENEF2017 (the National Electoral Survey
2017). This major national election study started in the Fall of 2015 and continues to observe the same
panel of French voters up to the present. The study is conducted by CEVIPOF in Sciences Po; see:
https://www.enef.fr/
References
Biemer, Paul, ‘Total survey error. Design, implementation, and evaluation'. Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 74,
No. 5, 2010, 817–848.
Groves, Robert M., Floyd J. Fowler Jr., Mick P. Couper, James M. Lepkowski, Eleanor Singer, and Roger
Tourangeau. Survey Methodology. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2009 (
second
edition).
Krosnick, Jon, Paul J. Lavrakas, and Nuri Kim. ‘Survey research'. In: Harry T. Reis, Charles M. Judd (eds.).
Handbook of Research Methods in Social and Personality Psychology, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2014 (
second
edition).
Krotki, Karol, ‘Sampling error'. In: P. J. Lavrakas (ed.), Encyclopedia of Survey Research Methods. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2008.
Lavrakas, P. J. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Survey Research Methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications,
2008.
Lazarsfeld, Paul F. and Morris Rosenberg (eds.), The Language of Social Research. A Reader in the Method-
ology of Social Research. Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1955.
Nunnally, Jum. C. Psychometric Theory. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978 (
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second
edition).
Weisberg, Herbert F., ‘The methodological strengths and weaknesses of survey research'. In: Wolfgang Dons-
bach, Michael W. Traugott (eds.). The SAGE Handbook of Public Opinion Research. London: Sage, 2008.
Young, Michael, ‘Post-survey adjustments'. In: Paul J. Lavrakas (ed.). Encyclopedia of Survey Research
Methods. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2008.
• survey research
• surveys
• surveying
• type I errors
• errors
• inferences
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n31

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Clientelism
Contributors: Herbert Kitschelt

Chapter Title: "Clientelism"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Clientelism
Herbert Kitschelt
Introduction
Political clientelism involves a specific form of coordination between an aspiring political office holder (the
‘patron') and constituency supporters (the ‘clients'). To win or sustain political office, the patron bestows or
promises to bestow targeted benefits on or avert losses from clients in return for their support of her political
bid. These advantages accrue to clients as individuals or members of small groups, typically in a geograph-
ically narrowly confined locale. No club or collective goods are produced. Clientelism thus constitutes one
of several varieties of electoral ‘accountability mechanisms'. Such mechanisms encompass any conceivable
actions undertaken by aspiring political office holders or candidates in the expectation of mobilizing citizens’
support.
Political clientelism involves an intertemporal relationship of double contingency, where either side may be
tempted to defect once the other has made its move, even though the capacities to exit may be asymmetri-
cally distributed. There is no third-party enforcement of the exchange, and the participants’ efforts to create
safeguards or turn clientelism into a self-enforcing relationship are always precarious. Clientelism therefore
tends to be a ‘leaky bucket’ with plenty of losses incurred by suckers – patrons or clients – whose contri-
butions are not reciprocated. But for want of feasible alternatives, time and again clientelism may persist, at
least as one of several modes of political coordination.
Early students of clientelism investigated diffuse political–economic relations of dependence between (large)
landholders (as patrons) and agrarian producers (as clients). Clientelism became a subject of genuinely po-
litical research with some lag. Within the political domain, subspecies of clientelism involve administrative or
electoral exchange. In the former, the patron may reach or maintain her desired position along a number of
different pathways (e.g. kinship, personal allegiance, educational skills), with the exception of formal elec-
tion from a pool of competitors. In the latter, patrons seek office through mobilization of support in electoral
competition. Administrative clientelism may occur in any form of political regime. Electoral clientelism involves
competitive elections, but does not presuppose full-fledged democracy. Purely electoral democracies with lim-
ited civil and political liberties (‘illiberal’ electoralism), or even competitive authoritarian regimes, may practice
electoral clientelism.
This chapter builds on previous literature reviews of clientelism (especially Kitschelt and Wilkinson, 2007;
Stokes, 2007; Hicken, 2011) and will not venture into a broader consideration of distributive politics (Golden
and Min, 2013).1 By focusing on research since about 2005, it features areas of intellectual advance in the
study of political clientelism, particularly in our understanding of the micro-logic and transactional process in-
volved in clientelistic exchange. But it will also highlight continuing lacunae of clientelism research, particularly
in understanding the organizational level of clientelistic transactions – such as ‘machine’ politics – as well as
the forces that promote the rise or demise of clientelism as an important accountability mechanism.
The first two sections concern conceptual issues of clientelism as an accountability mechanism. As a genus
in a taxonomic hierarchy, how does clientelism relate to other genera within the family (or domain) of politi-
cal accountability relations? And what is the conceptual relation between the genus electoral clientelism and
its various expressions (‘species')? The third section turns to organizational patterns of exchange between
clients and patrons, and particularly their mediation by brokers within the frame of political party organization.
The fourth section deals with inter-party competitiveness and the targeting of clientelistic benefits on “core”
or “swing” voters. The fifth section addresses five different conditions and mechanisms promoting rise and
decline of clientelism. It goes beyond the conventional focus on economic development. The sixth and sev-
enth sections reverse the causal perspective: If electoral clientelism is a prominent accountability mechanism
deployed by citizens and politicians, what sorts of consequences may this have for questions of economic
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distribution and social welfare?
Clientelism: Genus within the Family of Political Accountability Mechanisms

Students of clientelism typically mention local club goods, programmatic policies and personal candidate traits
as further genera within the family of political accountability mechanisms. Stokes et al. (2013) offer a sys-
tematic typology of distributive accountability mechanisms that includes clientelism (targeted to individuals,
contingent on client performance: ‘quid pro quo'), local club goods (pork: targeted, but without conditionality of
award) and individual constituency service (also targeted, no conditionality), as well as programmatic politics
(distribution under public general rules: neither targeted nor conditional). In the broader behavioral perspec-
tive on linkage mechanisms, this leaves out unreflective and affective modes of citizen–politician coordination
that occur through party identification and candidate traits. It is also not clear where ascriptive socio-cultur-
al group identification would come in, net of considerations of instrumental group payoffs. Unthinking party
identification and rote habitual support may, in fact, be the quantitatively most important components of citi-
zens’ vote choice functions, even in advanced knowledge societies. Cultivating party identification and brand
recognition may therefore often be politicians’ best option to maintain the perception of political accountability
among their constituents.
Conceptual work, however, has not generated a comprehensive typology of political accountability mecha-
nisms. Accordingly, investigations have usually focused on politicians’ and citizens’ use of a singular account-
ability mechanism, such as clientelism, or a pair of such mechanisms, as in the case of clientelism and pro-
grammatism. But the correct unit of analysis to understand citizens’ and politicians’ mutual coordination may
be the comprehensive ‘linkage profile’ over all possible dimensions of political accountability. The linkage pro-
file would be the N-tuple, or multi-dimensional vector, indicating the relative effort politicians and citizens make
in coordinating with each available linkage strategy. It would require mapping the trade-offs, interdependence
and interaction of political linkage strategies in the ‘portfolio’ of a politician (or party) in generating or sustain-
ing a support constituency.
So far, little research has mapped complex linkage profiles. Often theory and even empirical research instru-
ments presume a simple trade-off between clientelistic and programmatic linkage (e.g. Keefer, 2007).2 But
it is hard to nail down the mechanisms that may make this trade-off compelling (Kitschelt, 2000: 853–5).3
Which voters to target with clientelistic inducements may in fact depend on a party's programmatic linkages
to those voters: perhaps the most efficient target of clientelistic benefits are voters mildly opposed to a party's
program, but receptive to clientelistic benefits that tip their balance of considerations in partisan vote choice
(Gans-Morse et al., 2014). Parties may serve different constituencies with different linkage benefits (Luna,
2014). It may therefore be useful to think of parties as assembling ‘portfolios’ of linkage strategies to attract
different voters (Diaz-Cayeros et al., 2016; Calvo and Murillo, 2019) or linkage diversification that may appeal
to the same voters. Historically, European ‘left’ working-class parties often attracted voters with clientelistic
benefits (e.g. subsidized public housing in big cities) as well as political ideology. In early 21st-century pol-
itics, however, parties programmatically on the ‘right’ tend to deploy clientelism with greater effort (Tzelgov
and Wang, 2016). Behaviorally, clientelistic networks may persuade voters to adopt their benefactor party's
programmatic ideology. Politicians may even use their selective management of clientelistic exchange, for ex-
ample in treatment of ostracized ethnic minorities, to send programmatic signals to their voters in the majority
ethnic group (Mares and Young, 2019).
Ignoring the interaction of clientelism with the deployment of other accountability mechanisms in citizen–politi-
cian linkages may become problematic when empirically appraising the impact of clientelism on voting behav-
ior and the popular support of political parties. A similar effort in providing clientelistic benefits or sanctions
may yield different electoral impact, contingent upon how politicians also engage in an array of other appeals
(programmatic, charismatic, identity based, etc.). In vote choice functions as well, analysts would want to ex-
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plore the interaction of clientelistic and other accountability efforts in shaping citizens’ support for a party and
electoral choice.
Given that alternative linkage mechanisms often do not come into view in clientelism studies, investigations of
the electoral impact of clientelism may lack a baseline in assessing the magnitude – in relative and absolute
terms – of clientelistic efforts on a candidate's or party's support. If voters who indicate they are recipients
of clientelistic benefits have a 3–5% greater propensity to vote for one party over others, is that a small or a
large effect? An answer to this question depends on the size of the effect that other mechanisms have on the
same electorate, as well as on the interactions between the clientelistic effort and other efforts that may yield
indirect pathways magnifying (or reducing) the overall substantive impact of clientelism on the distribution of
partisan support. More sophisticated research in this regard is needed that considers accountability mecha-
nisms as complex ensembles (multi-dimensional vectors?) in which the value of the clientelistic effort is one
term or dimension that interacts with other terms and dimensions. The electoral effect of clientelism, then, de-
pends on the interaction with other linkage mechanisms, as well as the organization of partisan mobilization
and the competitive context in which clientelistic linkage occurs.
The Impact of Clientelistic Appeals Relative to Other Modes of Political Ac-

countability
Only a limited and fragmentary stock of empirical research has addressed the electoral impact of clientelism.
First, some studies report how parties allocate clientelistic benefits – such as resources for targeted social
programs – across constituencies in order to estimate effects on turnout or voting. The most sophisticated
analysis in terms of estimating a rather substantial direct effect of clientelism relative to other linkage mecha-
nisms on voting behavior is Diaz-Cayeros et al.'s (2016) investigation of the influence of targeted social poli-
cies on subnational voting in Mexico, albeit with district-level rather than individual-level data. This research
typically yields statistically significant but substantively modest effects of clientelism on vote choice, but does
not fully calibrate the relative effect compared to partisan effort regarding other accountability mechanisms.
A second strategy to assess the impact of clientelistic effort comes from experiments to persuade voters not
to sell their votes (Vincente, 2014). Persuasion tends to result in lower voter turnout, especially among poor
people, and increased survival of office incumbents, as it is difficult to motivate voters in the absence of strong
programmatic and other linkage appeals. Also, where public audits of local finances make targeted benefits
risky for politicians, voter turnout drops substantially (Hidalgo and Nichter, 2016).
Third, in survey research on vote choice itself, Weghorst and Lindberg (2013) show for Ghana that clientelism
may be a consideration in people's decisions, but not the dominant one among the several included in their
investigation. Unobtrusive survey list experiments where social desirability bias cannot interfere with respon-
dents’ propensity to report clientelistic influence on their vote choice tend to yield higher estimates of the
impact of clientelistic considerations, albeit with large contextual variance (Corstange, 2016; Kramon, 2017;
Mares and Young, 2019). But programmatic considerations rarely outperform clientelistic motivations.
Fourth, observation of party operatives engaging in clientelistic exchange suggests what is widely known,
namely that clientelism – at least as an electoral strategy (see the following section of this chapter) – is a
‘leaky bucket’ in which politicians’ resources are dissipated, as clients opportunistically pocket resources with-
out delivering support. Indonesia provides some of the starkest examples (Aspinall and Berenschot, 2019).
Fifth, a final strategy to explore the effectiveness of clientelism asks country experts to assess both the efforts
parties are making in transacting clientelistic benefits with targeted voters and the effects of such efforts
(Kitschelt and Altamirano, 2015). In an 88-country/506-party comparison, experts attribute weak effectiveness
of parties’ clientelistic efforts typically to parties that lack encompassing associational networks to sound out
and informally monitor their constituencies.
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Overall, efforts to conceptualize the role of clientelism within a set of linkage mechanisms of political account-
ability, as well as the measurement and appraisal of the effect of clientelism on vote choice, often suffer from
insufficient inclusion of the full array of linkage mechanisms and the relations between different mechanisms
in whole profiles or ‘portfolios’ of party accountability. For this reason, it is also difficult to appraise the magni-
tude of a clientelistic impact on voting.
Varieties of Clientelism
If clientelism is the genus, what are the species of this political accountability mechanism? Classic politi-
cal–anthropological investigations conceptualize clientelism as (1) broad-based support of a number of clients
for a single patron that involves (2) durable, (3) dyadic and personalistic, as well as (4) asymmetrical–hierar-
chical and monopolistic, but also both coercive as well as norm-infused, allegiance to (5) a single patron in
exchange for protection from existential economic threats. As long as all of these elements are in place, the
risk of bilateral opportunism – that either patron or client would defect from their exchange – is remote. But
clientelism now comes in multiple forms that vary along a range of dimensions, with different implications for
political opportunism of clients and patrons.
First, the activities profile of patrons’ support for political clients may be varied. Clientelism may concern just
the buying of votes or of clients’ abstention from voting (Nichter, 2008). But it may also encompass a broad
range of diverse activities to sustain political parties and their lead candidates. Then there may be more sub-
lime, diluted forms of clients’ contributions. Material inducements may be just signals that purchase the atten-
tion of an audience to a candidate and update clients’ perceptions of a candidate's credibility and competence
(Kramon, 2017). By luring citizens with incentives to vote rallies, they may also enhance their receptiveness
to be persuaded by a candidate (Muñoz, 2019). Opportunism in the clientelistic exchange is no problem in
attention and persuasion buying, or in abstention or participation buying, but it is a major concern in vote-buy-
ing activities, where vote secrecy and Australian ballot may bar the patrons from direct observation of their
clients’ actions.
Second, the range of goods and services provided by the prospective patrons varies widely. Patrons may
provide simple services such as campaign entertainment and material gifts (e.g. food, clothing, building mate-
rials, appliances), including money. But they may also generate more substantial benefits such as patronage
jobs, social benefits (subsidized housing, disability pensions, scholarships), procurement contracts or regula-
tory easements.
Third, the temporality of the clientelistic exchange varies widely. While early students of clientelism focused on
durable clientelistic exchange relations, more recent research has often focused on single-shot vote buying
instead of the more ‘relational’ lasting modes of exchange (Nichter, 2018). Empirically, Indonesian clien-
telism tends to emphasize single-shot clientelism (Aspinall and Berenschot, 2019: 98–106), whereas in coun-
tries such as Argentina, Brazil or Mexico, sustained, relational clientelism may be more prominent (cf. Diaz-
Cayeros et al., 2016; Nichter, 2018). Iteration and durability of exchange relations cut down on the partici-
pants’ opportunism, as they reduce the need for and the costs of direct monitoring of transactions in favor of
indirect control through social networks and party organization. Normative commitment mechanisms to reci-
procate to a clientelistic gift may sometimes contain client opportunism in single-shot exchanges (Finan and
Schechter, 2012; Lawson and Greene, 2014). Politicians may target different clientelistic constituencies with
goods and services that involve differential temporality.
A fourth attribute along which clientelism may vary has to do with scale, that is, whether the targeted clients
are individuals (‘retail clientelism') or (in)formally organized and spatially concentrated groups (‘wholesale
clientelism'), such as firms with offices and factories, residential neighborhoods or economic or cultural asso-
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ciations (trades, unions, churches, ethnic networks). In wholesale clientelism, patrons can delegate the task
of monitoring compliance of individual citizens to collective managers/organizers of the client group itself.
Spatially concentrated group voting may allow indirect compliance checks by monitoring small-scale precinct
and ballot station electoral results (Rueda, 2015).
A fifth dimension of variance concerns the sources of clientelistic largesse. Is it asset-rich but vote-poor pa-
trons who out of personal private assets channel resources to asset-poor but vote-rich clients (Kitschelt, 2000:
849), or is it politicians deploying public resources for clientelistic purposes? There is some theorizing about
the consequences of private rather than public supplies of clientelistic resources (Medina and Stokes, 2007),
but it is not highly elaborated, nor supplemented by empirical investigations.
A sixth dimension of clientelism characterizes the social organization of clientelism to which the next section
is devoted. It ranges from decentralized, candidate-centered social networks to formal ‘machines’ with exter-
nal membership boundaries and internal division of labor, hierarchy of control and career patterns of mobility
of individual actors across different offices.
Finally, participants may perceive clientelistic exchange as a more coercive, affective or remunerative, disen-
chanted affair. The classical anthropological literature on clientelism prominently featured the combination of
coercion conceived as clients’ lack of outside options to seek scarce resources intertwined with normative–af-
fective bonds. Mares and Young (2019) emphasize that recent clientelism research has mostly focused on the
remunerative–utilitarian benefit calculations of clients in accepting and acting on material inducements. Such
research has thereby neglected the coercive, options-removing impact of clientelistic linkage mechanisms.
It needs to be kept in mind, however, that what is a coercive threat or a material benefit may be a matter
of perception. The prospect of losing a benefit (say, a subsidized apartment or a public sector job) triggers
perceptions of coercion putting an actor into the domain of severe losses whereas the prospect of gaining an
identical benefit due to clientelistic allegiance puts an actor into the domain of gains and remuneration. Never-
theless, in line with prospect theory, the perceived threat of loss is probably greater than the gain experienced
by anticipating a clientelistic benefit. Pushing a bit back against emphasizing coercion, however, some clien-
telism research has asserted the capacity of clients to shape the relationship and assert their interests as an
under-appreciated aspect of the exchange (cf. Nichter, 2018; Pellicer et al., 2018; Taylor-Robinson, 2010).
If these dimensions of clientelism vary broadly, do attributes of them ‘hang together’ in predictable clusters?
The jury is out, but based on a cluster analysis of attributes reported in 60 fine-grained ethnographic descrip-
tions of clientelistic transactions in the recent ethnological literature, Pellicer et al. (2018: 14) recover three
of four types of clientelism one might distinguish in terms of duration, type of exchange and scale of actors.
These types may also associate with different forms of funding sources and organization, but probably not
with coerciveness, an ever-present attribute that may shape relations in any type of clientelism.
First, there is individual-single-shot clientelism that targets individual voters as recipients of gifts and purchas-
es, but also acts of regulatory forbearance (Holland, 2017: 14–20). It involves vote and abstention buying, but
also the sublime forms of informational and persuasive clientelistic attention buying. It may be more likely to
be funded by private patrons and involve little partisan organization in candidate-centered operations. Where
single-shot vote-buying is most pronounced, party institutionalization tends to be empirically least entrenched
(Driscoll, 2018). Political opportunism and problems with the ‘leaky bucket’ of clientelism may make this form
of linkage only weakly effective in terms of generating votes.
Second, individual–relational clientelism may also use gifts and vote-buying, but its comparative advantage
lies in the deployment of patronage jobs (e.g. Robinson and Verdier, 2013) and social benefits. To sustain
the effort, patrons tend to rely on state resources more than private donations and build political machines to
funnel resources in a predictable and resilient fashion. The durability of these clientelistic exchanges make
them approximately ‘self-enforcing', that is, it minimizes the need for explicit monitoring.

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In collective (‘wholesale')–relational clientelism, public works procurement contracts establish an intertempo-

rally extended relationship between politicians and corporate organizations of clients, such as producer firms,
neighborhood organizations or professional groups. By virtue of collective organization, clients may have con-
siderable leverage over (competing) politicians, while credibly vouching for their ability to deliver support and
prevent defection in their own ranks.
As a residual category, collective single-shot clientelism would involve political patrons and corporate clients
exchanging one-time commitments. Patrons may deliver procurement contracts and forbearance, but most
regulatory relations may involve iterative relations. And forbearance may rarely take the form of clientelistic
conditionality (Holland, 2017: 307–8).
The brief sketch of the relationship between modes of clientelism and the empirical activities involved in clien-
telistic activities brings to the fore that the social organization of the exchange is critical to determine whether
clientelism effectively organizes political accountability relations. This is exactly the subject on which much
recent research has been performed in the clientelism literature.
Organizational Design of the Clientelistic Exchange

Because clientelism opens the door to bilateral opportunistic defection by clients and/or patrons (e.g.
Corstange, 2016: 30), a great deal rides on the organization of the exchange. Investigations have put forward
social networks that link clients and patrons and particularly brokers as nodes in social networks’ centrality
in explaining the micro-logic of how clientelistic exchange can be sustained. But the generic notion of broker
hides great differences in the roles which investigations have assigned to intermediaries between politicians
and voters.
Brokers are conceived to be intermediaries who have specialized knowledge about prospective clients that
allows candidates (patrons) to fine-tune the targeting of benefits. Conversely, clients may use brokers as com-
petent specialists to press for benefits. Brokers may also serve as mediators between layers of governance.
At the same time, brokers deploy their comparative advantage to advance their own personal welfare. Brokers
may divert the patron's resources to their own consumption and career aspirations (cf. Stokes et al., 2013:
chapter 3; Szwarcberg, 2015). Let us distinguish six different brokerage roles. They are based on brokers’
differential insertion in their communities’ socio-economic and cultural fabric and their revenue dependence
on one, or on several, political parties.
Chiefs and traditional notables: Often based on kinship and descent, and only sometimes on ethnic affiliation,
these are people of high status, with nodes of dense social ties, and proven organizers of local club good
production. In competitive party systems, such ‘development brokers’ may wish to keep an arm's-length rela-
tionship to partisan politics and not become clientelistic ‘electoral brokers’ (Baldwin, 2016).
Economic brokers: Business people (and even criminal gangs) deliver votes of employees and captured
neighborhoods in exchange for payments, procurement contracts, regulatory favors or forbearance. Such
commercial brokers are indifferent to the politicians’ partisan brands and ideological constituencies.
Service brokers: These are facilitators of citizens’ dealings with public bureaucracies who intermittently also
happen to favor political candidates. Particularly under competitive conditions, service brokers only weakly
associate with parties on a case-by-case basis, as they are selected by their clients primarily because of their
competence in getting things done (Auerbach and Thachil, 2018). Drawing on external service brokers and
delivering targeted, contingent benefits may be a strategy for parties to broaden their electoral appeal beyond
existing constituencies that can be mobilized based on more programmatic appeals (Thachil, 2014: chapters
4 and 5; Luna, 2014).

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Community organizers: They derive power from bargaining with competing politicians over provision of ser-
vices in exchange for community-level vote blocs (e.g. Auerbach, 2016). Their community organization of cit-
izens stages an iterative game with politicians.
Multi-partisan brokers: They are service brokers for politicians and they have the primary material objective to
deliver votes. Such brokers aim to arrange short-term vote buying or electoral ‘success teams’ (e.g. Aspinall
and Berenschot, 2019: 102–6). These are also operatives who help politicians buy attention and receptive-
ness to persuasion.
Machine brokers: These are card-carrying politicians in party machines dedicated just to one party. They may
have static ambitions to preserve their office and a flow of assets into their personal coffers, or they may have
progressive ambitions to move up in a hierarchy of party offices or a subsidiary network of stakeholders and
ultimately in order to become principal electoral office holders themselves (cf. Gingerich, 2013). There are
game theoretical accounts of how patrons’ efforts to restrain broker opportunism are empirically most plausi-
ble in case of machine brokers permanently embedded in political parties. Not by chance, many of the studies
in which brokers inside parties loom large are preoccupied with the most institutionalized parties in develop-
ing countries, such as historically in Argentina (Stokes et al., 2013; Szwarcberg, 2015; Weitz-Shapiro, 2014)
or Mexico (Diaz-Cayeros et al., 2016; Larreguy et al., 2017). They also make a strong showing in post-com-
munist countries with a resilient organizational continuity with previous Communist ruling parties, particularly
as diversified democratic linkage strategies (cf. Kitschelt and Singer, 2018).
What the literature on clientelistic party organization is missing, however, is an analytically thorough concep-
tualization and theoretical treatment of diversity of brokerage relations. Attempts to venture in this direction
are limited and confined to inferences drawn from comparative studies of two or three countries’ party sys-
tems (e.g. Gingerich, 2013). But there is no systematic analysis of the different contextual contingencies that
would give rise to differential brokerage systems.
There is also little effort to analyze the organization of parties that deploy and promote brokers or at least
deal with them on an intermittent basis. What is broadly missing is an analysis of different political recruitment
and career patterns of brokers and patrons, whether in integrated ‘machine’ parties or in more personalistic,
decentralized horizontal political and social networks. Likewise, we know little beyond descriptive single-party
monographies about the theoretical logic of clientelistic party governance and leadership in devising political
strategies and allocating party resources. For example, clientelistic machines appear to concentrate power
in small leadership cliques more often than parties with a heavily programmatic linkage profile. Middle-level
operatives and activists appear to have little say in them. In other words, among the three major tasks which
parties in mass democracies may tackle – to mobilize voters, to screen and groom citizens for recruitment
to political leadership positions, and to devise partisan strategies that feature the ‘brand’ of the label in in-
teraction with competitors – the clientelism literature has hitherto addressed only one role, that of electoral
mobilization.
Parties gain credibility with a following only if they institutionalize leaders that force brokers to deliver re-
sources to clients, but simultaneously incorporate mechanisms to remove non-performing leaders who de-
ceive their followers (Keefer, 2018). Clientelistic parties rarely appear to satisfy this second criterion, as their
leadership coalitions seem to face few checks and balances inside the machines. But no systematic studies
have probed the hierarchical leadership structures of parties that deploy clientelism as one important linkage
mechanism.
Clientelism, Competition, Competitiveness

An electoral race is highly competitive for an electoral candidate or party if small changes in their voter support
translate into large changes to their probability of winning office and their bargaining leverage over authorita-
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tive executive decisions. Competitiveness thus involves electoral risk, and therefore incentives to deploy the
utmost effort to win an extra margin of electoral support, even if that is a slender slice. Beyond two-party sys-
tems, where the winner's past or prospective vote margin is a measure of competitiveness, the literature has
been beset by the difficulty that no adequate measure for multi-party systems, and those with multiple voting
districts, has been identified. Volatility or party system fragmentation will not do. For this overview, however,
conceptual questions of measuring competitiveness have to be bracketed. Competitiveness may come into
play in deciding (1) how much emphasis to give to clientelism in a party's linkage profile and (2) which kinds
of constituencies to target.
Competitiveness and the Choice between Clientelistic Effort and Alternative

Linkage
The literature on agrarian landlord–peasant clientelism usually assumed monopolistic relations between pa-
tron and clients, and this has slopped over into some formal modeling of electoral clientelism (e.g. Medina
and Stokes, 2007). In a competitive electoral situation, so conventional reasoning goes, politicians tend to
invest more in programmatic and other non-clientelistic linkage strategies, because the marginal voter they
need to recruit in order to win elections is unlikely to be integrated into social networks that enable clientelistic
exchange by countering voter opportunism through subtle monitoring and sanctioning. Building party organi-
zation to police defection may be too expensive, so programmatic appeals may be overall cheaper.4
Empirically, however, clientelism often thrives in competitive situations. Where poor voters constitute much
of the electorate, competitive contests induce politicians to redouble their clientelistic efforts, because they
may not be able to credibly commit to the provision of collective and club goods (cf. Kitschelt and Wilkinson,
2007: 28–35; Weitz-Shapiro, 2014; Corstange, 2016). Competitiveness may enable a party's activists to ex-
tract more patronage as they become pivotal in a party's victory (Driscoll, 2018). Likewise, clients and brokers
can threaten patrons with defection (Berenschot, 2019).
Targets of Clientelistic Effort under Conditions of High Competitiveness: Core

or Swing Districts and Voters?
Upon initial consideration, under competitiveness clientelistic resources should be funneled to marginal
(‘swing') voters and districts where they make a difference because voters are close to indifferent between
alternatives (e.g. Corstange, 2016: chapter 6). But a long-standing debate about partisan resource allocation
to ‘core’ or ‘swing’ constituencies and districts suggests a complex, contingent relationship (for literature re-
views see Golden and Min, 2013: 77–82; Stokes et al., 2013: 32–6; 131–43).
A core rather than swing strategy may work best when party machines with encompassing social networks re-
strain voter opportunism and use clientelistic resources to mobilize voters. Conversely, where most voters are
unaffiliated, parties have little choice but to target swing voters, especially in urban areas with high volatility. In
a dynamic perspective, parties with large machines may develop sufficiently long-time horizons to use clien-
telistic resources to prevent today's core voters from becoming tomorrow's swing voters. At the aggregate
geographical level, these efforts may be concentrated on districts with eroding party hegemony, as compared
to stable monopolistic and already fully competitive districts (Diaz-Cayeros et al., 2016: 81).
A further contingency comes in through the presence of self-interested voters who may help to attract voters,
but also are prone to pocket resources. As Stokes et al. (2013) find in the case of Argentinian machine poli-
tics, patrons may target resources on marginal districts, but then let their brokers mobilize core voters within
such locales. Patrons measure brokers’ performance in terms of their ability to achieve voter turnout to ral-
lies, and it is substantially cheaper for brokers to achieve this with core rather than swing voters. Only under
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conditions of most intense competitiveness may brokers be compelled to target expensive ‘swing’ voters.
Rise and Decline of Clientelism among Political Accountability Strategies

Recent clientelism research has advanced most in theoretically specifying the terms and the process of clien-
telistic exchange and close empirical analysis of transactions in specific settings. Relatively little has been
achieved, however, in the realm of determining the causes and consequences of the contexts that shape the
rise or decline of clientelism. A penchant for micro-level analysis makes macro-phenomena recede from view.
For example, localized studies have identified political mechanisms that make individual citizens prefer or
steer away from clientelistic political exchange. But they suffer from a problem of ‘inheritability'. Politicians are
likely to permit such practices eroding or preventing clientelistic exchange only if it is in their interest. Where
office-seeking politicians are incentivized to sustain clientelism, anyone who intends to deploy localized tech-
niques to undercut it on a massive scale beyond sandbox randomized experimental designs will eventually
run into severe political resistance from the powers that be. So it will be imperative to investigate the meso-
party level and macro-institutional and political–economic conditions that give leverage to politicians who se-
lect non-clientelistic linkages or that ‘screen’ politicians out who stick to clientelistic strategies. Making head-
way in studying the macro-contexts that incentivize voters, brokers and patrons, however, is difficult because
of a paucity of suitable macro-level data on clientelism, whether assembled through cross-national (and re-
gional) voter surveys, expert surveys or other behavioral/experimental data. It would take large numbers of
micro-level studies under different meso and macro-conditions to fully establish the micro–macro link.
Micro-Level Interventions: Experiments in Undercutting Clientelism

Some natural or field experiments in local settings have suggested conditions under which clientelism may
recede. The critical mechanisms are informational and social network-related: new information and non-clien-
telistic messages about politicians’ activities may, at the margin, dissuade some voters from choosing among
candidates for clientelistic considerations. However, field experiments declare alternative messages to be pro-
grammatic, mostly candidates’ advertising of local club goods. It involves valence competition, not positional
competition, and typically at a local level, without partisan brands organized around alternative positions to
provide large-scale club goods that involve major trade-offs (e.g. taxes for national health care systems or
education).
In addition to informational treatments, material inducements or withdrawals may modify voters’ linkage
conduct. Random distribution of water cisterns in drought-stricken Northeastern Brazil reduces recipients’
propensity to vote according to clientelistic inducements (Bobonis et al., 2017). Likewise, random local mu-
nicipal budget audits by the national regulator in Northeastern Brazil drove down voter turnout among the
poor, presumably because mayors no longer dared to allocate resources to clientelistic targeting (Hidalgo and
Nichter, 2016).
These experiments are insightful, but would have to be run in many iterations under massively varying meso
and macro-level context conditions to be informative about the potential for aggregate shifts of large voter
segments toward partisan linkage profiles that minimize clientelism. In many instances, politicians would fight
against non-clientelistic practices. It is critical to establish where and when non-clientelistic linkage practices
can gain dominance. Macro-relations of political power come into play that typically recede from view in mi-
cro-level studies.

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Macro-Level Evidence I: Development and Political Institutions as Convention-

al Hypotheses
Conventional macro-level theory identifies the following conditions as detrimental to clientelism: economic de-
velopment/high skill levels, universal suffrage, safeguards of the voting process against surveillance by party
agents (secrecy, standardized Australian ballot, compulsory voting), electoral institutions favoring impersonal
choice among partisan alternatives and the prevalence of a professionalized high-capacity state apparatus.
Evidence for all of these conditions comes primarily from case studies. But counter examples suggest that
these factors may only enhance the probability of a shift out of clientelism to a certain extent, at least when
not occurring in concert.
Stokes et al. (2013: chapter 7) have offered the most refined developmentalist account of the British transition
away from clientelism in the late 19th century, detailing how supply-side costs of managing clientelistic ex-
change with agents became unsustainable through encompassing enfranchisement, while urbanization and
social mobility made their whereabouts and behavior intractable – and all of this happening while better-off
voters demanded higher payoffs or the provision of large-scale club or collective goods. But in the 20th and
21st centuries, development may not be a sure recipe to defeat clientelism. Parties learned to build clien-
telistic machines and the state apparatus mobilized more resources to satisfy even exorbitant clientelistic de-
mands. It is not by accident that empirical studies find a curvilinear relationship between affluence and clien-
telistic partisan linkages that begs for explanation (Kitschelt and Kselman, 2013; Diaz-Cayeros et al., 2016:
98).
Institutionalist arguments run into problems, too. Suffrage extension and vote secrecy certainly have not erad-
icated clientelism in many 20th-century polities. British parties may simply have had insufficient time to build
requisite organizations and social networks to preserve clientelism. Cases such as Britain may offer data
points confirming the institutional argument, but many others do not (cf. Lawson and Greene, 2014 on Mexi-
co). Party organization and social networks may compensate for inhospitable institutional incentives and pre-
serve clientelism (Nichter, 2018). Electoral systems are a case in point. Change may sometimes, but not al-
ways, trigger a decline in clientelism. Electoral systems – such as Brazil's open-list proportional representa-
tion without vote pooling – look perfect for the entrenchment of clientelistic parties, but then witness a surge
of programmatic parties (cf. Hagopian et al., 2009). Changing popular linkage demands may induce electoral
system change, rather than the other way around, as Japan (Rosenbluth and Thies, 2010) or Taiwan (Greene,
2007: 265–8) may suggest. If popular demand remains strong for clientelism, parties manage to adjust their
organizations to compensate for any inconvenient electoral institutions, as Gingerich (2013: chapter 3) argues
in a comparison of Bolivia, Brazil and Chile.
Lack of state capacity, conceived as low professional insulation of the bureaucracy from political appoint-
ments, is another staple of the literature predicting clientelism. Low state capacity undercuts the credibility
of politicians’ programmatic stances, and may thereby produce clientelism (Nathan, 2019). But the argument
that the presence of high capacity before the advent of universal suffrage would protect democracies from
clientelism does not even hold consistently in Western Europe (Kitschelt, 2007). Moreover, clientelism and
patronage bureaucracies may be so intimately intertwined that it is often futile to assign one as the cause of
the other (Kuo, 2018: 20).
In more recent democratic polities, the establishment of professional bureaucracies may be endogenous to
the fight of ‘progressive', mostly middle class groups against clientelist machines. US civil service reform
in the late 19th century may have undercut the spoils system of patronage (cf. Folke et al., 2011), but this
process was intimately intertwined with the progressive movement. In many instances, therefore, the growth
of state capacity and the decline of clientelism are part of the same phenomenon, not one providing an ex-
planation of the other (Kuo, 2018: 20). Conversely, low state capacity is the cause and consequence of clien-
telism, as politicians resort to other linkage mechanisms when programmatic commitments are not credible
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(Nathan, 2019).
Nevertheless, in the first encompassing cross-national analysis of more than 60 countries on the subject,
Bustikova and Corduneanu-Huci (2017) establish that polities with strong early state capacity formation, in-
strumented by infant mortality rates in the 1920s, show weaker clientelist linkages as recently as the early
21st century. The causal channel operates through trust in government institutions which is enhanced by ear-
ly state capacity building. Also, mass-level public opinion data covering 31 countries confirm the robustness
of the negative relationship between early state capacity before the advent of mass electoral politics and later
electoral clientelism.
Macro-Level Evidence II: Ethnocultural Pluralism

Another predictor of clientelistic politics has been ethnocultural heterogeneity. Once again, there is little com-
prehensive comparative study of this question, and a plausible alternative, established in small-N country
case studies (such as Corstange, 2016 or Nathan, 2019), is that it is really the resourcefulness of ethnic lead-
ers as local chiefs, not their ethnic affiliation per se, that shapes partisan linkage strategies (Baldwin, 2016).
Corstange's (2016) evidence, based on small-N case studies and experiments, suggests that transactional
mechanisms are more important than collective identity in shaping ethnic clientelism. It is primarily in situa-
tions of inter-ethnic competition, and with ethnic groups sustaining dense social networks that lower the trans-
action costs of monitoring and sanctioning, that clientelism is likely to take hold. Moving toward a broader
confirmation of the general association between specific types of ethnocultural heterogeneity and clientelism,
albeit in a purely observational study, Wang and Kolev's (2018) 79-country comparison of clientelistic partisan
efforts finds that ethnocultural pluralism boosts clientelistic linkage formation only if there are considerable
disparities between the income averages of ethnic groups. And these disparities are associated with the pres-
ence of strong within-group social networks that discourage opportunism in clientelistic exchange.
Undercutting Clientelism III: The Life-Cycle of Democracies and Parties

Proposed by Keefer (2007), a novel argument about clientelism's rise and fall may be called the ‘life cycle’
theory. Young parties and party systems lack the track record of fulfilling programmatic commitments in past
electoral terms. Without such credibility capital, therefore, voters discount parties’ programmatic appeals and
prefer to be compensated with clientelistic inducements. This argument, however, may require modification,
as clientelism cannot be created overnight: it requires deep organizational networks to raise resources, pen-
etrate state bureaucracies and organize the distribution of targeted benefits to core constituencies. In such
circumstances, parties with legacy roots in authoritarian regimes have an advantage in establishing clientelis-
tic networks (Kitschelt and Singer, 2018). In ‘young’ democracies, new parties mobilize based on the personal
name recognition or ascriptive qualities (ethnic, religious, linguistic…) of their leaders rather than clientelistic
machine capacities. If anything, they may resort to diluted forms of clientelism such as information and per-
suasion buying (Kramon, 2017; Muñoz, 2019), as they lack the organizational capacities to establish mean-
ingful material clientelistic exchange.
Empirically, a modified life-cycle argument posits that young democracies abstain from clientelism because
most young parties lack the social and organizational infrastructure, while old democracies back-pedal from
clientelism because their brands have gained programmatic credibility. This version is at least more consistent
with the empirical regularity of a curvilinear incidence of clientelistic partisan effort in poor, middle and high-in-
come countries, a distribution that is also collinear with the democratic experience of countries (Kitschelt and

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Kselman, 2013: 1469–70). But the underlying partisan strategies may be rooted more in political economy
than a simple life-cycle model. Nevertheless, Keefer's proposal to link age of democracy to linkage strategies
has the important virtue of placing time and experience on the agenda of theorizing about democratic partisan
linkage relations. It remains a fruitful template for future research.
Undercutting Clientelism IV: Political Governance of the Economy

Opponents of clientelism may hope that economic development will eventually generate a critical mass of ed-
ucated professionals bent on eradicating clientelism. But this prospect postpones relief in many countries to
the long run, and with detours along the way. Institutional remedies for clientelism appear to be inauspicious,
as clientelistic politicians can work around them, when given time. If anything, institutional innovations tend to
be endogenous to political and economic power relations. So why not focus on such power relations directly
to uncover potential sources of change, net of long-term development?
The curvilinear empirical relationship between development and the incidence of clientelistic partisan effort
may provide an inductive clue (Kitschelt and Kselman, 2013 with cross-national evidence; Diaz-Cayeros et
al., 2016 with subnational Mexican evidence). Middle-income countries may exhibit an economic structure
and power configuration that is particularly conducive to clientelism, but also reveals its transitional nature
that often results in sudden collapse. To reach middle-income status, polities typically build a rather strong
extractive state that diverts resources from declining sectors (agriculture, natural resources) to growing in-
dustries (manufacturing, in the future services). Such developmental states broadly conceived are powerful
allocators of economic resources supported by an urban coalition of business and wage earners.5 As they
grow fast, these states generate the resources to compensate declining sectors with clientelistic politics, while
also providing the collective and large-scale club and collective goods, such as physical infrastructure and
social insurance systems, for the rising urban sectors. And the emerging urban professional class may be
quite happy with clientelistic linkages, as long as developmental states generate a bounty of patronage jobs.
It is thus not necessarily the rising proportion of poor people in developing states that may expand clientelistic
demands (Stokes et al., 2013: 264), but the preferences of a state-centered middle class itself.
This transitional window of middle-income development is thus the hour of diversified political party machines,
sometimes emerging from authoritarian regimes (Kitschelt and Singer, 2018), that rely both on clientelistic and
programmatic linkages. State capacity may be initiated and advanced even by leftist programmatic parties
that push for social insurance (Grassi and Memoli, 2016). But also, such parties often combine clientelistic
and programmatic appeals once in office.
As developmental states, however, move closer to the global innovation frontier, they often experience ex-
tremely sharp economic and financial crises. Modern knowledge economies propelling sophisticated tech-
nologies do not thrive on patronage-based, heavy-handed political allocation of capital and labor, but require
professionalism and market-based trial and error to succeed. The developmental state reaches its economic
limits, and the ensuing crises undercut the foundations of clientelistic linkage building rooted in a middle-in-
come stage of rapid catch-up economic growth.
There is a cumulative case study literature that has associated the decline of clientelism with the crisis of de-
velopmental states, broadly conceived. This literature covers the failure of import-substituting industrialization
in Latin American countries such as Mexico and Brazil starting with the Lost Decade of the 1980s (Greene,
2007; Hagopian et al., 2009), but also accounts for change in Japan after the bursting of the economic bubble
(Rosenbluth and Thies, 2010) or the 1998 financial crisis in South Korea and Indonesia (Kenny, 2017). Even
in today's advanced capitalist democracies, the exigencies of market efficiencies at different points in time led

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to business demands for progressive reforms (Kuo, 2018) or the demise of statist business sectors with pa-
tronage governance, such as Italy and Austria in the 1980s (Kitschelt, 2007). Future research will tell whether
the advent of business crises in countries situated at the upper ceiling of middle-income development pro-
vides an analytically powerful general argument to pinpoint the likely demise of clientelistic linkage practices
more generally.
Undercutting Clientelism V: Partisan Competitiveness as Game Changer?

Where demand for clientelism is high in the linkage profiles of parties, intensifying competition will redouble
parties’ requisite efforts. But can increasing competitiveness sometimes be a game changer to switch political
strategies to emphasize other, and particularly programmatic, linkage strategies? An affirmative answer ap-
pears to be Geddes’ (1991) claim, at least for two-party systems. Intense competition means that both parties
are uncertain whether they can retain power. Why not, when prospectively losing office, preemptively remove
patronage from the toolkit of partisan struggle, and thus make it less likely that a successor can entrench him-
self in power?
Geddes’ game theoretical model requires a slight exogenous ‘nudge’ to get the process under way, at the end
of which politicians of rival incumbent and opposition parties jointly depoliticize and professionalize a govern-
ment bureaucracy. Moreover, bureaucratic professionalization has empirically proved to be reversible. Could
it be possible that a firm exogenous ‘nudge’ away from clientelism has more to do with the crises develop-
mental state governance reaches when it bumps into the ceiling of upper middle-income status? Or does it
involve different, yet to be identified political mechanisms in future investigations of linkage mechanisms? In
any case, it is unlikely that increased partisan competitiveness, by itself, is the deus ex machina that will tip
the balance of changes in partisan linkage profiles. High competitiveness may enhance, but not fundamental-
ly alter, existing profiles of partisan linkages in a polity.
Linkage Strategies and Political–Economic Outcomes: Security, Equality, Eco-

nomic Growth
Clientelism in general, and patronage and social benefits specifically, provide economic hedging strategies
against existential risks where comprehensive formula-based welfare state social programs do not exist
(Abente Brun and Diamond, 2014). But is clientelism a substitute for social policy programs, compensating
at least in part for encompassing welfare states, or does clientelism reduce welfare outcomes, net of social
policy effort?
It is common, but empirically largely unproven, folk wisdom that the prevalence of clientelistic partisan linkage
mechanisms will lead to (1) an undersupply of collective goods; (2) worse social outcomes (child mortality
and life expectancy, literacy/skill levels, social satisfaction); (3) comparatively weaker economic growth; and
(4) deepening income and wealth inequality. Literature reviews report the corresponding hypotheses (Hick-
en, 2011: 302–5), but can point to precious little systematic empirical evidence to substantiate any of these
claims. The presumed mechanism in all of them is that the rich treat clientelistic inducements as a cheap way
to produce social compliance of the poor. Formulaic, (un-)conditional social insurance programs (pensions,
health care, unemployment), means-tested income support and universal social services (health, education,
housing) would be more expensive and redistributive.
The presence of clientelism may hence impact different aspects of social policy. First, it may weaken the
mobilization of social policy preferences, particularly demand for redistribution and its collective mobilization.

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Second, clientelism may depress spending and administrative labor input in social policy programs. Third, it
may affect the quality of the service outputs of social policy programs (e.g. percentages of school cohorts
graduating, numbers of patients treated). Fourth, it may degrade the outcomes of policy in terms of material
life chances of recipients. As an initial step, investigations may explore whether robust empirical correlations
can be established between partisan linkage profiles and the different aspects of social policy, once appropri-
ate controls for development, exogenous elements of state capacity, cumulative democratic experience and
exogenous institutional features have been applied. Only then would it be worth probing into the causal direc-
tion that associates clientelism with social policy features. The trouble is that existing investigations have not
even established the existence of robust correlations among the phenomena of interest in a comprehensive
fashion.
Only limited fragmentary observational and natural experimental evidence lends indirect support to some of
the political–economic clientelism accounts. With regard to redistributive preferences, Holland (2018) finds
that in truncated Latin American welfare states, citizens at all levels of income express only muted redistribu-
tive preferences. This suggests that a dominance of clientelistic politics over redistributive programmatic par-
tisan contestation may lock in high inequality. Taylor-Robinson (2010: 63) theorizes, however, that the inability
of poor clients to extract benefits from the political process may be contingent upon institutional features that
shape the responsiveness of political elites to poor people's demands. Under conditions of competitive elec-
tions with open-list proportional representation, poor voters may gain more leverage over their legislatures.
Comparing voter satisfaction before and after an electoral system switch in Honduras establishes some cir-
cumstantial evidence for this proposition.
Finding an empirical trade-off between policy preferences favoring social policy and/or welfare state pro-
grams, on one side, and the presence of clientelism, on the other, is insufficient to establish that clientelism
worsens social policy outcomes. A negative correlation between redistributive preferences or social policy
outlays and clientelism might simply suggest that clientelism is a ‘functional equivalent’ to achieve social risk
reduction for the poor, who therefore have no reason to intensify their demands for political change.
To prove the role of clientelism in undercutting social hedging facilities, a strong association of clientelism
with the incidence of worse life chances (mortality, morbidity, literacy, female empowerment, etc.) and income
or wealth distribution, as well as subjective correlates such as lack of trust in institutions and political elites,
would need to be empirically established. Or, in the realm of schooling, it would have to be demonstrated that
clientelism leads not just to lower budgets and worse teachers, but also to lower student performance and
labor market aptitudes.
Only very few studies examine the association between clientelistic practices, policy outputs and outcomes.
In what is probably the methodologically most sophisticated analysis of clientelism on policy outcomes, Diaz-
Cayeros et al. (2016: chapters 5 and 6) establish that unlike non-clientelistic policies, the Mexican clientelistic
Pronasol social infrastructure and family benefits program had no positive effects on the local presence of
predictable utility services (water, power, sewer) and on change rates of infant mortality. The result remains
robust once the different poverty levels of communities, their competitive political circumstances and reverse
causality mechanisms are taken into account.
In the realm of education policies, at least two studies have established an association between clientelistic
practices, outputs and outcomes. Hicken and Simmons (2008) show that where electoral systems are in place
that promote parochial accountability and induce politicians to engage in localized club goods provision, coun-
tries spend less on education and experience higher illiteracy rates. With a more direct measure of partisan
clientelism, Chen and Kitschelt (forthcoming) show for a set of 31 or more mostly middle-income developing
countries that a strong clientelistic partisan effort coincides with a crowding out of educational expenses (out-
puts) and a degrading of educational outcomes, as measured by high school mathematics and science test
scores, and net of educational expenses and outputs (degrees earned).

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The most important outcome that students of clientelism might want to identify is a close relationship between
clientelistic partisan linkages and income or wealth inequality. Two studies comparing local or state level units
in India claim to have found just that relationship (Anderson et al., 2015; Markussen, 2011), but they draw
inference from highly indirect evidence about the relationship between inequality of land holding and wage
levels (Anderson et al., 2015) and party affiliation and social benefits access (Markussen, 2011). The one di-
rect cross-national empirical analysis of the association between inequality and partisan clientelism by You
(2015: 235–8) finds a robust correlation between the two, but actually aims to prove with instrumental variable
analysis that inequality causally fosters clientelism. But the correlation between clientelism and inequality is
vulnerable to model specifications. Moreover, using a recent, higher-quality measure of national income in-
equality makes that correlation fade away. Furthermore, the correlation depends on the inclusion of rich post-
industrial democracies. It does not hold among poor and middle-income countries.6
Overall, then, research on the welfare impact of clientelism is still in its infancy. In part this is due to the paucity
of reliable and valid measures of partisan linkage patterns. Some evidence suggests that there is a trade-off
between clientelism and social policy inputs and outputs. But this could just indicate a substitution effect in
producing social hedging strategies. When it comes to social policy outcomes (equality, mortality, literacy, ed-
ucational achievements, economic growth) the existence of a correlation with clientelism, let alone the causal
direction of that relation, is highly uncertain, as only very few studies, with typically limited data, have probed
that relationship.
Conclusion
The main messages of this survey may be briefly summarized in a set of theses.
First, it is critical to think about clientelism not as an isolated linkage mechanism, but as a component of a
complex profile of linkages deployed by partisan politicians. This recommendation is typically not heeded in
the literature (see the first section of this chapter).
Second, clientelistic exchange covers a highly diverse range of practices, and it may be time to disaggregate
it into different subtypes, perhaps arrayed in a two-dimensional space, distinguishing whether clientelism in-
volves more of a single-shot exchange or an iteration of exchanges and whether the exchange takes place
between politicians and their brokers on one side, and individuals or groups and corporate entities as client
recipients on the other (see the second section of this chapter).
Third, recent years have seen great advances in studying the clientelistic exchange process between patrons,
their agents (brokers) and clients, but the investigation of dyadic relations has lost sight of the broader orga-
nizational features and over-time development of political organizations and ‘machines’ (see the third section
of this chapter).
Fourth, an important element of research progress has been examination of the groups of voters who are tar-
geted by clientelism and the strategic configurations of competitiveness under which they are targeted (see
the fourth section of this chapter). Whether enhanced competitiveness reinforces clientelistic or other (pro-
grammatic?) partisan appeals is contingent upon development and political economy.
Fifth, relatively little headway has been made on the key subject of what causes clientelistic practices to be-
come important components of parties’ linkage strategies and what makes clientelistic exchange lose that
role. Established causal theories of the relationship between linkages and economic development, democ-
ratization, democratic institutions, state capacity and ethnic heterogeneity have proved to be of only limited
use. Alternative (or complementary?) political–economic explanations of linkage mechanisms focusing on the
interplay of economic development and political–economic governance structures have yielded insights at the
level of case studies, but have not yet resulted in a convincing theoretical model or systematic comparative
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analysis of evidence (see the fifth section of this chapter).
Sixth, the study of the welfare consequences of clientelist linkage mechanisms covers few investigations that
would rely on tractable observations of clientelistic transactions. A few tentative results, mostly based on in-
direct measures of partisan linkage, confirm the conventional wisdom that clientelism reduces social welfare
outcomes, but this subject is wide open for more systematic and innovative analysis (see the sixth section of
this chapter).
Notes
1 Because of constraints imposed by the Sage Handbook format, this chapter cannot cite a great number of
valuable and pertinent recent contributions to the vibrant field of clientelism research. In fact, the author had
to pare back the references from close to 200 – mostly contributions written since 2010 – to about 60 in the
editing process. Apologies to all scholars on whose work this article draws, but who remain unmentioned.
2 In the authoritative Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) dataset, the question directly pertaining to linkage
mechanisms (question v2psprinkgs, *_osp,*_ord, in Codebooks 7 and 8, accessed on https://www.v-dem.net/
en/ ) even forces country experts to score entire party systems unidimensionally on a trade-off between clien-
telism (score 0 = constituents are rewarded with goods, cash and/or jobs) and policy/programmatic (4 = con-
stituents respond to a party's positions on national policies, general party programs and visions for society).
3 A similar problem applies with regard to politicians’ capacity to deploy charismatic authority. Personalistic
politics may sometimes fill the void left by the implosion of clientelistic party infrastructures (Kenny, 2017), but
personalism may at other times complement clientelistic mobilization.
4 Of course, programmatism incurs its own waste, as it dissipates benefits to supporters and opponents alike
(Stokes et al., 2013: 196–9).
5 The narrower conception of the developmental state attributed only to Southeast Asian, not Latin American,
middle-income countries requires a core cadre of professional bureaucrats, in addition to a specific coalition
of economic producer groups.
6 Author's reanalysis of You (2015) estimation with SWIID data, available upon request.
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• clientelism
• mechanisms
• voting
• linkage
• party identification
• politicians
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n32

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Elites
Contributors: Ursula Hoffmann-Lange

Chapter Title: "Elites"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Elites
Ursula Hoffmann-Lange
Introduction
Elites are a universal phenomenon of organized social life. Leaders emerge even in small groups. Complex
organizations and, even more so, entire societies usually possess an internal division of labor involving a
complex hierarchical system for fulfilling different tasks essential for their successful management. Elites are
the people at the top of powerful political institutions and organizations in a society. Using the term elite sug-
gests the existence of a cohesive elite formation with a common interest in preserving the current distribution
of power, while using the term elites assumes an elite formation including a plurality of elite groups pursuing
different or even conflicting interests.
Hierarchies inevitably produce internal conflicts over the distribution of power and rewards. The chances to
influence the existing distribution depend on an individual's position in the hierarchy. The larger and the more
complex an organization or society, the larger the conflict potential usually is. This implies that elites who ben-
efit most from the existing structure of privileges will always be viewed with suspicion by those who are less
privileged. Elite research analyzing the structures, behaviors and networks of elites can help to dispel such
suspicions (Zapf, 1961: 204).
The following discussion of the basic theoretical questions and the results of empirical elite research is based
primarily on the findings for elites in socio-economically developed democracies. This is not due to a lack of
interest in the structures and behaviors of elites in other parts of the world. Unfortunately, however, empirical
studies on elites in recent democracies of the Global South are still scarce. In authoritarian systems this is
even more difficult. Researchers have to rely either on published materials those elites provide voluntarily,
which are usually rather limited, or on the testimonies of political dissidents and journalists. Therefore, their
validity is difficult to assess, since opportunities to corroborate them through independent sources are mostly
unavailable. Nevertheless, many results of elite research will also hold true in non-democratic and non-west-
ern societies.
The Elite Concept and Elite Theory
Classic Elite Theories

Assumptions about elites can be traced back to the ancient Greek philosophers. Theories focusing on dif-
ference in the roles of elites and citizens were developed first by Machiavelli in the late 15th century and
later, in the age of enlightenment, by political theorists such as John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Charles de
Montesquieu and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. At about the same time, theories of representative government
began to take into account the political opinions of ordinary citizens, for instance in the Federalist Papers and
in the writings of Edmund Burke. But it was only after the onset of industrialization, in the second half of the
19th century, that socialist thinkers developed the idea of democracy as a political system in which all citizens
could participate as equals in political decision-making.
Based on extensive historical analyses of elites and political regimes, the classic elite theories by Vilfredo
Pareto (1935) and Gaetano Mosca (1939) explicitly refuted the socialists’ ideas as illusory and instead em-
phasized the universality of elites. Even though only Pareto used the term elite – Mosca preferred the term
ruling class – both were preoccupied with demonstrating that socio-political inequalities and the emergence
of elites are inevitable in human society. Pareto was primarily interested in the circulation of elites. Drawing

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on a dichotomy introduced by Machiavelli, he developed an elite typology with two types of elites. To acquire
and retain power, the types either use force (lions) or rely on persuasion and cunning (foxes). He further as-
sumed that elites have a tendency to degenerate, thereby running into the problem that their system of power
becomes vulnerable to the emergence of counter-elites of the other elite type. This is why he claimed that
‘history is a graveyard of aristocracies’ (Pareto, 1935: 1430; see also Pakulski, 2018).
Robert Michels and Max Weber also made fundamental contributions to the development of elite theory. In
his book on Political Parties, first published in 1911, Michels analyzed the emergence of a small profession-
alized leadership in political parties. He emphasized that in order to pursue their political objectives, political
parties need to create an effective organization with a full-time staff. This introduces a division of labor be-
tween the party leadership and the rank-and-file members, thus allowing the party leaders to acquire superior
knowledge and prestige, and sharply reduces the possibilities for effective control of the leadership by the or-
dinary members. Michels postulated an iron law of oligarchy governing all social organizations (2001: 26). In
a similar vein, Max Weber argued that a concentration of power in elites and political leaders is inescapable
in modern societies (Pakulski, 2018: 20).
It has to be noted that these early theorists, who have frequently been denounced as anti-democrats by crit-
ical social scientists (e.g. Bottomore, 1993), were not fundamentally opposed to representative democracy.
This is not even true for Pareto and Mosca, who severely criticized the existing democracies of their time; it
is even less so for Weber, who believed in the merits of parliamentary democracy, which he considered to
be more responsive to the demands of citizens (Pakulski, 2018: 22–3). In his famous treatise ‘Politics as a
Vocation', Weber discussed the qualities of a good political leader: they possess ‘passion, a feeling of respon-
sibility, and a sense of proportion'. The contrasting type is the demagogue, who is only interested in gaining
votes and who behaves irresponsibly (Weber, 1946, first published 1919).
Meanwhile, elite theory has moved beyond the assumption of a dichotomy of elites versus masses by ac-
knowledging the hierarchical and at the same time pluralist character of modern societies. Most importantly,
however, elite rule and democracy are no longer seen as irreconcilable concepts. Joseph Schumpeter (1942)
was the first to develop a realistic theory of democracy by defining democracy as a political system based on
the competition of political parties in free elections. Because of the concept's association with idealistic expec-
tations, Robert Dahl (1971) suggested the term polyarchy instead, in order to emphasize that both elites and
citizens have to be considered as legitimate political actors. He argued that modern polyarchy – despite its
shortcomings, which he vividly analyzed – is the closest approximation that can be achieved in large territo-
ries. Therefore, Dahl is one of the prominent representatives of a strand of elite theory that has been labeled
a theory of democratic elitism.
The Elite Concept and Policy Formation in Liberal Democracies

Elite research focuses on the characteristics and actions of individuals who, by virtue of their strategic posi-
tions at the helm of powerful institutions and organizations, are able to exert regular and substantial influence
on nationally important decisions (Higley and Burton, 2006: 7). In contrast to power, which derives from the
formal authority to take decisions on behalf of an organization or a political institution, influence is based on in-
formal means of persuasion, inducement, activation of commitments or deterrence (Parsons, 1963a, 1963b).
The distinction between power and influence is important for analyzing elites in modern democracies. These
are characterized by a multiplicity of powerful political institutions and civil society organizations, which enjoy
considerable autonomy and participate in the process of policy formation. These elites typically act as agents
of their organizations. The most important sectors studied by elite research are politics, public administration,
the judiciary, the military, business, labor unions, civic associations, the media, academia and religious so-
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cieties. While the monopoly for making binding decisions for the entire society rests with the constitutionally
legitimated political institutions, the elites of the other sectors control important power resources to make de-
cisions within and on behalf of their own organization. Because of the multi-dimensionality of resources con-
trolled by different elites, there exists no overarching hierarchy of power among them. This implies that the
outcomes of such decisions are contingent on the constellation of interests involved. The influence of sectoral
elites depends on the subject matter, the resources they control, and their ability to mobilize public opinion in
favor of their position and to stave off decisions they oppose (Mattina, Chapter 32, this Handbook).
Methods of Elite Identification

The general definition of elites as persons participating regularly in a society's important policy decisions is
insufficient for determining who exactly belongs to the elite for the purpose of empirical elite research. An op-
erational definition needs to specify criteria of elite status. If the object is the elite of a country, these criteria
have to take into account the institutional structure as well as the informal patterns of policy-making in that
country. Their identification involves decisions taken by the researcher. In order to be universally applicable,
this definition has to be parsimonious and must provide unambiguous criteria of elite status. Substantive char-
acteristics of elites such as the degree of their cohesion, their expertise or the question of whether they act
responsibly have to be treated as empirical questions.
Three basic methods have been developed for identifying elites: positional, decisional and reputational. The
positional method is based on the assumption that political influence in complex societies is vested in formal
leadership positions located in a broad range of societal sectors. It is the method most frequently used in
empirical elite research, based on the assumption that modern elites have to command important power re-
sources that are recognized by the other elites. The positional method requires several research steps. Each
step involves purposive decisions based on prior assumptions and prior research about the structure of pow-
er and influence in a society, such as:
• the approximate number of elites to be included in the study

• the nature and number of relevant sectors
• the most powerful organizations within each sector
• the most powerful positions within each organization
• the current incumbents of these positions.
The positional method does not provide guidelines for specifying the horizontal and vertical boundaries of an
elite. The inclusion of elite sectors and the choice of cut-off criteria for defining the range of elite positions
must be based on the research question and the results of previous research. Although the positional method
is useful for identifying and studying a wide range of elite groups, the different elite groups and the individual
holders of elite positions cannot be assumed to be equally powerful or influential. Therefore, the method is
primarily useful for studying important characteristics of elites such as their social backgrounds, careers, val-
ues and attitudes, and for comparing them to other elite groups.
The decisional method identifies elites according to their active involvement in important policy decisions. It
starts by selecting a representative sample of policy issues. The method requires extensive research on the
policy formation for these issues through studying relevant documents and media reports and conducting in-
terviews with important actors. This will show which actors were involved at various stages of the policy-for-
mation process and uncover the existence of informal elite networks and their internal coalitional structure,
as well as the resources that were decisive for the final outcome. While the method has been successfully
applied in small and medium-sized communities and single policy domains (Knoke et al., 1996), it is obvious
that the complexity of national policy formation prevents its application to entire countries.
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The reputational method, finally, relies on experts to identify elites. It is applicable in community power re-
search, where the number of politically influential actors is relatively small. Its usefulness at the national level
is questionable, however. In complex national settings with a multiplicity of policy arenas, the identification of
the core members of a country's elite depends entirely on the subjective assessments of a limited number of
experts. Therefore, both the validity and reliability of results provided by this method are questionable, as, for
instance, Floyd Hunter's controversial study on Top Leadership, U.S.A. (1959) showed.
The choice of one of the three methods, or a combination of them, depends on the research question and
implies different theoretical expectations about the loci of power and influence in modern societies (Hoffmann-
Lange, 2018).
Elites and Regimes
Regimes and Elite Structures

Classic elite theories assumed a close relationship between elites and political regimes, although they dis-
agreed about the underlying causality. Pareto believed that regimes reflected the character of elite configura-
tions and that the degeneration of an elite formation enabled the emergence of counter-elites that could ex-
ploit the political dissatisfaction of the population in their quest for political power and regime change. Mosca
(1939: chapter 2) instead believed that changes in the socio-economic structure of society devalued previ-
ously essential elite qualifications and thereby contributed to the ascent of new types of elites that would
change the character of the regime. Modernization theory (Lipset, 1959; Dahl, 1971; Vanhanen, 2003) finally
assumes that socio-economic modernization fosters the development of a pluralist society, elite pluralism and
democratization.
Since it is not possible in the present context to discuss specific historical regime and elite types, it must
suffice here to discuss two central dimensions characterizing the structure of elites and regimes. These are
the degree of elite cohesion on one side, and the degree to which the diversity of socio-political interests is
represented in the elites on the other side. It is obvious that traditional pre-democratic elites were set apart
from the rest of society by a high degree of elite cohesion with respect to social background, social status and
institutionalized social closure of access to the elite. Conflicts within and between elite factions were fights for
power and not based on different ideas about the common good. Citizens were considered as subjects rather
than a relevant social force. Resistance against elite decisions was kept at bay by repression.
Increasing levels of socio-economic development and social differentiation produced a differentiation within
both elites and populations (Keller, 1991: chapter 3). Rifts within the elite were no longer exclusively based
on personal ambitions for power, but rather on the increasing elite heterogeneity and the emergence of differ-
ent economic interests and political preferences. At the same time, the middle classes became more affluent
and demanded civil rights protecting individual liberty and economic security in exchange for their taxes. Elite
factions became able to mobilize segments of the population in support of their political demands. Nascent
political parties emerged and the quest for democratization became ever more widespread.
Therefore, it is obvious that the increasing socio-political differentiation created a need for elite cooperation
across different elite subgroups and political parties. Elite cohesion was no longer secured by the common
interest of preserving the dominance of a traditional aristocracy. The necessity to secure both the existence
of a pluralist society and stable patterns of elite integration has been discussed at length in the elite literature
(Keller, 1991).

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The Role of Elites in Democratic Transitions

The question of whether regime transitions are the result of mass protests or of conflicts among elites is con-
troversial. Elite theorists tend to assume that regime changes always start at the elite level while public unrest
and protest movements play a minor role. Such explanations run the risk of circularity, however. They have
to assign elite status to the leaders of dissident movements that decisively contributed to regime change. It
is obvious that a non-trivial explanation needs to distinguish between regime change which was initiated by
parts of the established elite, for instance a military coup or an elite faction within a ruling party, and a change
initiated by a grass-roots movement whose leaders did not belong to the established elite of the old regime
before – such as, for instance, the leaders of the Solidarność movement in Poland in the 1980s.
The third wave of democratization gave rise to a large body of studies into democratic transitions that identi-
fied groups of relevant actors, contributing factors and regularities in the dynamics of such transitions (Hunt-
ington, 1991; Linz and Stepan, 1996). One important strand relies on modernization theory and emphasizes
the relevance of structural and cultural factors. Ronald Inglehart (2018: chapter 7) and Christian Welzel have
argued that value change has become the crucial determinant of democratization, which implies that citizens
rather than elites were the prime drivers of the third wave of democratization (Inglehart and Welzel, 2005:
164–72). They have relied primarily on survey data showing the rise of emancipative values even in non-de-
mocratic countries and have analyzed the lagged relationship between the rise of emancipative values and
the degree of democracy at the aggregate level. In doing so, they have ignored the political processes leading
to the breakdown of non-democratic regimes and the transition to democracy: ‘Though elite bargaining was
central when representative democracy first emerged, and still plays an important role, effective democracy
increasingly emerges when ordinary people develop values and skills that enable them to put effective pres-
sures on elites’ (Inglehart, 2018: 130).
The opposite position is taken by Higley and Burton (2006), who claim that the behavior of elites is the crucial
determinant of any successful democratization. They argue that successful democratization presupposes the
formation of a consensually united elite characterized by a value consensus on democratic institutions, re-
strained partisanship and an inclusive elite network (ibid.: 11). They identified three distinct avenues that his-
torically led to the formation of stable democracies: elite settlements, colonial origins or convergence among
formerly disunited elites. Elite settlements are defined as agreements among previously divided elites to end
civil strife, to accept the legitimacy of opponents and to implement rules containing conflicts by negotiations
and compromises. Such settlements are assumed to have been historically rare and contingent on a number
of favorable conditions, as follows:
• the prior experience of costly, intense and inconclusive conflicts between elite factions;
• a durable elite alignment into two or three distinct and antagonistic camps;
• a triggering crisis;
• the presence of adept and flexible leaders;
• the consolidation of the agreement by elite habituation to power sharing and crisis management.
(Higley and Burton, 2006: 64–7)
An additional precondition was only implicitly mentioned by Higley and Burton, but was noted by Przeworski
(1991: 87). This is an agreement on the introduction of constitutional safeguards for competitive elections and
for the protection of political minorities. The chances for reaching such an agreement are higher if the new
constitution is passed before holding the first competitive elections because the different elite camps do not
know their popular strength at the outset.
Higley and Burton further argued that elite settlements are likely to be self-reinforcing, thus leading to a stable
democratic regime capable of managing political conflicts and securing a low level of domestic violence. The
reliance on elections as a means of determining governmental majorities also secures a high degree of flexi-
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bility in absorbing conflicts arising from pressing political and economic problems (Lipset, 1959).
If the initial introduction of democracy excludes extreme left-wing or right-wing political parties, Higley and
Burton assume the possibility of a gradual elite convergence if the political parties of the center are strong
enough to secure electoral majorities over a series of successive elections. Under this condition, the more
extreme parties may be induced to move towards the political center in order to become more competitive.
One could add that this additionally requires that the democratic institutions have proved their effectiveness
and have gained legitimacy (Lipset, 1959). Moreover, the fringe parties must have accepted that they will not
be able to undermine the legitimacy of the democratic political system. In this case, they may start consid-
ering participation in government as a more attractive alternative than being permanently excluded from the
spoils of political office and unable to promise tangible political results to their followers. If this is not the case,
however, the presence of a bilateral opposition by extreme political parties of the left and the right may induce
a centrifugal tendency pulling the moderate parties away from the center, as Sartori (1976) predicted.
Most comparativists studying democratic transitions have taken an intermediate position between a top-down
and a bottom-up model of democratization by emphasizing that usually both grass-roots movements and es-
tablished elites are actively involved (Linz and Stepan, 1996: 71; Huntington, 1991; Schmitter, 2018). The as-
sumption of elites’ crucial importance in democratic transitions goes hand in hand with the understanding that
such transitions are historically contingent. While structural conditions may create a favorable environment for
democratization, authoritarian elites are able to suppress demands for democracy for a considerable length
of time. Inglehart's claim that value change drives democratization is not incompatible with this assumption
because value change can be assumed to affect parts of authoritarian elites as well. Reformist elite factions
will usually wait, however, to start pressing for far-reaching reforms until the authoritarian regime's inability to
quell public dissatisfaction has become obvious.
Although they pursue different research questions and are interested in different aspects of the previous au-
thoritarian elite's involvement in democratic transitions, two recent books by Stephan Haggard and Robert
Kaufman (2016) and Michael Albertus and Victor Menaldo (2018) study systematic differences between elite-
driven and citizen-driven democratization. They confirm the importance of elites in the transition process.
Haggard and Kaufman were primarily interested in studying the relevance of distributional conflicts and their
impact on the transition path, the quality of democracy achieved and its vulnerability for later democratic re-
versals. They used a restrictive definition of elite-led transitions, which they characterized as ‘the absence
of pressures from below’ (142). Albertus and Menaldo studied the participation of the outgoing authoritarian
elites in the transition process. They defined the ensuing regime as elite-biased democracy that preserves
special privileges for those elites (9). They also included pacted transitions in this category. The differentiated
and methodologically sophisticated analyses presented in the two books constitute an important step forward
for understanding the relevance of socio-economic structures and different groups of actors in democratic
transitions because they supersede the inconclusive and ultimately sterile dispute over elites versus masses
as agents of democratization.
Elite Change and Regime Transformation
Elite Circulation and Elite Change

Elite circulation involves changes in the elite positions of a country. At the most specific level, it may signify
the replacement of individual incumbents of elite positions by persons with similar characteristics and qualifi-
cations. Such replacement may be regular if it is due to the expiration of a temporary term of office or retire-

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ment rules. Irregular replacements occur when incumbents are forced out of their elite position, for instance
because they are no longer perceived as being up to the demands of their office, because the selectorate
concludes that a position requires a different set of qualifications than before, or for political reasons.
Since elite status is always associated with high prestige, power, income and other amenities, incumbents will
normally prefer to keep their elite positions for as long as possible. Therefore, it can be expected that only an
opportunity for upward mobility to a better position (in terms of pay, prestige or power), term limits, personal
reasons (such as old age, failing health or death) or enforced resignation will terminate the incumbency of
elites.
Elite circulation may also involve groups of elite position-holders, for instance when a government agency is
privatized, a major business corporation goes bankrupt or a political party experiences heavy losses in an
election. In order to come to grips with the multi-faceted nature of elite circulation, it seems appropriate to dis-
tinguish between individual elite circulation, changes in the social composition of elites due to social change
and elite change induced by regime change (Putnam, 1976: 168–72).
Social Change and Elite Change

Mosca believed that elite change has frequently been the result of a rise of new social forces (see also Put-
nam, 1976: 168–9). Industrialization is a prime historical example of such change, because it led to a decline
in the importance of military elites and the landed aristocracy in favor of the new group of industrial entrepre-
neurs (Bottomore, 1993: 41–6). Since social change tends to proceed slowly, this type of elite change is not
necessarily associated with abrupt regime change. If a regime has time to adapt to social change by opening
new career channels for elite recruitment, elite and regime change may proceed over an extended period of
time. British history is a telling example of such a dual transformation by which a feudal system slowly evolved
into an industrial and democratic society, extended over several centuries. The longitudinal study of changes
in the social composition of parliaments in a large number of European countries since the mid 19th century
included a large number of social and professional characteristics. It shows, for instance, a drastic decline of
the nobility as well as an increase in the levels of formal education and political professionalization (Cotta and
Verzichelli, 2007; Putnam, 1976: 179–83).
Regime Change and Elite Change

Sudden and extensive elite transformations have historically been associated with the transitions to one-party
totalitarian or ideocratic regimes in which a ruling party took control of the entire society. Totalitarian and ideo-
cratic elites are also typically outsider elites with respect to their social and professional backgrounds.
The most detailed analyses of the takeover of power by a totalitarian party were conducted on Germany under
National Socialism (Neumann, 2009, first edition 1942; Zapf, 1961). When the National Socialist party came
to power in January 1933, it swiftly took control of all crucial ministries and the state-owned radio network.
Next, the legislative power of parliament was curbed in March 1933. Only a few months later, all other political
parties were outlawed. Within its first year, the National Socialist regime also managed to install its loyalists at
the top of most civil society organizations – exceptions were the business and financial elites, most of whom
kept their positions. Such extensive elite change was possible because the party had a devoted mass mem-
bership working in many different sectors and ready to take over elite positions. Most of these elite changes
could be accomplished without generating much open resistance from civil society. The party utilized a for-
mally legalistic strategy and the elite changes were legally sanctioned by governmental decrees and imple-

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mented by an effective public service (Zapf, 1961: 51–6).
The communist parties’ ascent to power in Russia in 1917, in the satellite states of the Soviet Union after
World War II, in North Korea in 1948 and in China in 1949 resulted in an even more pervasive elite change be-
cause these regime changes also involved the more or less complete nationalization of industry and finance.
While the National Socialist and communist takeovers were especially swift, most democratic backsliding in
the past two decades has proceeded more gradually and less visibly. In a number of cases, as in Russia or
Turkey, this has led to the threshold being crossed from a (fragile) democratic to an authoritarian regime. It
tended to start with a political party formed or captured by an outsider who came to power during an acute po-
litical or economic crisis, either through a regular election or upon appointment by the head of state (Levitsky
and Ziblatt, 2018). ‘Although some elected demagogues take office with a blueprint for autocracy, many … do
not. Democratic breakdown doesn't need a blueprint’ (ibid: 75). It is sufficient that these parties pretend to pur-
sue a legitimate public objective such as combating corruption or enhancing domestic security, and follow a
piecemeal strategy of dismantling democratic institutions. Likewise, elite circulation in democratic backsliding
proceeds gradually through modifications of the political institutions – for instance the shutdown of existing or
the creation of new government agencies – and the replacement of individual politicians, high-ranking public
servants and judges at high courts who refuse to cooperate.
Elite change after democratization has usually been less pervasive than one should suspect. This was
demonstrated by a host of elite studies in the post-communist central and eastern European democracies.
Iván and Szonja Szelényi (1995) distinguished four types of elite circulation: elite continuity, horizontal repro-
duction, vertical reproduction and elite change. Elite continuity was limited to the ruling communist parties,
which only changed their names and their top leadership.
Horizontal reproduction implies that elites and sub-elites of the communist system continued their careers,
but moved to a different sector. This was made possible because previous incumbents of top political posi-
tions in the communist party or in the bureaucracy could use their old networks to claim high positions in the
business or finance sector during the privatization of the formerly state-owned companies.
Vertical reproduction is the most common pattern found after regime transitions and not limited to post-com-
munist countries. Middle-level elites, who started successful careers during the non-democratic regime, ben-
efit the most from the new window of opportunity because the top elites of the old regime usually lose their
positions during or after a regime change. This pattern is particularly pronounced in politics, public adminis-
tration and the media because their elites were the essential pillars of the old regime.
Elite change, in the sense of the recruitment of new elites who had not held high-level positions under the
communist regime, was mostly limited to the leadership of new political parties, civil society associations, me-
dia outlets and start-up businesses in fields that had not previously existed (electronics, computing, financial
consulting, etc.) due to political restrictions.
In the present context, it is not possible to provide country-specific information. In the introductory chapter
to their comparative volume, Higley and Lengyel (2000: 1–21) summarize the findings by distinguishing two
modes (gradual and peaceful versus sudden and coerced) and two scopes (wide and deep versus narrow
and shallow) of elite circulation in the post-communist countries. The three Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and
Lithuania), Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Slovenia experienced pacted transitions with round-tables
in which representatives of the former ruling party, of former dissident groups and of new parties participat-
ed. This led to what the authors called classic elite circulation. It involved extensive changes in the political
sector, while a mixture of elite continuity and vertical reproduction prevailed in most of the other sectors and
horizontal reproduction was rather widespread in the new business elites.

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The circulation pattern in the other post-communist countries (including the EU members Bulgaria, Romania
and Slovakia) was governed by what Higley and Lengyel termed reproduction circulation, which implies a
high degree of elite continuity, and where parties without roots in the communist system did not take a strong
hold in society.
Elite Social Backgrounds and Elite Recruitment

Elites tend to come predominantly from privileged family backgrounds and do not constitute a mirror image of
their society. This finding has been confirmed by a host of elite studies all over the world. It holds true even for
socialist regimes propagating an explicitly egalitarian ideology, despite attempts to conceal the persistence
of a considerable social bias in elite recruitment. It seems doubtful, however, that Mosca (1939) and critical
social scientists in the tradition of Pierre Bourdieu (1996) are correct in assuming a general tendency towards
the social closure of elite recruitment due to the deliberate attempt of elites to restrict access to the upper
echelons of power to their own offspring. It is, of course, plausible to assume that incumbents of elite posi-
tions try to ensure that their children will achieve a similarly high social status. Because even the upper class
is always much larger than the number of available elite positions, however, the reproduction of high social
status in the following generation does not imply that elites are able or even try to secure elite positions for
their offspring.
While access to the elites used to be relatively closed in feudal societies or is controlled by guardians of
ideological orthodoxy in ideocratic regimes, the same is not true in liberal democracies where no formal re-
strictions apply and the field of competitors is usually broad. Here, elite recruitment is primarily based on the
presumed expertise necessary for an elite position rather than being passed on from one generation to the
next. A long-standing and successful career and experience in equivalent positions at lower levels are nec-
essary but not sufficient conditions to be considered as a serious applicant for an elite position; personality,
social skills and the field of competitors play a role as well.
The overrepresentation of children from families with a high social status among elites is primarily the result
of the prevailing patterns of social mobility (Putnam, 1976: 28–32). Today, a university degree has become
a near universal precondition for elite recruitment. At the same time, it is well known that the opportunity to
attend institutions of higher education is strongly influenced by the cultural capital of the family. This situation
has not fundamentally changed with the expansion of higher education over the past 50 years. While the ab-
solute numbers of people achieving higher secondary and tertiary degrees have greatly risen over time, the
social selectivity of educational institutions has not decreased substantially (Teese, 2007).
Putnam (1976: chapter 2) analyzed the disadvantages of people from lower-class backgrounds to achieve
elite status and showed two regularities. First, he demonstrated the existence of what he called the aggluti-
nation model, which implies that different dimensions of social status, such as education, occupational status,
income, prestige and power, tend to go hand in hand. Second, he stated a law of increasing disproportion
(ibid: 33) by showing that the overrepresentation of persons with a higher class background increases at
successively higher levels of institutional hierarchies. While the equality of educational opportunities and the
openness of elite recruitment are important democratic principles, family background's influence on the life
chances of children is deeply rooted in the fabric of society and cannot be completely eliminated by political
intervention.
The available data do not support the assumption of closed elite recruitment in today's liberal democracies,
however. Examples of prominent families with several members who achieved elite status – such as the
Rockefellers, the Kennedys and the Bushes in the United States – are not sufficient to prove that elite status
is predominantly passed on in families. They indicate primarily that family traditions may be a powerful incen-
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tive for the ambition to excel. Today, hereditary elite status is limited to a few owners of large fortunes, while
the overwhelming majority of the elites are the first in their family to have achieved that status.
Political Representation: The Political Beliefs of Elites and Citizens
Bottom-Up or Top-Down? Models of Political Representation

Since democracy in large territories can only be organized as representative democracy, the question of how
political representation can be measured has plagued elite research for a long time. Empirical elite research
has mostly relied on comparing the political attitudes of elected representatives with those of the electorate at
large, with their party's electorate or – in systems with single-member constituencies – with the voters of their
constituency. It is doubtful, however, that such comparisons provide valid insights into the quality of political
representation.
Elite theory leads us to expect considerable differences between the political beliefs of elites and citizens.
These are not due to differences in social backgrounds and economic interests, as is frequently assumed,
but primarily result from their different political roles. Political elites are full-time politicians intimately involved
in legislation and executive acts. They participate in decisions on myriad political issues. While elected rep-
resentatives are expected to be responsive to citizens’ preferences, they also have to observe constitutional
limits and balance voter demands with those of their party, as well as the diverse interests of civil society
actors, the media, transnational organizations and the governments of other countries. Finally, they have to
keep within budgetary limits and need to forge legislative majorities for passing new legislation.
In their book Democracy for Realists, Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels (2016) severely criticize the ide-
alistic notion that policy-making is a bottom-up process and the idea that the voting decisions of citizens are
based on rational considerations regarding the issue positions of political parties and candidates. The authors
take a decidedly elitist stance, arguing that policy-making is a job for specialists and not for ordinary citizens.
They cite a host of empirical studies confirming that policy-makers are rarely responsive to public opinion.
‘Policies are made by political elites of one kind or another, including elected officials, government bureau-
crats, interest groups and judges’ (ibid: 320). Instead, they claim, voters expect representatives to do their job
(ibid: 318–19).
Based on such premises, András Körösényi (2010) proposed an authorization model based on Schumpeter's
notion of democracy as electoral competition among political parties. ‘Voters’ choices depend primarily on the
impact of the strategic interplay of rival political leaders and parties, which is to say on agenda-setting, fram-
ing, and priming political issues [rather] than forming judgments according to independent yardsticks’ (ibid:
54). This model is realistic and at the same time rational because voters can rely on party competition as a
powerful incentive for political accountability.
Putnam argued that the significance of elections for elite–mass linkages primarily derives from the ability of
political elites to anticipate the (socio-economic) consequences of their decisions and is not a result of citizens
making specific demands (1976: 151–2). Therefore, elite theory's emphasis on the division of labor between
voters and political elites in policy-making does not imply that the interests of citizens are not taken into ac-
count, but rather that political accountability must not be equated with responsiveness. Democracy requires
the free articulation of the diversity of interests existing in a pluralist society. Policy-making instead involves
the aggregation of demands by diverse interests, which necessarily implies the search for compromise and
can never be fully responsive to each and every position.
Moreover, the political beliefs of citizens are neither consistent nor stable over time, as shown in Philip Con-
verse's (1964) seminal article on the belief systems of mass publics, where he demonstrated that the polit-
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ical knowledge and sophistication of most voters is rather low. However, the share of politically sophisticat-
ed voters is not invariant over time and across countries (e.g. Klingemann, 1979). Michael Delli Carpini and
Scott Keeter found considerably more variation in levels of political knowledge within the citizenry. The best-
informed quartile of citizens were able to ‘express a considered, genuine opinion on most issues’ which are
both internally consistent and stable (1989: 19, 266). Converse's basic claim of a steep gradient in the politi-
cal knowledge, consistency and stability of citizens’ political beliefs has by and large been confirmed by many
other studies.
These differences are explained not by citizens’ lower levels of formal education, but primarily by their lower
level of information about politics. As consumers of policies, they also do not have to consider whether their
demands will add up to a consistent set of policies. They select from the electoral platforms of the different
parties those promises which they find appealing and they react primarily to issues that are currently high on
the political agenda.
By contrast, electoral competition and differences in the basic ideological positions of political parties ensure
congruence among party politicians and their voters with respect to some basic outlooks. In electoral cam-
paigns, parties try to appeal to different social groups by emphasizing their familiar positions on salient socio-
political cleavages. Therefore, congruence tends to be highest for those issues that are most central to the
programmatic outlook of the parties.
Since the empirical results on the considerable elite–citizen differential in political knowledge do not imply that
this differential is constant over time and across countries, regular monitoring of public opinion on current pol-
icy issues is essential for studying the accountability of political elites because political opinion formation is
intrinsically a multi-directional process involving a multitude of political actors. Therefore, modern demo-elitist
theories conceive of policy formation as a bi-directional process involving both top-down and bottom-up flows
of opinion formation (Körösényi, 2018). New issues may be brought up by marginal groups, and dissatisfac-
tion with the status quo may bring new demands to the fore that force the established elites to develop new
strategies for coping with these challenges.
Political Value Orientations

The political culture of a society indicates whether the political value orientations, legitimacy beliefs and be-
haviors are congruent with the prevailing political regime. Likewise, studying the political culture of elites is
important to learn about the mutual trust among elites and about intra-elite conflict over basic principles of the
political order. Herbert McClosky's (1964) classic study was the first to demonstrate that political activists and
political leaders in the United States showed higher levels of support for democracy and more tolerance of
deviating political opinions than ordinary citizens. McClosky concluded that elites have to be considered as
the main carriers of the democratic creed. Based on these results, the theory of democratic elitism argued
that the stability of democracy rests primarily on the existence of an elite consensus on democratic rules of
the game. Later studies in the US and other democracies have largely confirmed this result.
In a more comprehensive study of political tolerance, which included several specialized elite groups – among
them lawyers, leaders of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and police officers (McClosky and Brill,
1983) – the authors analyzed the impact of various independent factors on democratic value orientations. The
results revealed the influence of four factors (McAllister, 1991). The first is the level of formal education, which
raises the awareness of the political relevance of democratic principles and institutions. A second factor is
the socializing effect of participation in public affairs, which explains why political activists are more tolerant of
deviating opinions than their non-active counterparts. Professional norms are a third factor. Defense lawyers
who are professionally involved in protecting the rights of their clients were the second most libertarian group,
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only surpassed by the activists of the ACLU. Police officers were considerably more supportive of law and
order policies. Finally, political ideology (conservative versus liberal) was also related to civil libertarianism.
The latter result was confirmed by Paul Sniderman et al. (1991), who demonstrated considerable differences
between the leaders of different political parties. While these results of course do not disprove that elites on
average are more tolerant than the general public, Sniderman et al. pointed out that changes in government
may lead to considerable shifts in policies with respect to civil liberties.
Based on a thorough survey of the results of comparative research, Mark Pfeffley and Robert Rohrschneider
(2007) found that some of the conclusions of the theory of democratic elitism have to be questioned. First,
the sweeping assumption that elites are the guardians of democracy has to be qualified. While it is true that
democratic elites tend to be more supportive of democracy and more tolerant of different (political) points of
view, elite consensus may be far from perfect because national averages may conceal considerable differ-
ences between major parties and elite groups (McClosky and Brill, 1983; Sniderman et al., 1991). Moreover,
both support for democracy and political tolerance may be of little practical relevance once elites perceive
certain political groups as a threat to democracy. In the latter case, political elites may be even less tolerant
than the public and may actively engage in repressive policies, as for instance during the McCarthy era (Pf-
effley and Rohrschneider, 2007: 71–2). Finally, it has to be noted that extant research on elite–citizen differ-
ences regarding regime legitimacy and the political value orientations of elites has been limited to democratic
countries – including new democracies – but very little is known about the political value orientations of elites
in countries with hybrid or authoritarian regimes. While it is certainly difficult to conduct elite surveys in such
countries, qualitative studies are lacking in the literature as well.
Novel Challenges for Established Elites since the Beginning of the 21st Centu-
ry
Since the mid 1960s, established democracies have experienced a considerable decline in institutionalized
forms of political participation such as electoral turnout, party identification and party membership. This has
been accompanied by a parallel surge of voter volatility and citizen protest against governmental decisions
and changes in the party systems of established democracies. In his theory of value change, Ronald Inglehart
(2018) has characterized this ongoing process as a change from materialist to post-materialist values and
from elite-directed to elite-challenging political participation. He holds that this value change is the result of a
cognitive mobilization that has enabled citizens to act as political subjects rather than just as objects of elite
decision-making.
According to Inglehart's theory, value change depends on the presence of economically favorable and rela-
tively secure socio-economic conditions, particularly in the developed democracies, but also among the rising
middle classes in other parts of the world. In recent years, these conditions have been increasingly shattered
by the effects of the ongoing globalization. Rapid changes in the labor markets and living conditions, the mas-
sive wave of global migration and the fallout of the global economic crisis after 2008 have nurtured feelings of
insecurity and facilitated the rise of right-wing populist movements whose political demands are very different
from post-materialist concerns. Populist movements and political parties, such as the French Front National,
the Dutch Partij voor de Vrijheid, the Sweden Democrats and the German AfD (Alternative für Deutschland),
articulate traditional materialist demands. They favor higher government expenditure for infrastructure and
welfare, the creation of new jobs and protective measures against imports. They also mobilize against reforms
such as gay marriage and immigration by people from different cultural backgrounds, which they denounce
as violating traditional values and threatening the cultural identity of the country (Papadopoulos, 2013: 27–8,
Kriesi, Chapter 90, this Handbook).

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This raises the question whether increased citizen mobilization and the advent of populist protest movements
will contribute to an erosion of representative democratic institutions and impair the ability of elites to aggre-
gate an increasingly heterogeneous spectrum of political demands. Many elite theorists have argued that a
considerable degree of elite autonomy is necessary for pursuing coherent and sustainable policies (Schum-
peter, 1942; Kornhauser, 1960; Higley and Burton, 2006). Therefore, the rising tide of grass-roots protest
movements implies more public pressure, especially on elected political elites. Their power basis will become
less stable and their careers more vulnerable to electoral defeat. This will force them to pursue short-term
strategies in order to secure their mandate. At the same time, it will make democratic politics more volatile
and erratic in the future (Hoffmann-Lange and Kuklys, 2019).
Heinrich Best (2009) conceptualized three basic theoretical dilemmas that are useful for analyzing the poten-
tial consequences of these developments. First, he replaced the assumption that elite cohesion is based on
elite consensus by the notion of antagonistic cooperation among elites, assuming that relations at the elite
level usually involve considerable policy disagreements and that elites will refrain from open clashes only as
long as they perceive that mutual restraint in bargaining with each other will involve higher returns. Next, the
principal-agent dilemma governing relations between elites and their constituents can be managed only as
long as strong organizational linkages between elites and their followers secure the existence of sufficient
trust in the accountability of the elites. The erosion of traditional elite–citizen linkages in the past decades
and the widespread perception that effective party competition has declined has fueled increasing political
discontent that has even reached consolidated democracies with relatively successful economies, such as
Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany and the Scandinavian countries.
Finally, the challenge–response dilemma addresses the question of how elites will cope with the ongoing so-
cial and political change. In Europe, the ramifications of globalization and the economic crisis for standards of
living were aggravated by the wave of immigration into the affluent European democracies in the past decade.
So far, the established political parties have reacted rather defensively in tackling these challenges, which has
contributed to the impression that they do not have a realistic strategy to cope with them. This, in turn, has
contributed to the rise of populist political movements and parties in recent years (Best and Hoffmann-Lange,
2018).
Populist parties aggressively reject the traditional ways of doing politics (Mudde, 2008; Mudde and Kaltwass-
er, 2017). They claim to represent the ordinary people, whose interests are purportedly neglected by the es-
tablished political parties and their leaders. Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris (2017) have pointed out that
such claims have the main purpose of mobilizing voters who feel that social change is threatening traditional
values and their way of life. They assume that support for populist authoritarian parties is primarily ‘motivated
by a backlash against the cultural changes linked with the rise of Postmaterialist and Self-expression values,
far more than by economic factors’ (ibid.: 446), although they acknowledge that declining real incomes, the
increase in precarious jobs and the rise in economic inequality constitute economic underpinnings of public
discontent (ibid: 448–9).
Huber and Schimpf have likened the appearance of populist parties to a drunken guest ‘spilling out the painful
truths’ (2016: 119). Populists point out the shortcomings of the established ways of running politics and the
erosion of representative democracy ‘due to the shift of decision-making functions to bodies remote from the
representative process, collaborative governance frequently characterized by limited pluralism, transnation-
al governance with weak democratic accountability and increased privatization’ (Papadopoulos, 2013: 242).
By criticizing globalization and immigration as the most obvious symptoms, populist parties capitalize on the
‘degradation of democratic quality’ in today's representative democracies. Their critique is ‘often extremely
reductionist', however, because ‘there is no mono-causal explanation’ and no simple solution for these major
challenges (ibid: 243–4).
The theoretical discussion about the relationship of populism and democracy is of considerable relevance for
elite theory. The anti-elitist stance of populist movements shows that they exploit the ambivalent promises of

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democracy as an ideal and as a system of government (Canovan, 1999). Whenever the gap between the
‘haloed democracy and the grubby business of politics’ becomes too wide, ‘populists tend to move on to the
vacant territory, promising in place of the dirty world of party maneuvering the shining ideal of democracy re-
newed’ (ibid: 11).
Benjamin Arditi discussed the potentially problematic effects of populism on liberal democracies. He argued
that populist claims are unproblematic as long as they are articulated by the media as maverick contributions
to the public discourse about shortcomings of the political system or as ‘a mode of participation that departs
from the etiquette of political salons without apologising for its brashness’ (2004: 142). These two forms have
the ‘potential to both disturb and renew the political process without necessarily stepping outside the institu-
tional settings of democracy’ (ibid.). A third form, however, ‘comes to haunt political democracy and to endan-
ger the very framework in which it can function’ (ibid.) when those making the claims exploit the public's lack
of trust in institutional procedures and in the legislative process to discredit the rule of law and to openly ad-
vocate authoritarian practices (ibid.). The latter danger is the reason why Simon Tormey, who has otherwise
severely criticized the deficiencies of representative democracy, argues that populism can be ‘democracy's
deadly cure’ (2017).
The empirical analysis of Huber and Schimpf takes into account this Janus-faced character of populism. The
authors assume that populist parties can be beneficial by broadening the spectrum of issues debated in par-
liaments when they are in opposition, while they are apt to impair the quality of democracy when they par-
ticipate in government (2016: 111). This hypothesis was confirmed in their analysis based on aggregate data
including European cabinets for the period 2000 to 2012.
These discussions have shown that populism is a phenomenon resulting from the unfulfilled promises of
democracy, which is particularly likely to spread in times of rapid social change when established patterns
of political crisis management are confronted with new challenges. Theoretically, it is the opposite of elitism:
‘Elitism shares populism's basic monist and Manichean distinction of society between a homogeneous “good”
and a homogeneous “evil”, but it holds an opposite view on the virtues of the groups’ (Mudde and Kaltwasser,
2017: 7).
By contrast, Moísés Naím (2017) argues that populism is not a new phenomenon at all, but rather a traditional
strategy to obtain and retain power by ‘exacerbating socio-cultural division and conflict'. It includes magnify-
ing the nation's problems, criminalizing the opposition, discrediting experts and delegitimizing the media. In
his view, populists are simply counter-elites vying for power. Similarly, Mudde (2008) has argued that it is not
sufficient to only take into account the demand side of populism, but that we should also look at the supply
side and consider that it can be deliberately used to mobilize pre-existing grievances. Therefore, the rapid
spread of populism cannot be explained exclusively by the failure of established elites in coping with current
challenges.
Although most of the recent literature has dealt with the current wave of populism in the established liberal
and the post-communist democracies, it is not limited to these. It is also widespread in hybrid and authori-
tarian political systems, for instance in Turkey, Russia, the Philippines and Venezuela. The diffuse demands
of populist parties for more and ‘true democracy’ conceal, however, that they only mobilize against the sta-
tus quo. Changing things for the better would require mobilization for something, at least on the basis of a
rudimentary operational program. In short, it would require political leadership in Max Weber's sense. The
populist governments of Greece and Italy have not achieved any institutional reforms so far; rather, they have
continued the muddling-through of their predecessors. Other successful populist leaders have replaced fledg-
ling democracies and hybrid systems with authoritarian rather than democratic regimes. It cannot be ruled
out that citizens will quickly become disappointed with the populists and renew their linkages with traditional
parties once they recognize that the populists have no political solutions to offer. For the time being, however,
the advent of populist parties in the legislatures and the governments of liberal democracies will contribute to
make policy formation more rather than less intricate and conflictual (Papadopoulos, 2013: chapter 7).

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• elites
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http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n33

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Identities
Contributors: Ireneusz Pawel Karolewski

Chapter Title: "Identities"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Identities
Ireneusz Pawel Karolewski
Identities have experienced a new surge of interest in the social sciences in recent years (e.g. Karolewski,
2010; Kaina, Karolewski and Kuhn, 2016; Fukuyama, 2018). Whereas the notion of identity had been part of
academic debates on nationalism (e.g. Miller, 1995a; Meyerfeld, 1998), liberal multiculturalism (e.g. Kymlicka,
1995), secessionism (e.g. Sorens, 2012), social movements (e.g. Bernstein, 2005) or liquid modernity (e.g.
Bauman, 2000) for some time, it was often used with such a variety of diverging meanings that some schol-
ars proclaimed ‘identity’ to be an obsolete and problematic concept, which serious scholarship should avoid.
Brubaker and Cooper (2004: 28) argued famously that ‘identity … tends to mean too much (when understood
in a strong sense), too little (when understood in a weak sense), or nothing at all (because of its sheer ambi-
guity)'. Others have argued, however, that we cannot avoid dealing with identity, since having an identity is a
‘psychological imperative’ as well as a ‘sociological constant’ (Greenfeld, 1999: 38).
As a result of a new wave of globally spreading populism and national chauvinism, the very concept of identity
is experiencing a revival (e.g. Mounk, 2018; Fukuyama, 2018). Both Yascha Mounk and Francis Fukuyama
point in their recent work to many people's need to have ‘their’ identity recognized and to perform it through
exclusion of others, which contrasts with the previous scholarly interest in ‘weak identity’ centered on fluidi-
ty and constructability of identities rather than resilient and stable forms thereof. The research on fluidity of
identity has highlighted multiple or hybrid identities of individuals in the process of making and claiming iden-
tities, in which identities are not attributes but rather resources people can apply almost at will. In this sense,
the individualization of identity would go hand in hand with ‘liquid’ modernity, in which the traditional strong
identities have lost their grip on individuals. However, it seems that this ‘rootlessness’ and fluidity of identity
appears recently to have been replaced by widespread claims for strong identity, durable belonging and less
ambivalence in both advanced societies and the so-called developing countries.
This chapter proceeds in the following steps. First, it introduces the concept, or rather the variety of concepts,
of identity. Second, it focuses on three clusters of identity research surrounding expected functions of identity:
the cognitive perspective, the self-esteem perspective and the collective action perspective. Next, the article
will deal with two ongoing debates on identity: identity in nationalism, and identity politics. The chapter draws
on research from social psychology, sociology and political science in order to show the types of conceptual,
methodological and normative problems with which research on identity has been confronted over the past
30 years.
The Concept(s)
When we use the term identity in the social sciences, we often refer to collective identity, connecting the indi-
vidual to groups (Kaina and Karolewski, 2013). This, in turn, gives us insights into various forms of collective
behavior. Still, there is little consensus among scholars on what exactly identity means: it can refer to (1)
something groups and individuals have (e.g. Abrams and Hogg, 2004); (2) something groups and individuals
are (e.g. Cross, 1985); and (3) something groups and individuals do or say (e.g. Wodak et al., 2009).
However, certain aspects, borrowed from social psychology, can be found in many approaches to identity
in the social sciences. One such aspect is self-categorization as a group member. Henri Tajfel (e.g. 1981)
strongly influenced research on identity by focusing on social categorization. In his work, Tajfel defined a per-
son's perception of belonging to a group as one component of group identification, which can be unveiled
in people's attitudes (Tajfel, 1981: 132). In Tajfel's view, the necessary (sometimes even seen as sufficient)
step in the process of identification is self-categorization, serving as a benchmark exhibiting commonalities
between ‘me’ and the ‘others’ (members of the same group) and labeling distinctions between ‘me’ and the
‘other others’ (members of other groups). A further step would be social categorization, which is how individ-
uals are categorized by others. However, some scholars argue that social categorization, even if central for

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identity formation, is insufficient for people to develop collective identity vis-à-vis a given group, as ‘being cat-
egorized does not automatically mean to take on this label as an aspect of self-identity or to see oneself as
sharing something with others so categorized’ (Fuss and Grosser, 2006: 213f; Kaina and Karolewski, 2013).
A further controversial aspect pertaining to the concept of identity is the question of whether identity is an
artifact resulting from social construction, or rather ‘naturally’ evolved (Cederman, 2001: 141–3). Even though
there seems to be a sort of consensus on the artificiality of identities, some students of collective identity
question the manmade nature of collective identities, in particular national identities. There are, roughly, two
major theoretical paradigms explaining collective identity formation: essentialism and constructivism. ‘Essen-
tialists’ believe in the existence of cultural ‘raw material’ within a society, from which political collective iden-
tities develop. In contrast, ‘constructivists’ see the active role of intellectuals and political entrepreneurs as
central, for instance, in manipulating cultural symbols and mobilizing cultural cleavages (Cederman, 2001:
142). Even more, collective identities can be conceptualized as narrative constructions (or ‘stories') which are
the objects of identification. In this context, some students of collective identity highlight that identities form
around social constructions of difference, which also rest upon processes of categorization and attribution.
The ‘stuff’ of these social constructions may vary, and cover norms and values but also primordial features
such as gender or race.
Since identities appear to be more than just social categorizations, how are the cognitive perceptions of be-
longing to a group transformed into emotional bonds among community members? This question shows the
relevance of the distinction between ‘belonging to’ and ‘belonging together’ (Kaina and Karolewski, 2013).
While ‘belonging to’ represents mainly a cognitive category, ‘belonging together’ stresses feelings of commit-
ment, one's willingness to espouse solidarity, as well as readiness to make a personal sacrifice for the well-
being of the fellow group members. Also with regard to this issue, there are different positions in the scholarly
debate. Some scholars stress that people's awareness of ‘belonging together’ is mainly constructed by elites
(e.g. Cederman, 2001). Others argue that feelings of togetherness may be linked to individuals’ belief in the
specific value of the collective and its relevance for the fate of its members. This position relies on Tajfel's
argument that individuals aspire to such group memberships, through which they develop (or maintain) some
sort of psychological gratification (Tajfel, 1981). In other words, the preservation and improvement of individ-
ual self-esteem is a motivation for someone's identification with a given collectivity. In large collectives, the
individual gratification results from the conviction that one shares those precious commonalities with one's
fellow group members, rather than with people from outside the community. These ‘imagined communities’
(Anderson, 1991) are believed to transform ‘belonging to’ into ‘belonging together'.
At the same time, there appears to be a consensus in the scholarship that collective identities require the
delineation between in-group and out-group members. The valuable features of a collective matter because
they are contrasted to the perceived dissimilarity of out-groups. However, concerning the relationship between
in-groups and out-groups, scholars also point to the potential ‘dark side’ of collective identity, which can gen-
erate contestation and conflict between different groups. Even though several scholars argue that collective
identities do not have to generate aversion to others, the in-group/out-group antagonism seems to be a latent
phenomenon. It can be mobilized, in particular, when insiders believe that outsiders present a threat to the
in-group.
Furthermore, there is a question of the relationship between the individual and collective elements in people's
overall identity. According to Norbert Elias (1991), individuals maintain a We–I balance, where We-feelings
relate to collective identity of individuals and the I-component describes the personal and idiosyncratic as-
pect of individual identity. As a result, different constellations of individual identity can exist – some more col-
lectivist, others more individualist. The We–I balance can lean towards the I-component while containing a
minimal amount of We-feeling (weak collective identity). If there is a continuous long-term process shifting
towards I-identity, we can label it individualization, during which the We–I balance turns to the I–We balance.
Equally, the We-component can dominate the We–I balance, leading to a collectivization of identity (strong
collective identity). Against this backdrop, collective identity can undergo long-term or medium-term changes

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in the process of identity construction. For Elias, the major source of We-identity has been the modern state,
which advanced people's identity by integrating the hitherto excluded classes of the population through the
concept of membership equality in the modern state. However, this development did not occur before the 20th
century, as the loyalty and mobilization of the population gained significance only as a result of mass warfare,
which worked as an ‘equalizer’ (Elias, 1991: 207). The resilient and strong collective identity generated by
modern states resulted from the integration of the modern state via national citizenship and its far-reaching
role as a survival unit during wars, which in turn underpins the emotional nature of the ‘we-ness’ (Elias, 1991:
219).
According to the optimal distinctiveness theory, individuals define themselves as much in terms of their group
membership as in terms of their individual achievements (Sherman et al., 1999). Since an individual's self-
concept is shaped by two opposing needs – the need for assimilation (collective identity) and the need for
differentiation (individual identity) – people aspire to become part of larger social entities, while at the same
time they want to feel unique and original. However, too much of either identity is expected to generate the
opposite motivation, which provokes efforts to change the current level of social identification.
In the ensuing sections, I focus on various functions of collective identity, as they are debated and explored
in the vast body of identity literature. This will demonstrate the different perspectives from which collective
identity can be looked at, and which specific questions are raised in current research. Against this backdrop,
the research on identity will be discussed based on three clusters of identity functions that inform the following
perspectives: (1) the cognitive perspective; (2) the self-esteem perspective; and (3) the collective dilemma
perspective.
Functions of Identity
The Cognitive Perspective

A number of theories from social psychology expect relevant cognitive functions from collective identity. This
cluster of identity research focuses on collective categorization and depersonalization processes in groups,
through which individuals perceive themselves as members of groups. These cognitive processes have the
function of reducing social complexity for individuals and thus decrease social uncertainty (e.g. Hogg, 2000).
Once self-categorization as a group member has occurred, the individual comes to perceive him or herself
as indistinguishable from other members of the group and increasingly different from members of contrasting
categories. As a result of this depersonalization process, the importance of the individual's personal identi-
ty is diminished, and the importance of the person's social (collective) identity is increased. Accordingly, the
perceived boundaries between self and other group members are weakened and a higher salience of the
boundaries between in-group and out-groups occurs. Furthermore, due to depersonalization the successes
and failures of the in-group are incorporated into the self-concept and perceived as personal outcomes, and
in this process out-groups can come to be viewed as alien and threatening.
Against this background, some authors argue that increased interactions among individuals due to increased
multi-cultural experiences can fuel new identity conflicts, as identities clash with each other by reproducing
ethnic, religious and socioeconomic cleavages (e.g. Huntington, 1993). This results from the globalization of
the economy and human affairs that tends to make some individuals ontologically insecure and existentially
uncertain. As a response to such insecurity, some students of identity expect more frequent attempts to reaf-
firm the self-identity by approaching groups ‘offering’ to decrease insecurity and existential anxiety. Conse-
quently, a rise of ‘collectivism’ (or shift towards We–I balance, to use Elias’ concept) could be expected, par-
ticularly in forms of religion and nationalism, as a reaction to ontological insecurity associated with cultural
fluidity, mobility and complexity of the outside world. Zygmunt Bauman (2017) discusses exactly this wish to

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return to ‘tribes’ in his book Retrotopia, in which he points out that people construct in their minds the safe
and well-known world of the past that actually never existed. Bauman – one of the leading scholars of liquid
modernity, previously proclaiming the imminent end of the identity grip of the nation-state – attempts to come
to terms with the new surge of world-wide nationalism and concedes that even fluid identities might be prone
to ‘chronicity', as they can become ‘frozen’ and conflictive, rather than flexible and compatible.
In an extreme form, the revival of ‘collectivism’ can foster prejudice against ‘others', particularly if group mem-
bership is based on ascriptive and ethnic characteristics. In his seminal work on ‘cognitive prejudice', Henri
Tajfel (1969) indicated that the ‘blood-and-guts model’ of group membership can lead to dehumanization of
out-groups and as a consequence to aggression against them, while the entire process occurs already at the
cognitive level. In this sense, depersonalization occurs both in the in-group and vis-à-vis the out-group, since
the out-group comes to be viewed as a depersonalized agglomerate of similar members. Since categorization
as a boundary-making mechanism is conceptualized as a vital mental process, from which individuals can-
not escape, it is also strengthened and forged through political practices. For instance, states classify people
by assigning them to categories which are associated with group identities. As a result of censuses, states
‘freeze’ the salience of certain collective identities through political practices of categorization. Even if census
categories may not coincide with the self-understanding of the categorized social groups, they are frequently
utilized by cultural and political actors to draw the boundaries of collective identity. Therefore, states often
impose ethnic or even racial categories on individuals, institutionalizing them in documents; this often has po-
litical consequences for these identities, including discrimination against minority identities by state authorities
(Jenkins, 2000).
In sum, the cognitive perspective on identity suggests that ethnicities, nations, minority groups and other col-
lectivities are mental and social constructs, which are necessary for individuals to develop self-concepts as
group members in the context of social complexity and uncertainty. However, the cognitive logic of collective
identity gives political authorities a tool for drawing boundaries in society by recognizing and classifying peo-
ple as group members. In this sense, state authorities construct and reconstruct both collective similarity and
difference, using them as templates for organizing perceptions of belonging as well as frames for socio-polit-
ical comparisons (Brubaker and Cooper, 2004: 47).
The Self-Esteem Perspective

A further cluster of identity literature points to yet another function of collective identity beyond the reduction
of uncertainty and social complexity: the acquisition of a positive self-image from group membership. In this
view, the drive for positive social identity fuels the process by which one's self-esteem is produced and main-
tained through favorable comparison to an out-group. In this perspective, groups (but also larger collectivities,
such as nations) are viewed as social resources used by individuals for their psychological benefits (Correll
and Park, 2005). Against this backdrop, individuals can use various strategies for collective status improve-
ment. For instance, they can leave the collectivity and become a member of a more positively evaluated group
(this is more difficult with nations). The permeability of the group boundaries is a relevant criterion in this con-
text, since some groups are difficult to abandon in light of their sanctioning mechanisms, such as attribution
of the stigma of a traitor. In addition, individuals may attempt to redefine the inter-group comparison process
by selecting other reference points or standards of comparison or devaluing out-groups, so their own group
appears more attractive. In particular, the latter strategy is connected with so-called othering: an active strate-
gy of demarcation and a juxtaposition of the in-group against the ‘other', where the ‘other’ frequently acquires
a more durable image than in the cognitive approach.
This is visible, for instance, in nationalism studies, where ‘othering’ is the primary tool of forging national iden-
tity. According to Michael Billig, nationalism tells ‘us’ who ‘we’ are by relating ‘us’ to ‘them’ (Billig, 1995: 78).
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Nationalism as a specific sort of collective identity, therefore, responds to the needs of a society to create
and recreate its own ‘others'. Particularly in times of crisis, the significant ‘other’ becomes activated in the
collective identity of individuals, since the construction of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ helps in overcoming crises by us-
ing blaming and scapegoating strategies. However, what matters is not only the construction of the ‘other’ as
such, but also the perceived attributes of the ‘other', since the constructed nature of representing the ‘other’
is significant for the consequences of collective identity. There can be significant and insignificant ‘others', but
only the significant ‘other’ becomes the relevant reference for collective identity formation. As Billig (1995:
80) argues, foreignness is subject to scrupulous distinctions between different groups of ‘others', created and
recreated in debates about the meaning to ‘us’ of various groups of foreigners. When the ‘other” is construct-
ed as threatening, it may produce xenophobia and violence against the ‘others'. Still, the ‘others’ can also be
constructed as inferior, which boosts a given group's feelings of supremacy and grandeur and might lead to a
stigmatization of ‘others'. Moreover, the ‘others’ can assume positive attributes. Some students of nationalism
argue that there can exist positive images of ‘others', for instance, forged by the consideration of the minority
as legitimate or unjustly discriminated against throughout history (Petersoo, 2007).
Once individual self-esteem is increased by lowering the perceived value of others, majorities in crisis might
be prone to finding scapegoats for their perceived misery, which can result not only in discrimination but also
in stigmatization or victimization in cultural terms. Goodey (2002: 135–58) argued more than 15 years ago that
there is a visible tendency in some European nation-states for political or public stereotyping of migrants as
‘undesirables’ or as potential criminals. This ‘criminalization’ of migrants is frequently based on the selective
focus on some offences or crimes committed by migrants while simultaneously ignoring criminality committed
among the majority group. Even more, in this view the EU societies seem to uphold a sort of hierarchy that
exists with the citizens of the EU member states at the top, followed by other EU nationals, with non-EU na-
tionals at the bottom of the ladder. Goodey points out that this hierarchy concerning non-EU nationals seems
to be based more on color than on nationality.
However, group identities do not have to cause inter-group conflicts, stigmatization or violence. For instance,
the likelihood of identity clashes strongly depends on the type of inter-group comparison (Turner, 1999). When
the in-group and out-group do not stand in a competitive relationship to each other with regard to a salient
comparative dimension, conflicts are less likely to occur. In addition, scholars argue that even though identity
affects conflict behavior, it is mediated by the degree of insecurity, implying that increased feelings of security
correspond to more cooperative behavior.
The Collective Action Perspective

A further cluster of collective identity research relates to something well known in the social sciences as
‘dilemmas of collective action', in which the individual rationality of interdependent actors leads to collectively
irrational outcomes and is thus detrimental to the provision of collective goods. A number of collective dilem-
ma situations are described in the literature, including free-riding and the prisoner's dilemma, all of which
problematize the clash between individual and collective rationality (e.g. Axelrod, 1980).
Next to the rationality-oriented solutions to collective action dilemmas discussed in the debates on coopera-
tion problems (e.g. Wu and Axelrod, 1995), collective identity has increasingly been debated as one of the
possible explanations for problems of collective action (e.g. Gavious and Mizrahi, 1999). For instance, group
identification has been viewed as a significant factor in explaining political protest behavior. Klandermans
(2002) emphasizes that of the three components of identity – cognitive, evaluative and affective – the latter
appears to be the most relevant for explaining the readiness of individuals to engage in protest actions. At the
same time, the relationship between identification and protest participation seems to be a double-edged one,
since identity promotes participation, and participation in turn reinforces identification (Klandermans, 2002:
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898). Moreover, identity is likely to reduce actors’ responses to the ‘greed component’ in the prisoner's dilem-
ma (the motivation to ‘free-ride’ on the cooperation of others), but it does not appear to have any effect on the
responses to the ‘fear component', that is, the motivation to avoid being ‘exploited’ (Simpson, 2006).
Furthermore, the social movement literature stresses that collectively framed grievances can generate a
sense of ‘we-ness’ which is directed at ‘them', who are deemed responsible for the grievances in question
(della Porta, Chapter 39, this Handbook). For instance, if political authorities are regarded as the culprits in a
given context, it can politicize collective identity up to a point where the collective action dilemma is rendered
meaningless. This is likely to be the case when political authorities are unresponsive or react in a repressive
manner. Collective identities generated in a social movement can even produce a revolutionary mobilization,
thus overcoming the collective action dilemma in revolutions (e.g. Kuran, 1989). In this sense, the concept of
collective identity in the literature on social movements refers to shared representations of the group based
on common interests and experiences, but it also pertains to a process of shaping and creating an image of
what the group stands for and how it wants to be viewed by others. As a result, collective identity is more than
a psychological reaction or state-governed categorization, but an achievement of collective efforts (Poletta
and Jasper, 2001). Other scholars examining social movements stress the cultural background of collective
action, as actors are believed to draw elements from their cultural repertoire and adapt them to their move-
ment's purposes. In this sense, collective grievances might not be the only source of collective identity, as
individuals are likely to use their specific cultural repertoire as well as the wider cultural context of a social
movement. Here, collective identity is explained less through individual rationality and more in a structuralist
manner of the wider cultural context favoring collective identity (e.g. Williams, 1995).
A further argument pertaining to the solution of collective dilemmas through collective identity can be found
in neo-Marxist literature. Jon Elster uses Marxian class consciousness as the solution to the problem of col-
lective action. Once a class is able to overcome the free-rider problem in realizing its own class interests,
collective identity occurs at a class level (Elster, 1985: 347ff.). However, the form of class consciousness dif-
fers depending on the relations of production. Therefore, interests, identities and organization of workers and
capitalists will vary, particularly regarding their demands on the state (e.g. Bottero, 2004). Nonetheless, in the
Marxist approaches class consciousness is supposed to generate class solidarity, which also allows for ef-
fective organization of class interests against the interest of the opposing class. This transforms the class ‘in
itself’ into a ‘class for itself'. The neo-Marxist account of collective identity is, however, divided regarding the
issue of how collective identity comes about. Whereas Marx assumed a creation of class consciousness by
default depending on the critical degree of exploitation, some of his followers advocated an active role for the
Communist Party in creating a collective identity of the working class (e.g. Lukács, 1971).
Ongoing Debates on identity

Among the various contemporary debates on identity, I will focus on identity in nationalism and identity politics.
There are other debates – for instance, gender and identity (Sawer, Chapter 6, this Handbook) – which are
relevant and controversial, but these two appear to be the most encompassing ones, where several of the
aspects of identity are integrated.
Identity in Nationalism
One of the major contemporary debates on collective identity can be found in the research on nationalism.
There are various arguments pertaining to why national identity is pervasive in modern societies, but the
approach of liberal nationalism emphasizes, in addition, the normative value of a national collective identi-

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ty. Probably the most pronounced argument in favor of nationalism has been formulated by Liah Greenfeld
(1999), for whom nationalism is a vehicle for dignity and equality in a modern society. Nationalism is, there-
fore, regarded as a unique form of social consciousness, which is historically anchored and hence not easily
replaceable. In the same vein, authors such as David Miller (1995a) and Yael Tamir (1993) argue that national
identity is conducive to individual enrichment in a moral and political sense. The collective bond of nationalism
is supposed to deepen commitments and obligations between those who share it by providing an essential
motivation for civic commitments. Hence, nationalism as a unique form of collective identity is expected to
produce social trust, drawn primarily from the cultural layer of the community, in which deep obligations stem
from perceived relatedness of the individuals. This argument has been applied to the conditions of modern
(redistributive) economies, which require high levels of moral commitment in the form of mutual solidarity.
Only against the background of a high level of social trust can democracy function in a sustainable manner,
since redistributive measures cannot be justified otherwise (Miller, 1995b: 26).
The normative value of nationalism suggests a necessary strengthening of the nation-state against the pres-
sures of globalization. It also entails granting national independence to communities striving for it, as nation-
states are not only the basic but also the ‘natural’ organizational units for modern political communities. Even
though scholars of nationalism agree on the historical contingency of national communities, this does not pre-
clude the functional indispensability of nationalism in the context of modern statehood. Ernest Gellner (e.g.
1981) was probably the most prominent scholar of nationalism who stressed that nationalism is strongly asso-
ciated with capitalism. Nationalism promoted the development of a homogenous language facilitating commu-
nication, and therefore enabled national sentiments to be constructed and preserved. However, the national
communicative integration has been enforced by capitalism, which has made replaceability and equality be-
tween members of the national community necessary in terms of their functions for the cognitive and material
growth of modern capitalist societies.
The main distinction between the social psychology of collective identity and the nationalist perspective of
collective identity can be found in the specific nature of national identity. Although most of the nationalism
scholars agree on the constructed and contingent character of nationalism, they also agree that nationalism
is not easily replaced, since it has been generated by strong forces of nation-building, often associated with
violence, genocide and suppression of regional and local identities (Wimmer, 2013). Furthermore, national
identity has become the dominant collective identity in modern human societies, as it went hand in hand with
the establishment of states as powerful identity-making agents. More strongly than any other political orga-
nizations, nation-states pursue policies of identity construction and reconstruction. Ernest Gellner (1995: 50)
has argued that nation-states establish collective identity (a process he calls ‘exo-socialization') mainly via
standardized education systems. This allows for a communicative centralization of a modern society despite
its cultural variety and complexity (Gellner, 1981: 753). The nationalism perspective not only frames national
identity as ‘chronic’ in relation to other less resilient identities and as normatively valuable due to its trust-mak-
ing potential, but also highlights its functionality with regard to modern industrialized societies. In this sense,
national identity becomes the dominant and structurally ‘useful’ identity that is associated with the nation-
state. Here, as long as nation-states remain the dominant units of political organization, national identity is
bound to remain the primary and chronic form of collective identity.
A further controversy in nationalism studies relates to the distinction between liberal and non-liberal nation-
alism. Non-liberal nationalism has played a prominent role in previously colonized nations of the Third World
and in the nationalist conflict in former Yugoslavia. Scholars tend to expect non-liberal nationalism to be op-
pressive to minorities and marginalized members, since it views cultures as essentialist and static while re-
jecting the fundamental value of individual rights. Still, some authors defend the non-liberal nationalism of
previously colonized nations by arguing that it can be justifiable. This communitarian argument constructs a
moral agency of cultures, highlighting that even non-liberal cultures can hold emancipatory potential for indi-
viduals participating in the reconstruction of their national culture (Herr, 2006). In contrast, liberal nationalism
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highlights the significance of nationality for citizens and its role in the justification of liberal policies. Liberal
nationalists (Tamir, 1993) argue that national identity serves basic individual needs and is not only compati-
ble with postulates of equality and individuality, but also should be fostered for the liberal-democratic state to
function. Therefore, the dark side of nationalism is believed to be exaggerated, as many nationalism schol-
ars tend to focus on the few cases of nationalist aggression and oppression and neglect the majority of be-
nign cases of nationalism. Some argue that even the notion of ethnicity can be expressed in liberal terms,
thus constituting a variant of the good life based on a synthesis of liberalism and ethnicity (Kaufmann, 2000).
Others believe that there are sufficient reasons to distrust nationalism. For instance, Andrew Vincent (1997)
points out that there is a distinction to be made between pragmatic (and reluctant) acceptance and a prin-
cipled ethical esteem of nationalism. Nationalism can be empirically accepted as a currently pervasive form
of group loyalty, but one should not bestow any ethical significance upon it, which legitimizes nationalism by
transferring respect and dignity from individuals to nations.
Identity Politics
States, governments and political entrepreneurs are believed to apply identity technologies to citizens in an
attempt to construct collective identity. These identity politics aim for collective identity in a top-down manner
as citizens become receivers of a collective identity whose orientation is constructed ‘politically'. From the
perspective of the elites, collective identity is an instrument to achieve two fundamental principal goals. On
the one hand, political elites claim legitimacy in representing the collective concerns of the group; on the oth-
er, they control ‘deviant’ behavior of their political opponents within the group by interpreting what collective
identity is (Castano et al., 2002).
Identity politics relies on the fact that the majority of group members are unlikely to have any direct contact
with each other. Still, they draw on a horizontal feeling of belonging, which is expected to be sufficiently pow-
erful to mobilize and legitimize political actions. This feeling of belonging is supported and stabilized by an
ideology of ‘we-ness', which holds that the defining characteristics of the group establish ‘authentic’ bound-
aries towards other groups. At the same time, these identity politics generate a legitimate basis for making
political claims of either a special treatment or collective self-determination. In order to support their political
claims, group leaders emphasize and manipulate shared myths, symbols and cultures associated with a par-
ticular territory or a particular way of life as factors which help to consolidate and maintain collect identity.
Since there is no face-to-face communication among the majority of the group members, collective identity is
transported via images and representations such as the national or regional soccer team, whose players most
of the group members will never know in person. However, collective identity can have illiberal consequences
in this context as well. A construction of fraternization and a development of communitarian loyalty have the
downside of oppressive measures should a group member violate the norms of loyalty. Gellner (1995) labels
this ‘tyranny of the cousins'. Frequently, myths of common ancestry are employed by political entrepreneurs
because they have the capacity to modulate perceptions of self-interest and to add a moral dimension to po-
litical conflict. Therefore, political conflict (often of a redistributive nature) becomes one between the moral
‘us’ and the immoral ‘other', and turns into an ideological battle.
One of the controversies of identity politics is the possible scope of manipulation of collective identity by politi-
cal leaders. This is particularly evident in the debate on nationalism as a particular case of legitimacy-seeking
identity politics. In contrast to modernists such as Ernest Gellner or Liah Greenfeld, primordialists represent
the position that the rise of the modern nation is related to the ethnic communities of the ancient and medieval
world, rather than being the result of the making of modernity. For instance, Anthony D. Smith (1996) high-
lights how a nation's emphasis on its own unique culture leads to a sense of ‘chosenness’ of its people, which
develops historically as a result of ethnic conflicts. Consequently, national identities can be traced back to
ethnic communities, which expanded to the detriment of other ethnic communities and, due to the emergence
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of a homogenous language and its origin in the ethnic past, gave birth to the political identity of nationalism. In
this perspective, political leaders cannot freely manipulate the collective identity of nations, or, for that matter,
of other groups with political claims, since ethnicities are the raw material for identity politics and cannot be
easily ignored.
In contrast, other scholars support the constructivist conception of identity politics as grounded in social inter-
action. In this view, collective identity develops through social processes, which encompass personal interac-
tions with others but also symbolic exchanges of gestures and language, in which meanings are negotiated.
In this sense, collective identity is a dynamic result of our everyday social interaction. Being socially shaped,
collective identities are products of social processes – this means that they can change, but it does not mean
that they are fluid. The classic symbolic interactionism puts a particular emphasis on interactions with ‘signif-
icant others', who are emotionally important, parent-like figures, perceived as close. This perspective differs
from the socio-psychological approach, in which ‘others’ are external representations of out-groups essential
for boundary-making and in-group identification rather than for positive identification with the ‘significant oth-
ers’ (Berger and Luckmann, 1966). In the framework of symbolic interactionism, ‘significant others’ are partic-
ularly powerful when they control emotional life, as parents do in early childhood. Therefore, identity politics
frequently generates collective emotions in order to legitimize political claims of given groups. In the process,
collective identity becomes emotionally charged and relates to parental figures of political leaders (living or
dead) or uses personification of the state as an emotional system of reference.
A further aspect of identity politics relates to so-called cultural tacit knowledge, which includes habits and
unconscious social patterns of behavior established by cumulative repetition and social routinization (Berg-
Schlosser, Chapter 37, this Handbook). Against this background, identity politics is viewed as a long-term
identity creating a project of governing elites with the aim of shaping citizens or future citizens from their early
childhood. Identity politics delivers patterns with which to interpret the social environment and thus restricts
possibilities of narrative identity building at the personal level. Usually it involves interpretation matrices, which
are applied by individuals in the unconscious process of explanation of social reality. However, these matri-
ces do not float freely, but are delivered by the political elites with the goal of fostering a certain collective
interpretation of the community, relating both to its past and to its future (Marczewska-Rytko, Chapter 38, this
Handbook). For this purpose, social and political events in communities are intentionally adapted in a retro-
spectively narrative manner. In the process, social events become parts of a composite system of interpreta-
tion, which offers citizens a grasp of both the inside and the outside world (Polkinghorne, 1996). Certainly, the
best known methods of identity politics refer to the national identity construction perpetuated by nation-states,
as they are in possession of institutionalized tools of official historiography, public education systems and
mass media. This kind of background process of identity construction was analyzed by Michael Billig (1995),
who coined the term ‘banal nationalism’ to describe this phenomenon with regard to national identity. Billig
observed that the everyday language used by the mass media, particularly in news and weather reporting,
invokes ‘us’ and ‘we’ as a community on an everyday basis, thus establishing a largely unconscious inter-
pretation matrix for citizens who regard themselves as belonging to the same collective category. In contrast
to traditional nationalism research, Billig argues that national community is not necessarily forged on special
occasions such as national holidays and times of international crisis. Instead, it occurs first and foremost as a
certain ideological habit of thought, which must be reproduced on a daily basis to be activated when needed.
Only through piecemeal and subconscious construction can a stable and legitimacy-providing collective iden-
tity be developed.
Outlook
This chapter has focused on various facets of the research on identity. In addition to the sheer complexity
of this research, there are various conceptual, methodological and normative challenges. First, there is di-
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vergence among scholars as to how to define collective identity. While the more skeptical scholars such as
Brubaker and Cooper reject the concept altogether, there is a variety of definitions, ranging from categoriza-
tion to identification and belonging. The vagueness of the term ‘identity’ is one of the greatest deficiencies
when it comes to research on identity. Second, there are methodological problems concerning the measure-
ment of collective identity. While social psychology has developed a sound toolbox of measurement based on
the in-group and out-group distinction and perceptions connected with that, political science seems still to be
preoccupied with questions of the origin of nations and their construction. In addition, there are unresolved
normative issues, as some forms of collective identity – first and foremost national identity – are bestowed
with ethical qualities by scholars, while the same identities are demonized by other scholars. Furthermore,
there is the question of the normative assessment of identity politics or identity technologies administered in a
top-down manner, where citizens become ‘receivers’ of collective identity and the resulting identity construc-
tion might not be easily discernible from collective brainwashing and begs the question of legitimacy.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n34

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Interest Group Systems in the Age of Globalization
Contributors: Liborio Mattina

Chapter Title: "Interest Group Systems in the Age of Globalization"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Interest Group Systems in the Age of Globalization

Liborio Mattina
Interest Groups: what they are, what they do
Introduction
Interest groups are the most numerous social actors in liberal democracies. Even more than political parties,
they contribute to creating a vast network of links between civil society and the economic world on the one
hand and political institutions on the other. Interest groups represent, in other words, the society that orga-
nizes itself to present its preferences to public institutions asking for answers. Therefore, interest groups feed
a flow of solicitations towards policy-makers that are vital to the proper functioning of political systems.
Yet, interest groups are less studied than parties or other classic sub-fields of political science. The reasons
for this lack of attention derive from the conceptual difficulties inherent in the definition of the object of this
research and from the methodological problems related to the need to measure the activity of such groups
and to assess their impact on the functioning of democratic regimes. In this chapter, we show the problems
scholars face when they study interest groups and the solutions adopted to overcome them. Then we inspect
the most important subject addressed in this sub-field, namely investigation of the biased – or unbiased –
character of the groups system in liberal democracies. In the second section of the chapter, similarities and
differences between the group systems of liberal democracies and those of some of the most important coun-
tries committed to economic and social development will be examined. We will conclude with some lines on
the conditions that favor or hinder the formation of pluralist group systems.
A Definition
Interest groups are organizations of individuals who may come from homogeneous social sectors (e.g. em-
ployees of metalwork companies) or from heterogeneous social realities, as with citizen associations that
pursue diffuse interests. Associations of banks that try to influence policy-makers who regulate the financial
sector are also interest groups, as are university consortia asking government for more investment to support
higher education. Similarly, single industrial or financial companies asking policy-makers for specific mea-
sures in favor of their individual business must be considered interest groups. An interest group is, in other
words, a label that can be applied to a large and heterogeneous population of social and economic actors,
and to institutions. Thus, a wide range of groups have to be included in the same concept, so much so that
‘interest group’ takes in a large variety of expressions: political interest groups, interest associations, interest
organizations, and so on. Many of these words are ‘tied’ to specific areas of research, going together with
specific approaches and normative assessments. This heterogeneity of terms and objectives hinders the ac-
cumulation of results. This often leads to a fragmentation of research into non-communicating sub-groups
that produce non-comparable case studies.
To overcome these limits, the literature on interest groups needs a definition that circumscribes its field of
application, but which also considers the great diversification that the object of research may assume. The
task is not easy because, as we have seen, there are significant differences among the groups. An important
difference that cuts the population of interest groups longitudinally is the distinction between organizations
with membership and those without. The first includes those interest groups that are real associations formed
by individuals or organizations (local authorities, churches, universities, hospitals, companies) in which mem-
bers argue in support of reaching common positions to be presented to their counterparts. The literature on
interest groups has paid much attention to this kind of association, developing classic topics such as the re-

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cruitment of membership and its aggregation of shared objectives, the organization as a vehicle for political
participation, the long-term political alliances established by groups with political parties, and lobbying activi-
ties. The interests that fall into the second category are not associations of individuals or organizations. They
are single organizations that in some situations act as a lobby, but which do not share all the other activities
of interest groups with membership.
This, however, does not mean that this second type of interests – which can be labeled organized interests to
distinguish them from interest groups with membership – can be overlooked, because they consist of munic-
ipalities, regions and states (in federal systems). In addition, the business community is part of this category
of interests, as well as all other organizations that are active in the most important policy networks.
To better define the scope of research on groups, it is also necessary to distinguish interest groups from polit-
ical parties, to identify their customary ways of political initiative and their political targets. To this end, it may
be useful to propose the following definition: ‘Interest groups are formal organizations, usually based on indi-
vidual voluntary membership, which seek to influence public policies without assuming government responsi-
bility’ (Mattina, 2011: 1219–20).
This definition states that interest groups, unlike political parties, do not try to acquire direct control of public
offices through electoral competition. Instead, interest groups limit their commitment to influence policy-mak-
ers. The main purpose that interest groups try to achieve is that the policies approved by public actors are in
tune with their preferences. It is worth emphasizing that the approval of favorable public policies is the main
objective of the groups’ activities because in this way it is possible to limit the scope of action in a sectoral
or sub-sectoral dimension. This makes it easier to delimit the number of groups to be considered in rela-
tion to the specific issue that is under examination. This definition also links the study of political behavior of
such groups to the sub-field of policy analysis. Moreover, it suggests not limiting research to the mobilization
process and the lobbying activities, but also giving attention to the conduct of these groups during the imple-
mentation of policy-making.
Finally, the above definition points out that activity is exercised through influence. This is the most important
qualification of interest groups and at the same time their most controversial feature, because it is difficult to
make a reliable empirical measurement of the degree of influence that each group can exercise within the
decision-making process. This problem discourages research on interest groups because their effectiveness
in policy-making is never fully ascertained. The research, therefore, tries to circumvent the obstacles inherent
in measuring influence by focusing attention on access and lobbying in the attempt to present convincing em-
pirical evidence.
How to Measure Group Influence?

Influence is a form of indirect power, exercised through persuasion, which aims to change the conduct of
individuals without apparent external signs. Influence is difficult to distinguish clearly from political power be-
cause the latter can also be exercised through persuasion. Political scholars therefore run into the difficulty
of circumscribing neatly the perimeters of these two political processes. Moreover, it is difficult to distinguish
influence from power, because neither is easily measurable (Baumgartner and Leech, 1998: 58–61). Regard-
ing influence, in particular, it seems impossible to quantify a political process involving certain groups and the
behavior of rival groups, politicians, public authorities, the bureaucracy and public opinion (ibid: 13–14). In
fact, any attempt to identify the real impact of the influence exerted by interest groups is unsatisfactory, be-
cause the observation of negotiations among the relevant actors in the policy-making does not allow certain
identification of all of the really important issues at stake (Dür, 2008: 1216–19). Often certain items are not
even included in the political agenda. And other factors – for example, other legislators, party leaders, the
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legislator's personal convictions, the media – can influence the policy choices of policy-makers to an even
greater extent.
Access and Lobbying

Faced with the problem of measuring influence, scholars on interest groups shifted their attention to access
and lobbying, which became a proxy for investigating the groups’ impacts on policy-making. Access is the at-
tempt to come close to the public venues where the relevant decisions are taken. But when you have a ‘seat
at the table', access does not necessarily translate into influence. Opposing groups may have equal access
and political actors can reject the demands made by interest groups. Public actors may even use access as
an instrument to co-opt societal interests. Taking access as a proxy for influence is thus likely to lead to er-
roneous results (Dür, 2008: 1213–14). Moreover, access to one governmental body is insufficient to exercise
real influence in a decision-making process that requires the intervention of several institutional bodies, as is
the case for the federal government in the US and in the EU.
Lobbying is generally understood as
one or more face-to-face meetings between representatives of an interest group and legislators,
sought by the former so as to influence the decisions of the latter in a way that benefits the group's
preferences … In its broader form lobbying involves a wide range of initiatives including contacts
with bureaucratic bodies, the premier's office, the courts and parliament, the use of mass media,
preparation of memorandums, the forging of links with individual functionaries and so forth. (Mattina,
2011: 1226)
Research on lobbying suffers the same methodological weaknesses found in the study of access. Scholars
often tend to use their own methods for measuring the impact of lobbying, without any comparison with instru-
ments used by their colleagues. Moreover, scholars often start their research with the optimistic assumption
that lobbying always has some real impact on public decisions, underestimating the fact that in the real world
such groups face several obstacles. These can derive from a scarce attitude of the public decision-makers to
meet groups, demands or from a relevant political salience of the issues at stake that make it hard for politi-
cians to find solutions shared by confrontational interests.
This optimistic bias inevitably overestimates the effectiveness of lobbying. Finally, scholars usually identify
lobbying with a proactive action of pressure, while it is a fact that lobbyists spend most of their time monitoring
the work of different policy actors, to try to obtain the inclusion of their proposals on the political agenda (Heinz
et al., 1993: 380). More generally, lobbying studies suffer from the absence of a shared theoretical basis,
and narrow analytical perspectives have been adopted that led scholars not to build on the results obtained
from the work of others and, accordingly, to make little use of comparisons (Baumgartner and Leech, 1998:
126–37).
Lobbying in Washington and Brussels

Several limits found in the research on lobbying were surmounted by a new wave of studies carried out in
the United States since the second half of the 1980s. Those pieces of research have been able to count on a
better quantity and quality of institutional data, on a greater methodological awareness and on higher atten-
tion paid by scholars to the political–institutional context in which groups decide to favor one lobbying strategy
over another. These changes allowed for important research on lobbying at the federal level and within the
states that increased knowledge of the ways in which lobbying is carried out (Gray and Lowery, 2000). How-
ever, despite this progress, researchers were not able to find an effective assessment of lobbying accepted
by the entire community of scholars.
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The methodological and analytical problems encountered by US scholars have been more evident among
European scholars of interest groups. Research on lobbying is less developed in Europe than in the United
States because European scholars have displayed less interest in the topic, due to the importance attributed
to the neo-corporatist approach (Lehmbruch and Schmitter, 1982). Neo-corporatist scholars take for granted
that there is collusion between policy-makers and the representatives of the main economic interests, while
they largely ignore the lobbying activities of non-economic groups. However, there was a downturn in this area
over the past two decades, mainly generated by the greater political importance assumed by the institutional
system of the European Union: this is based on multilevel governance, which offers many direct access points
for individual groups and national associations. The greater powers acquired by the European Union imposed
on national interests the need to promote their causes by working both in the domestic and the supra-national
arenas. And research on interest groups increased accordingly, by recording steady growth in the number of
surveys devoted to investigation of lobbying in the European Union (Mahoney and Baumgartner, 2008).
A Biased Group System

The issue concerning the functioning of the group system presents important normative implications because
it calls into question the quality of liberal democracies and raises the question of their legitimacy. It is, there-
fore, a topic that presents a serious challenge to scholarship, whose reputation depends to a large extent on
the ability to give an empirical answer to the question: Does the groups system favor balanced access within
institutions to interests operating in society and provide an equal ability to influence policy-making, or are in-
stitutions more attentive to the demands of the few at the expense of the many?
This issue has been addressed by several pieces of research dedicated to access and lobbying in the United
States and European Union. The results on access indicate the groups that are physically at hand in given
policy network. The results on lobbying aim to go one step further because they do not take for granted that
the groups permanently present in the policy arenas are also the most influential. Several factors can prevent
even the groups more active in the policy-making venues from exercising real influence on policy-makers.
Studies on lobbying must therefore be considered as the attempt closer to the identification of actual influence
of interest groups.
Group Access in Washington

The literature on interest groups in the US case registers a bias in favor of business and professional groups
with regard to access. Walker (1983) and Schlozman and Tierney (1986) showed that about three-quarters
of the groups represented in the mid 1980s in Washington were associated with economic and professional
interests. The subsequent surveys carried out by Schlozman et al. (2012) on data concerning nearly 14,000
organizations registered in the 2006 Washington Representative Study confirmed the persistence of a bias in
favor of business and professional groups, although the presence of institutions, especially representatives
of state and local governments, universities and hospitals, also increased. Public interest groups, unions and
groups representing the poor were the most underrepresented. In the past 25 years, their modest capacity
for access to Congress has stagnated or become worse. The difficulties of access for US unions related to
the more general weakening of the US workers’ organizations, whose membership in the private sector fell
between 1981 and 2010 from 21.4% to 11.9% (ibid: 87). Similar to Schattschneider (1960), the persistence of
the bias led Schlozman and colleagues to the conclusion that, although in Washington the pluralist choir be-
came larger, there was no change in either its accent or the assortment of the voices that compose it (2012:
345; Schlozman et al., 2018: 583).

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Group Access in Brussels

The findings derived from research in the United States are confirmed to a large extent for interest groups
in the EU. In fact, the results of the available research indicate that business and professional associations
have easier access to the EU (Rasmussen and Carroll, 2013). The increased presence of these associations
– which represent about 80% of the organizations present in Brussels (Eising, 2007: 393) – results from leg-
islation that favors economic actors with interests in cross-border transactions (trade, investment, production,
distribution) (Stone Sweet and Sandholtz, 1998). The development of the EU's regulatory activity and the
presence of economic interest groups in Brussels go hand in hand. This trend took root to the detriment of
diffuse interests that often turn to the European Parliament to politicize certain issues (environment, health,
consumption). By contrast, business groups prefer to deal with these issues through an exclusively technical
approach within the committees that support the work of the European Commission and the Council. A sur-
vey carried out on the components of a sample of 124 expert committees assisting the work of the European
Commission found that 72% of the representatives of groups participating in the committees’ activity were
representatives of business and professional associations (Mahoney, 2004: 450).
Among business groups, multinational companies took a dominant position within the euro-groups, without
renouncing individual access (Eising, 2007). The considerable availability of organizational and financial re-
sources, as well as international experience and expertise, enabled multinationals to gain an advantage
over euro-groups and national trade associations representing similar interests (European Parliament, 2003:
13–16). Multinationals have therefore become the privileged referent of the Commission, to which they offer
‘good’ information for the preparation of legislation (Broscheid and Coen, 2007: 25–9).
The bias for access in favor of large business groups is not uniformly spread across all policy arenas. It
is greater in some but less pronounced in others, because the disjointed nature of the EU decision-making
process does not create a cumulative advantage for groups that prevail in some policy networks and leaves
open the opportunity for many others to find the proper venue to promote their causes (Mazey and Richard-
son, 2001: 234). The imbalance in access is therefore mitigated by the pluralism of the institutional system of
the EU.
Lobbying in Washington and Brussels

Are the dominant groups present in the most important policy arenas also the most influential? To answer this
question, the literature on interest groups concentrated its efforts, as we have seen, on the study of lobbying.
Washington
With regard to the United States, some surveys – based on a vast amount of empirical data referring to the
past 20 years – allow a satisfactory answer to the question of the possible correspondence between the dom-
inance of certain groups in policy arenas and their influence. Research by Baumgartner and Leech (2001)
on the quarterly reports that companies involved in lobbying must submit to Congress in accordance with the
law allowed detection of a greater presence in Washington of entrepreneurial and professional groups, which
overall represent 65% of the total, compared to 10% represented by non-profit groups, citizens’ associations
and trade unions. The scrutiny of the reports also allowed for distinguishing between a limited number of con-
flicting subjects discussed in some policy networks that attract many groups, and the more than 50% of total
issues that are not contentious, on which barely 3% of lobbying was focused. The entrepreneurial and pro-
fessional groups were active both in the crowded and contentious policy networks and in the non-contentious
ones, where it is enough to suggest the inclusion of a few lines to exert a substantial effect on the outcome
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of the policy. In contrast, trade unions and groups representing widespread interests were active mainly in
the first type of policy network. Moreover, the significant position of the business and professional groups in
the Congress policy-making was confirmed by the amount of money spent on lobbying. The data collected
by Baumgartner and Leech show that entrepreneurial groups and professional associations spent nine times
more than non-profit groups and citizen associations, equaling 85% of total expenditure in the time span con-
sidered by the research. Large companies spent more than half of the total money invested in lobbying.
In conclusion, the research by Baumgartner and Leech shows that entrepreneurial and professional groups
are the most present and the most active in Congress, where they have the most contact with decision-mak-
ers. Moreover, they invest a far greater amount of financial resources in lobbying than other groups do, they
are the best presented in the policy networks and they enjoy the advantage of protected positions within dif-
ferent ‘niches'. They find in the status quo (Baumgartner et al., 2009) a powerful ally for the protection of their
interests. In the end, these data may not be sufficiently exhaustive to establish unequivocally the greater in-
fluence of business community in decision-making in Washington, but they get very close to this goal.
Brussels
The results of research on the EU offer more discordant indications than those reported for the United States.
Some authors believe that in Brussels, much more than in Strasbourg, the business community exerts a sig-
nificant influence on the institutions of the EU. Others doubt this greater influential ability. Concerning the
former, since the beginning of the 1990s, several authors have asserted that the EU decision-making system
favors business interests. More recent studies confirm the evaluations of the previous generation's authors
(Bunea, 2014; Hermansson, 2016). They identify the expert groups that assist the European Commission in
the preparation of legislative proposals as an effective vehicle through which business groups have greater
opportunities to see their preferences reported in the final text of the policy's proposals (Chalmers, 2014).
The bias in favor of business groups through expert groups seems to have been confirmed to some extent
by the results of a recent European Parliament inquiry concerning the censurable omissions of the European
Commission – exploited to their advantage by the automotive companies – in monitoring the implementation
of European regulations aimed at reducing harmful emissions of carbonic acid gas into the atmosphere (Eu-
ropean Parliament, 2017).
Other authors propose a more problematic assessment of business groups’ ability to influence Brussels and
Strasbourg. According to some, business groups can play an important role in drafting the reports that the
European Parliament sends to the Council only when the European business federations present unitary po-
sitions to the most important parliamentary committees, and on issues that have little political salience (Ras-
mussen, 2015). In any case, business groups often face coalitions of interests that include groups represent-
ing diffuse interests. In addition, business interests find allies in most of the member states. The outcome of
such confrontations is usually a compromise, which is often beneficial to the coalition to which diffuse inter-
ests belong (Dür et al., 2013).
Therefore, the most recent research on interest groups’ influence on EU policy-making is dissonant with re-
gard to the assumption that business groups have a decisive influence on European legislation. How to ex-
plain these divergent interpretations? Certainly, in the case of the EU, there are greater difficulties for collect-
ing well-documented data sets than is the case in the United States. These difficulties in the United States,
as regards the federal level, have largely been overcome thanks to the mandatory registration of lobbying
activities. Scholars of groups active at Brussels must instead rely on inadequate data sets to produce shared
results. Scholars also still use different methodologies for data processing. The time periods covered also dif-
fer.

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Without ignoring these divergent findings, we can perhaps consider them as discordant interpretations of a
relationship that has evolved over time. This assessment is in line with the statement by Scharpf (2001) that
business groups were among the main protagonists of the institutional evolution of the EU with the adoption
of the Single Act (1986) and the Maastricht Treaty, and were those who benefited most. However, the process
through which the EU established methods for regulating business groups after Maastricht – particularly in
relation to consumer rights and environmental protection – involves costs for the business community that the
EU often refuses, at least in part, to support. It is therefore not infrequent that attempts to obtain approval for
such requests are frustrated.
To conclude, there is a bias, both in Washington and in Brussels, in the groups system that derives from the
dominant position held by the economic groups close to the institutional places relevant for policy-making.
This position frequently translates into a greater ability of the business community to influence the decisions
taken by political actors. This trend is more pronounced in Washington and less so in Brussels.
Some Explanations of the Privileged Role of Business Groups in Democratic

Regimes
Moving from the results of empirical analysis to the theoretical contributions, the literature on interest groups
explains the causes of the bias in the groups system, distinguishing between the political and the structural
power of the business community. The first discloses itself through greater availability of money, expertise,
financial and organizational resources, which make both access and lobbying easier. The second relates to
their ability to decide when and where to invest. For this reason, according to Lindblom, political authorities
strive with all means at their disposal to support large companies, consequently guaranteeing them a priv-
ileged position in policy-making (Lindblom, 1977). For Lindblom, however, the privileged status of business
groups is incongruent with the founding principles of liberal democracies: ‘The large private corporation fits
oddly into democratic theory and vision. Indeed, it does not fit’ (ibid: 356). Claus Offe (1977) also comes to
similar conclusions, although he adopts a neo-Marxist position that is alien to the liberal tradition to which
Lindblom belongs. According to Offe, political actors can enjoy substantial autonomy from the dominant eco-
nomic groups, but are forced to establish privileged relations with the capitalists because, not having their
own resources, they have an interest in supporting the economic conditions of reproduction of capital which
constitute the material basis of public finances.
The strength of structural conditioning exercised by business groups over political actors risks serious con-
sequences for the legitimacy of liberal democracies. According to Dahl and Lindblom, ‘businessmen play a
distinctive role in polyarchal politics that is qualitatively different from that of any interest group. It is much
more than an interest group’ (1976: xxxvi). Going further, Dahl (1985) concludes that the influence exerted
on public institutions by entrepreneurial groups affects the outcomes of the democratic process, creating so-
cial and political inequalities that nurture one another, reduce possibilities for citizen participation and prevent
implementation of redistributive policies, while renewing the influence of the business community on political
life.
The drastic judgment of Dahl, echoed by Lindblom's and Offe's observations, is related to the idea that public
institutions have little chance of countering business group preferences when they are accompanied by the
threat of reducing investments or of re-allocating them to other countries to oppose unwanted measures such
as high taxation or strict regulatory policies. However, these positions are questioned by scholars who adopt
a neo-institutionalist approach.

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Groups and Institutions: Historical Institutionalism

The main assumption of historical institutionalism is that institutions are prior to interest groups and shape
their ability to exercise influence on policy-making (Hall and Taylor, 1996; Immergut and Anderson, 2008). For
example, Coen and Richardson (2009) argue that EU institutions substantially shape the patterns of lobbying.
This tendency is due to the fact that institutions can impose institutional constraints, more or less relevant,
deriving from their history and their practices over time (path dependency in the sense of Paul Pierson), from
their internal articulation (the more or less large number of institutional veto players involved in the decision-
making), and, last but not least, from the greater public legitimacy they enjoy compared to interest groups.
Based on these assumptions, historical institutionalism distances itself from a certain indeterminacy which
pluralists often adopt to describe the characteristics of the state in liberal democracies, and rejects the as-
sumption of neo-Marxists who classify the state as an instrument to service the ruling class. The state is,
instead, conceived as an actor who can operate in an autonomous way in the decision-making process and
which is able to adopt independent choices in times of economic crisis (Gourevitch, 1986).
Therefore, when important institutional changes occur within a political system, interest groups adapt their
strategies to the new conditions deriving from institutional transformations (Steinmo, 2008). Instead, norms
and institutions are particularly permeable to the influence of groups when they are not adequately equipped
to regulate sectorial pressures. According to Hacker and Pierson (2010), this is the case for the United States’
institutional system, which discourages the formation of disciplined political parties at the federal level, offers
many channels of access to public institutions and is articulated in autonomous central institutions that of-
ten compete. The institutional system also allows an endemic parliamentary obstructionism. The combination
of these institutional characteristics allowed the groups of the business community – better organized and
endowed with considerable financial resources – to engage successfully in promoting highly unequal tax leg-
islation for the benefit of 0.1% of the population and prevented the approval of laws that effectively protect
workers in their workplace and savers from the risks of stock market speculation. By contrast, in other cases
(France and Sweden), when institutions favor the formation of governmental autonomy from the influence of
interest groups, they can launch important reforms – such as health care reform – which, despite the opposi-
tion of medical associations, create a public service that benefits the entire population (Immergut, 1992).
In the end, according to historical institutionalism, institutions have different characteristics from one case to
another, but always influence the behavior of interest groups. The general assumptions of historical institu-
tionalism seem, however, inadequate to grasp the adaptations that business groups devised in the recent
past in various national contexts following the transformations introduced by globalization.
Globalization and Structural Bias

Globalization reduces the powers of the territorial state in contemporary democracies and increases the pow-
er of the business community over governments. In particular, the integration of financial markets generated
a huge increase in funds raised on the international capital market and increased companies’ ability to collect
and transfer capital across national borders. For territorial states, it has become a priority to use incentives
and facilities to the business community to prevent private investment migrating to more attractive shores. As
a result, while firms’ ability to influence governments has increased greatly, national states have increasingly
been forced to promote tax and labor policies that benefit companies and penalize large sectors of the popu-
lation (Crouch and Streeck, 1996; Strange, 1988).
Therefore, it seems appropriate to reconsider the relationship between states and interest groups, overcom-
ing the rigidity of the neo-institutionalist assumptions. To this end, Wolfgang Streeck (2010) argues that the
weakness of the neo-institutionalist approach derives from a static vision of political change, which is con-
ceived as a set of occasional fluctuations that leave unchanged the institutions and the relationships between
them and the protagonists of capitalist development. On the contrary, Streeck supports the idea that change
fueled by the transformations induced by contemporary capitalism can generate radical changes.
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Streeck's criticism of the neo-institutionalist approach finds an empirical foundation in the research that has
critically controlled the assumptions of the literature dedicated to the ‘varieties of capitalism'. This literature
pays special attention to the various institutional solutions adopted by liberal democracies to structure eco-
nomic policy (Hall and Soskice, 2001). But the empirical findings of the comparative research undertaken by
Baccaro and Howell (2011) show that the permanent divergence in existing institutional solutions in different
countries in the relationship between capital and labor proved to be perfectly compatible with the increase in
discretionary choices by entrepreneurs in the workplace. In other words, business communities everywhere
gained power over salaried workers, regardless of the institutional set-up existing in different countries, while
governments have not been able to play their traditional role as ‘neutral’ actors promoting balanced labor poli-
cies compatible with the preferences of the various stakeholders.
It remains to be noted that the greater indulgence of political actors towards business groups risks overthrow-
ing a basic principle of European democracies according to which people have acquired the right to welfare
benefits (establishment of public services in several sectors such as health care, transport, water, education)
by virtue of their status as citizens and not because they can buy them on the market (Crouch, 2004).
Is the Interest Group System Pluralist?

Do the conclusions reached by the most recent research allow us to state that the pluralist structure of the
interest group system has been replaced by a system with a strong elitist connotation? The results of several
pieces of research carried out by scholars who identify themselves with the neo-pluralist approach do not au-
thorize such a drastic statement because they show that the interest system in advanced democracies offers
many opportunities for groups to organize, and institutions still offer many places of access (Berry, 1999; Low-
ery and Gray, 2004). Furthermore, associations of diffuse interests and trade unions show a good capacity for
mobilization when the issues on the table have a strong political salience because they concern problems that
affect large sectors of the community and arouse strong passions based on opposing ideological preferences
(Czada, Chapter 34, this Handbook).
However, the pluralism of the interest groups system is biased in favor of business groups because the
most important decision-making arenas (industry, finance, technology, international trade, agriculture, etc.)
are poorly covered by associations who represent diffuse interests. Moreover, the bias, as we have seen, has
increased in the past three decades, following the weakening of the state's prerogatives vis-à-vis multination-
als and large financial groups.
Overall, the logic of pluralistic competition helps the dispersion of power and the opening up of the political
system, but it cannot guarantee equal opportunities for all groups to influence public decisions. The possi-
bilities to successfully influence public policies depend to a large extent on the different endowments of re-
sources – economic, organizational, education, expertise, prestige – which citizens possess before entering
the arena of pluralistic competition. This problem was highlighted by Dahl and Lindblom many years ago:
‘We cannot move closer to greater equality in political resources without greater equality in the distribution of,
between other things, wealth and income’ (1976: xxxii). In other words, democracies should offer all citizens
some form of substantive equality, because mere equality of opportunities offers only the equal opportunity to
become unequal (Schaar, 1967).
Pluralist Interest Group System and its Alternatives

Pluralism of opportunities and selective benefits enjoyed by business groups are two of the main character-
istics that distinguish group systems in the advanced democracies with which we have dealt in the previous
sections. Regarding the first, we must add that pluralism improves the quality of democracy because it helps
to increase controls on the activity of policy-makers, contributes to the growth of democratic debate on the
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advancement of human rights and can promote a more egalitarian distribution of national resources through
confrontation among the various stakeholders. Taken together, these qualifications do not reduce the existing
imbalance in favor of the business community, but pluralist group systems can contain it, although the histor-
ical age of neoliberal globalization does not seem the best time for this to happen. In other words, pluralism
seems to be the most important quality of the interest group system. It is therefore worth reflecting further on
the conditions that make the pluralist interest group system achievable in the advanced democracies, while
it seems infeasible in authoritarian (China) and hybrid (Russia) regimes and problematic in Latin American
presidential democracies (Brazil) or in the oldest Asian democratic regime (India).
China
China is a civil authoritarian regime characterized by the strict control that the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) exerts on the media and on any form of political activity. The political stability of the Chinese regime
depends on the economic dynamism that the political elite has been able to create and the systematic use of
repression of any form of independent politics (Freedom House, 2018a). The economic diversification initiat-
ed by the CCP in the late 1980s was based on the privatization of several sectors of the economy. Today, the
CCP includes several members of the business community who were previously senior cadres of the party
(Li et al., 2008). The intertwining of relationships between party cadres and state officials from one side and
business groups from the other forms a lucrative alliance that fuels the already widespread corruption, which
is one of the main obstacles to the government's efforts to improve social equality while pushing for economic
development (Xiangwei, 2006).
As in other East Asian countries (Japan, Taiwan, South Korea), the Chinese political leadership has created a
strongly corporatist system to support intensive economic development. But Chinese corporatism presents a
significant difference. While the neighboring countries maintained a centralized state corporatism in the early
decades of industrialization, China has reduced state seizures and controls the economy and society through
CCP surrogates, namely the hundreds of thousands of social organizations who strive to interpret the de-
mands of the complex Chinese society while maintaining the priority of promoting the state's interest (Unger
and Chan, 1995). None of the Chinese social organizations controlled by the Communist Party is committed
to the promotion of human rights. Individuals attempting to promote human rights are imprisoned and often
tortured until they confess that they have acted against ‘national security’ (The Guardian, 2017).
In Chinese state corporatism, unions are called upon to carry out the double role of guaranteeing state inter-
ests and representing workers’ complaints over low pay, underpayment of social insurance and abusive man-
agement regimes. The only state-permitted union – All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) – claims
to have embarked on reforms for improving worker protection. But in redressing workers’ grievances, ACFTU
functions more as an agency for legal assistance using a strategy of problem-solving on a case-by-case ba-
sis than as a labor organization that defends workers’ collective interests in a proactive way. In other terms,
given its position in Chinese state corporatism, ACTFU operates mostly as a state instrument with the pur-
pose of preventing or stopping any labor action, or simply disappears when conflicts occur (Chen, 2003). The
Chinese experiment of state corporatism shows that an authoritarian regime does not contemplate a group
system independent of state control, and prevents the development of a politically autonomous civil society
by maintaining its repressive grip both over citizens who ask for promotion of human rights and over workers
who claim rights for better work conditions and higher wages.
Russia
Russia is a hybrid regime characterized by a constitution that stipulates political pluralism, freedom of speech
and the existence of multiple sources of information. In reality, what prevails are restrictions on political com-

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petition and interference in local and regional elections in ways that prevent citizens invoking their right to
change their government. The central government controls many forms of media and often infringes on free-
doms of speech and expression, pressures major independent media to abstain from critical coverage and
harasses and intimidates journalists into practicing self-censorship (Gelman, 2015).
Within the regime, the interest group system is characterized by the dominant position taken by large econom-
ic groups loyal to the central power. These groups, with the support of the central government from 2001 on-
ward, formed major associations of entrepreneurs and created a permanent coordination between the state's
interests (mostly concentrated on the control of natural resources) and the biggest corporations. This alliance
between the state elite and big business continues to define the development prospects of Russian society
and economy (Ledeneva, 2013). Alongside the political–economic elite, a plethora of informal clan-based in-
terest groups, which are firmly intertwined with the institutions of the regime, has developed. These clans use
their influence on the state machine to secure benefits and privileges in a system that does not offer firm legal
guarantees for protecting rights and property (Kimmage, 2009), while corruption continues to be widespread
throughout the executive, legislative and judicial branches at all levels of public institutions (Freedom House,
2018b: 9).
The work of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) is arduous because it is hampered by obstructionist

measures of the government. Restrictions are applied in a discriminatory manner, particularly to those NGOs
that are receiving foreign funding or involved in issues of political opposition or human rights monitoring (Crot-
ty, 2009). Moreover, security services and local authorities at times fabricate grounds for legal justification
for searches and raids on civil society groups. Independent unions are active in some industrial sectors and
regions, but in practice worker rights are limited. The largest labor federation (FNPR) works in close cooper-
ation with the Kremlin, while the right to strike is difficult to exercise (Olimpieva, 2012). As a matter of fact,
the majority of strikes are considered technically illegal because they violate one or more of a complex set of
procedures governing disputes. While the law prohibits anti-union discrimination, the police often uses intim-
idation techniques against union supporters, including detention, interrogations and provocation of physical
confrontation. Sometimes police pressure union activists to become informants (Kimmage, 2009).
The Russian interest groups system is dominated by political–economic oligarchies and is repressive towards
diffused interests. The group system is state-controlled and insensitive to the many pressures coming from
an expanding civil society. Given these characteristics, the Russian interest group system can move towards
a more pluralist pattern only in the case of regime change; however, at present this seems unlikely.
Brazil
The group system in Brazil is a system of modified corporatism (Thomas, 2009). This system maintains some
characteristics of the authoritarian state corporatism which was distinctive of Brazilian political life until the
1980s, while at the same time it has acquired some aspects of a pluralist group system. During the military
dictatorship (1964–89), the state placed major controls on group organization. In particular, the authoritarian
regime adopted legislation that transformed workers’ organizations to subordinate supporters of the central
power. This structure of the group system has been a serious obstacle to the development of political plural-
ism since the demise of the authoritarian regime. Therefore, the Brazilian group system continues to provide
a series of legislative facilities for the unions, but at the same time limits their freedom of action, making work-
ers’ organizations often ineffective and prone to sectarianism (Lang and Gagnon, 2009).
More generally, the Brazilian group system is characterized by a large number of cliques that are active within
central and regional bureaucracies, as well as in government bodies. These cliques promote their interests
through exclusive ties based on family and friendship relationships, fueling elitism and widespread political
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corruption. At the same time, the Brazilian group system has developed, mainly since the mid 1980s, several
aspects of pluralist systems. In fact, in recent decades, a considerable increase in the number of groups has
been registered (Oliveira Gozetto and Thomas, 2014). Moreover, the degree of institutionalization of many
interest groups has increased, together with the range of active interests and the tactics and strategies used.
Because of its hybrid character, the current Brazilian interest group system appears similar to that of Mex-
ico, Argentina and Peru. In other words, it is a system that is neither entirely free from the dependence of
the state nor adequately open to the demands coming from civil society, which, to a large extent, distrusts a
system that is perceived as elitist, not transparent and a generator of corrupt practices. The Brazilian group
system's inadequacy to aggregate the demands that come from the majority of the population could favor the
emergence of populist phenomena similar to those that appeared in Venezuela and Bolivia in recent decades
(ibid: 237).
India
India, the largest democracy in the world, offers many points of access to interest groups thanks to its federal
structure based on the decentralization of power at the state, local and village levels (panchayat). India is
also one of the countries with the greatest social heterogeneity, as well as strong inequalities and extensive
poverty. The Indian economy has also shown a significant increase in economic growth since 1991 as a result
of external pressures in favor of a modernization of the economy derived from neo-liberal globalization. The
factors mentioned contribute to a pluralist characterization of the Indian group system. However, the great
social heterogeneity – which nourishes territorial, linguistic, ethnic, religious, tribal divisions – contributes to
the fragmentation of interests and the country's institutional structure facilitates compartmentalization within
the various levels of the federal system, hindering the mentioned factors’ effectiveness on a national scale.
The political parties also contribute to the fragmentation of Indian groups, because groups are often ancillary
associations of the many political parties that represent mainly local interests, while only few have a federal
dimension. In 2014, 1,600 parties were registered to participate in the federal parliamentary elections.
The compartmentalization of interests is one of the conditions of the stability of Indian democracy, because
conflicts present at the decentralized levels of the institutional system are unlikely to reach the federal gov-
ernment, which remains stable thanks to the formation of coalition governments and a consociational style of
decision-making (Hardgrave, 1993). In contrast, by staying subordinate to local parties, the compartmental-
ized groups contribute to feeding the separatist pressures that several Indian states cultivate to the detriment
of national unity. The insufficient structuring of interests is also caused by the existence of strong social in-
equalities that hinder the political participation of large parts of the rural world population to which more than
60% of Indians belong. Rural India is mostly illiterate, segmented according to religion, caste and language,
and often unaware of the welfare policies promoted by the federal government to alleviate poor social con-
ditions (Sekhar, 2005). This situation benefits local farmers with large and medium-sized businesses, who
control the patronage networks on which the rural masses depend, and ally with local governments to hinder
or block federal policies of social equalization.
The difficulties that the complex reality of Indian society poses to a modern structure of interests are to some
extent surmounted by groups of the business community, which are, however, divided into competing orga-
nizations mainly on a territorial basis. The liberalization of the Indian economy at the beginning of the 1990s
prompted the federal institutions – traditionally interventionist in the economy – to meet business groups’ de-
mands to loosen the grip of regulations. Now the role of the federal government is more that of a facilitator
rather than a regulator (Mitra and Singh, 2010: 35). A consequence of this new approach is that Western-ori-
ented policies often forget the sustainable development in the countryside, where large parts of stakeholders
remain cut off from the trilateral decision-making process that involves politicians, bureaucrats and business
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groups. These trilateral interactions often generate corruption, which is a great disease of Indian administra-
tion and politics and deeply affects the daily relationships between citizens and politicians (Bhagwan, 2007).
Besides the government and business groups, there are trade unions. In India, the top layers of unionized la-
bor are the interests shaped in the tertiary sector by the economic pervasiveness of the Indian state. The ma-
jority of white-collar employees – teachers, professors, medical doctors, engineers, scientists and employees
of governmental organizations – seem to be among the few who have the potentiality to act on an all-India
basis (Charan, 1994: 152). By contrast, the heterogeneity of membership renders the unions of blue-collar
workers unstable, fragmented and uncoordinated. Moreover, the blue-collar unions are restricted to the met-
ropolitan areas and concentrated in large-scale factories; their number is negligible in the rural areas and in
the informal sector of the economy, which comprises more than 90% of the Indian workforce. Finally, in the
field of industrial relations, Indian trade unions are losing the battle for job preservation in the formal sec-
tor, against the neo-liberal trend that creates a shift to the informal sector with an accompanying increase in
poverty (Jit, 2016).
In conclusion, the Indian group system is pluralist but also fragmented and compartmentalized; what is worse,
the most disadvantaged groups are excluded from it – and exclusion breeds protest. Therefore grievances
against the government, especially in India's rural eastern regions, are frequent, while in the urban areas
thousands of protest groups are engaged in issues related to the environment, education, women's rights,
worker's rights, protection from police abuses, religious persecution and gay rights. These protest move-
ments, which involve millions of people, are a permanent characteristic of the Indian political landscape. But
the interest group system does not appear capable of aggregating these interests and channeling them into
institutionalized negotiations with the federal and state governments. This is the most important limitation of
the Indian group system, and is also a structural weakness of the democracy of this great Asian country.
Conclusion
The discussion in the previous section leads to the conclusion that neither China nor Russia have a pluralist
group system. In the former, they lack the two minimum conditions for its achievement: independence from
the state of the channels which aggregate interests, and the autonomous development of civil society. In the
latter, these conditions are in existence to an embryonic degree and may regress. The Brazilian system of
modified corporatism, unlike China and Russia, presents an incipient pluralism that nevertheless coexists with
the survival of state controls on groups and opaque and discriminatory lobbying practices.
India is the most interesting case because it signals that even a democratic regime may not be able to offer
suitable opportunities for groups to organize the many demands that are initiated in the civil society and in the
economy. The limits of the Indian group system, which has apparent pluralist characteristics, derive from the
extreme social heterogeneity and the enormous inequalities that still exist in the country. Both of these factors
contribute to the formation of an interest group system that is fragmented and compartmentalized and which,
moreover, shows a structural inability to integrate the needs of the countless poorest members of Indian so-
ciety.
The discussion of the different configurations that group systems assume in the contemporary world suggests
that this system has greater chances to become pluralist when two requirements, one political–institutional
and the other socio-cultural, are fulfilled. The first is related to the emancipation of the group system from
state control, which takes place when the institutional conditions that prevent its autonomous functioning are
completely eliminated. The second is the robust reinforcement that group systems receive when civil soci-
ety articulates itself in numerous ways that enter into the already existing organized channels of political de-
mands.
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In general, it is wise to bear in mind that group systems have better chances of assuming a real pluralist con-
figuration when both groups and governments operate within a system of effective checks and balances. This
means that a long list of conditions is necessary to have a pluralist group system.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n35

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Parties
Contributors: Daniel-Louis Seiler

Chapter Title: "Parties"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Parties
Daniel-Louis Seiler
The word ‘party’ refers to one of the oldest concepts used in modern political science. Its use in historical,
philosophical or polemical vocabulary first appeared in the 17th century with the memoirs of Cardinal de Retz
in France, Viscount Bolingbroke in England and, above all, David Hume, who, in the early 18th century, initiat-
ed what was to become the analysis of parties. Nonetheless, the word has been used since the Middle Ages
to refer to the opposite sides in a civil war, for example. Even the etymology of the word party is telling: party,
‘parti’ in French, ‘partei’ in German, ‘partido’ in Spanish and even ‘partia’ in Russian and Polish and in many
other languages – derived from the verb ‘partir', which in medieval French meant to split into parts or divide.
All European languages – including Slavic ones which use other terms, such as ‘strana’ in Czech or ‘stanka’
in Croat or Serbian – use words to mean ‘side'. The idea is the same: to take sides or to choose one's side or
one's camp in a political conflict. All definitions can be grouped into three broad categories, which are some-
times combined. First of all, following Burke, parties can be defined according to the ideas they convey. Then,
following Max Weber, Robert Michels and Maurice Duverger, one can insist on the parties as organizations.
Finally, the trend since the end of the 20th century has been to use the criterion of elections and the existence
of a representative, or at least democratic, regime. The remark attributed to Max Weber that ‘parties are the
children of democracy and universal suffrage’ is put forward to support this thesis. One should not, however,
forget the classic definition given during the reign of George III by Edward Burke: ‘A party is a body of men
united for promoting by their joint endeavors the national interest upon some particular principle in which they
are all agreed’ (Burke, 1770; 134). This definition remains the best, even if the subsequent evolution of politi-
cal systems has made it imprecise, as it is now incomplete. Here, we propose to use the term in the following
way: a party is an organization of individuals engaged in collective action, in order to mobilize as many indi-
viduals as possible against other equally mobilized individuals in order to accede, either alone or in coalition,
to the exercise of government functions. This engagement and this claim for power are justified by a particular
conception of the national interest. Below, we first discuss this definition in greater detail, then turn to the par-
ty's historical origins and conceptualization in the European context, and finally come to contemporary forms
of organization of the party in different parts of the world, and recent developments.
Definitional Elements
As we have seen, (1) the party is the product of a collective organized action that is permanent and continuous
in time. It is therefore intended to outlive the action of its founding fathers and continue throughout history for
as long as it is able to mobilize the supporters that keep it alive. As an institution, parties present characteris-
tics common to all organizations studied by organizational theory. Parties are in the category of association-
type organizations, that is to say, based on voluntary membership and the choice of the actors: members,
militants, elected representatives, leaders. If membership is automatically granted on the basis of birth, family
or clan, it is not a party. (2) Any organization is structured according to an objective, which, in the case of
a party, is to accede to the different functions of government: national, regional and local. Parties can exist
which are limited to one or the other of these levels of government, as is often the case in Canada, for exam-
ple. A political organization that does not strive for power, but merely for influence, is not a party. (3) Claiming
power is not an end in itself: it is justified for the sake of the national interest, which the party intends to defend
or promote depending on the particular conception of the actors involved. Claiming power in the name of a
particular conception of the national interest constitutes the raison d'être of a party and a condition sine qua
non for a political organization to be a party. (4) The way to reach the objective of the party to which its orga-
nization is rationally conditioned is the mobilization of as many individuals as possible. The most frequently
used means is electoral mobilization and most parties were born with the establishment of more or less com-
petitive representative political systems (see also Michels 1962).
Democratization – whether gradual, as in the United Kingdom, or brutal, as in France – gave rise to the devel-
opment of parties. By contrast, in authoritarian systems non-electoral modes of organization and mobilization
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exist. These can be peaceful – meetings, demonstrations, strikes, petitions, such as with chartism in Great
Britain, Solidarity in Poland and the Civic Forum in former Czechoslovakia – or violent, as in uprisings, revolu-
tions and so on. The common character shared by electoral mobilization and other forms of party mobilization
is the appeal to the popular masses – that is to say, according to La Palombara and Weiner (1966), that they
are in some way striving for popular support. Partisan mobilization is carried out against individuals who are
also organized with a view to acceding to government in the name of a different, often opposite, conception
of national interest. As we have seen, party means part (division) and therefore implies conflict. Jean Blondel
(1978) sees behind every party ‘a protracted social conflict’ (pp. 137–141).
As a corollary, it can be said that there are no parties without conflicts. They always convey either a current,
active conflict of which they are agents or a past conflict of which they are witnesses – an example is the
opposition between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael in Ireland, which corresponds historically to the struggle be-
tween anti-Treaty and Free State republicans in the bloody civil war of 1921–2. One of the major aspects of
the seminal contribution by Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan (1967) is to have assigned to parties
the function that summarizes all the others: agents of conflict and instruments of integration. The dialectic
is the following: by expressing conflict, parties thus allow negotiation and contribute at the end of a more or
less long evolution to pacifying political life. Conflict and integration, as well as the name party or part, imply
ipso facto plurality and competition between parties. The term ‘parties’ means a system of parties, and con-
sequently that there are at least two of them. A single party is a contradiction in terms: it is impossible to be
at the same time a single entity and a part. This obvious fact was stated at the beginning of the last century
by Max Weber. The contradictory concept of a ‘single party’ or a one-party system was nonetheless used at
the time of the Cold War to designate the role of a party in communist or authoritarian systems. Almond and
Powell (1966), for example, distinguish between parties that are ‘one-party pluralistic', modeled on the PRI in
Mexico before democratization, and those that are ‘one-party revolutionary, centralizing’ (99). While contest-
ing the logical pertinence of the ‘one-party system’ concept, Sartori (1976) nonetheless admits this category
as the first level of his seven-rank typology.
To clarify the debate, which has retained its historical pertinence, it is necessary to distinguish two totally dif-
ferent cases. On the one hand, as Max Weber asserted in a predictive manner by studying the ‘parte Guelfa’
in the medieval republic of Florence, where one party eliminates its rivals to become incorporated in the appa-
ratus of the state, it changes its nature and ceases to be a political party. It then falls into another sociological
concept. Raymond Aron (1967), a disciple of Weber, applies this approach to the cases of fascism, Nazism
and Stalinism and speaks of ‘monopolistic parties', which hasten to eliminate all the other parties as soon as
they come to power and thus change their nature. On the other hand, we encounter so-called parties founded
after a military or non-military clique has taken over power. These are sham parties set up in order to control
the population, like those of certain authoritarian regimes, such as the Popular Movement of Zaire at the time
of President Mobutu. With the changes of regime and the return to democratic forms of power, these so-called
single parties disappeared along with the regimes that created them. By contrast, ‘monopolistic parties’ which
had ‘changed their nature’ by eliminating their rivals have in most cases gone back to their original nature
with the loss of power and the return to democracy. Thus, more recently, Kuo Min Tang in Taiwan alternat-
ed in government with the independence movement, while the PRI in Mexico and the Communist Party in
the Russian Federation embodied the Loyal Opposition. Similarly, communist parties in Eastern Europe have
been able to reconvert themselves. This was not the case for Salazar's National Union in Portugal, or the
Movement created by Franco to support his dictatorship.
Origins
The history of the appearance and development of parties corresponds to that of the scientific study of the
phenomenon. Lipset and Rokkan (1967) note four thresholds in the evolution of a party: legitimization, incor-
poration, representation and majority power. One can apply these to every party and to every stage of the
party system.
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Parties were not always considered to be legitimate. As a sign of conflict in societies seeking balance and
harmony, they were associated with a form of evil. Political modernity, which developed with the disintegra-
tion of the feudal order in the Renaissance, was embodied in absolutist states and parties only emerged in
times of crisis, civil or religious wars. Even with the establishment of a representative regime, the party was
first perceived as something that divides and was equated with a faction. The timing of the legitimization of
parties, the very idea of a party system, depends on the country. Thus, three men of action who were also
political thinkers reflect the same perplexity towards parties in three countries during three different periods:
Bolingbroke in early 18th-century England, Madison at the time of the American Revolution, and de Gaulle in
France in the mid-20th century. All three of them in their own way were deeply concerned about parties and
their struggles and advocated national unity against all the divisions, yet finally themselves became involved
in the struggles of parties. As a necessary evil, the party is always the party of the other, and the temptation to
find other democratic paths was long present but doomed to failure. This was the case with the ‘era of good
feelings’ desired by President Monroe after 1816, in order to put an end to the opposition between federalists
and republican-democrats. In Great Britain, the phenomenon appears earlier and the writings of Hume bear
witness to this fact; however, here it remains within the elite, unlike in the United States, where it concerned
the masses. The distinction between parties and factions is the determining criterion and it is with Hume that
this was clearly established.
The origin of parties and their existence before a representative regime depends on the definition. If we retain
the three criteria that we propose – (1) a particular conception of the national interest, (2) free organization
and (3) mobilization – the Guelphs (13th century) were a party, even if their means of action were different
from those of modern parties. Their fight against the Ghibelines, however, degenerated into a struggle be-
tween factions. Cavaliers and Roundheads, Whigs and Tories were also parties. When they were still badly
organized, parties were discovered and studied by social scientists at first as carriers of ideas. Then, with
the extension of the electoral franchise and civil rights, they were studied as organizations. Bryce, Michels,
Ostrogorsky and, above all, Max Weber laid down the foundations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Finally, the study of the mobilization of actors began in the 20th century with Andre Siegfried on electoral
geography and Maurice Duverger on circles of participation in partisan activity. It branched out in many direc-
tions – militants, members, sympathizers and voters – and was favored by the development of the various
forms of sociological survey research. These three approaches are necessary and have to converge if one is
to understand (1) a given political party, (2) a national system of parties or (3), in a comparative manner, the
classification of parties.
The Raison D'être and the Identity of Parties

Devoted to the defense and the promotion of a particular conception of the national interest (Burke), many
19th and 20th-century historians likened parties to the great schools of political thought: conservatism, liberal-
ism, socialism, Christian democracy, communism, fascism, and so on. The links between the two phenomena
are obvious, except that parties – agents of conflict but also instruments of integration – are led in majority
governments to betray their initial ambition and adapt themselves to the constraints of the exercise of power,
to become institutionalized, to change their program and sometimes their ideology in order to become catch-
all parties (Kirchheimer, 1965). One must therefore observe the social interests that are expressed through
these ideas and justify the ‘particular conceptions of national interest'. Duverger saw in parties the translation
of two successive class struggles: the conflict between the land-owning nobility expressed by the conserva-
tives and the capitalist bourgeoisie represented by the liberals, on the one hand, and that of the bourgeoisie
against the proletariat organized by socialists, social democrats and labor parties, on the other. Liberals were
confronted with the dilemma of whether to ally themselves with their former conservative enemies against
the peril represented by workers’ parties – the choice taken by liberals – or to accept alliances with social
democrats – the case for the so-called radical parties. Duverger (1954) notes that some Christian Democratic
parties in Catholic Europe or agrarian ones in some Nordic countries remained outside these class struggles,
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on which the dualism between left and right is founded. It is the superimposition of dualisms that generates
multiparty systems. Duverger found that using the Anglo-American majority vote – ‘first past the post’ – facili-
tates the establishment of a two-party system opposing conservative-liberals and social democrats.
We find the same idea in Lipset's Political Man (1960), who sees in parties the expression of social classes.
For him, there are three such classes: (1) the upper class, supported by the Church, which is expressed
in conservative parties; (2) the secular middle class, expressed in liberal parties; (3) the working class, ex-
pressed in labor, socialist and social democrat parties. The right, center and left form a democratic spectrum,
to which corresponds an anti-democratic, extremist spectrum, including the communist extreme left and the
authoritarian monarchist, clerical and reactionary extreme right as the expression of a refusal of change by
a threatened upper class – illustrations include Salazar in Portugal, Horthy in Hungary, Dollfuss in Austria or
Franco in Spain in the interwar period. The originality of Lipset is to show that the middle class also engen-
dered an extreme center with Italian fascism and German Nazism, which was opposed to the extreme left and
extreme right. Today, the concept of the extreme center is enlightening in the description of parties such as
the FPÖ in Austria or the Rassemblement National in France and in the definition of a clear relationship be-
tween fascism and the former National Alliance in Italy. It is more precise and more scientific than the concept
of populism. Lipset attenuated his position somewhat by remarking that certain traditional parties, such as
Catholic parties, combine cultural conservatism with socio-economic reformism, and that new forces like the
green parties mix cultural liberalism and anti-industrialist reaction, thus constituting a neo-bourgeois ideology.
The approach exposed in Political Man remains most fruitful but leaves aside the existence of interclass par-
ties, which are nonetheless not catch-all parties. The most fitting example was Democrazia Cristiana, the
Italian Christian Democrats, which was backed by a workers’ union (CISL) but also by certain employers,
grouping together people with nothing in common other than the defense of the interests and values of the
Catholic community. It included as many as nine tendencies (correnti) spreading from the pro-Marxist left to
the traditionalist extreme right. This party, which was born out of anti-fascist resistance and anti-communism
after World War II, broke up in an interesting way in the 1990s. The right was recovered by Berlusconi; the
center-right refused to join the People's Freedom Party (PDL) created by Berlusconi in 2009; the center-left
and left merged with the former members of the PCI to found the Democratic Party in 2008. In fact, the DC
met the same fate as the French MRP 30 years earlier. The latter was also formed during the Resistance
and dispersed its forces to the right, the center and the left. The Christian Democratic parties of the Benelux
countries and Switzerland correspond to the same model as the Italian one. The same can be said about the
German Zentrum party from 1871 to 1933, but not about the German CDU, which is no more clerical than the
LR in France. By contrast, in Bavaria the CSU belonged to the tradition of classic, clerical conservatism, but
clericalism also became contested in the party itself.
Historical Cleavages in Europe

Finally, if only in order to understand multiparty systems with more than six parties, it is necessary to use a
multidimensional space, as in the systematic model of the origin of parties in Europe set up by Lipset and
Rokkan (1967). For them, cleavages are neither ephemeral oppositions nor contingent divisions, but structur-
al effects which result from the political translation of profound traumatic changes that affected the history of a
country or a group of countries. These conflicting effects are exerted along two axes: the functional axis and
the territorial–cultural axis. In the case of Europe, originally marked by Catholic Christianity, two revolutions
engendered four cleavages: national revolutions and the Industrial Revolution. The former broke the unity
between countries born of the Reformation and those marked by the Catholic counter-reformation. Two cleav-
ages were engendered: (1) along the unitary center/periphery axis opposing modernization to the resistance
of the subjected cultures from provinces and peripheral areas; (2) along the functional Church versus State
axis, opposing the modernizing, secular elite and the defense of the interests of the Church in the fields of ed-
ucation and values. The Industrial Revolution also generated two cleavages: (3) along the territorial axis, pri-
mary versus secondary economy, opposing landed interests and the rising class of industrial entrepreneurs;
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(4) along the functional axis, with employers/owners opposing the interests of property, capital and business
and the labor union movement which defended the interests of wage earners.
These four cleavages are conveyed in the short term through the issues which oppose the parties, and in
the long term through the party systems. In Catholic and Protestant Europe, on both sides of each cleav-
age, families of parties emerged that became established with the extension of suffrage and democratization.
Since then, these cleavage-based party systems have been ‘frozen’ for a considerable time. Depending on
the period, one may add that a cleavage can dominate electoral parliamentary debate: Church versus State
in Catholic countries in the 19th century; primary versus secondary sector in Sweden at the same time; the
center versus periphery cleavage in the Basque country or in Ireland. However, the most important cleavage
in Western Europe since the crisis of 1929, and even before, has been owners versus workers: apart from
the two cases cited previously, this forms the axis of the most frequent parliamentary constellations.
Socio-Economic Cleavages
Currently, the majority of parties are based on the functional–economic owners versus workers cleavage. In
other words, on the one hand there are parties for the defense of owners, which have formal and/or informal
links with employers, companies and the business community in general, but with a much broader electoral
base which includes the middle classes. This family unites former previously opposed parties, such as con-
servatives and liberals in Protestant countries, Switzerland and the Benelux countries. It also includes parties
of other origins from former Christian Democratic groups, such as the CDU-CSU in Germany or former na-
tionalists such as LR in France (this party includes former Gaullists, conservatives and liberals), as well as
new parties such as the PSD in Portugal, the post-Franco Partido Popular in Spain, and Forza Italia, which
merged with the post-fascist AN to form the PDL, a unified right-wing party.
On the other hand, since the 19th century there has been a systematic development of parties for the defense
of workers, which historically constitute the labor movement and maintain special links with labor unions. Their
voters are salaried employees, mainly working class, but also some white-collar workers and civil servants.
They were born in the wake of the Industrial Revolution from the convergence of four forces: two ideologies –
the Jacobinism of the French revolution and radical philosophy, and social Christianity in Protestant countries
– and two forms of political organization – the labor unions and cooperative movements, and the internation-
alism of Marx, Engels and their disciples. The combination of these four ingredients, in variable proportions
depending on the country, created three genetic models in the sense of Angelo Panebianco (1988) which de-
veloped into three traditions which are very visible today. The first is the labor tradition, born out of the failure
of chartism, which was translated into parties of ideological and religious pluralism, dominated organically by
the labor unions in which, ideologically, social Christianity is slightly more important than radicalism, whereas
the International and Marxism are minor or even marginal. The second is the social democratic tradition, born
in Germany and dominated by the Socialist International and Marxism, in which trade unionism emanated
from the party. These parties have kept a controlled and solid form of organization, which has particularly sub-
sisted in the Swedish SAP and in the Austrian SPÖ. The third is the social democratic tradition of the French
revolution of 1848 – marked by Jacobin radicalism and the republican and anticlerical struggle. From the start,
these parties came up against distrust from the anarcho-syndicalist movement, which was hostile to any col-
laboration with parties. The anarcho-syndicalists combined theoretical anarchism founded on the rejection of
the state with electoral politics, advocating a mutual benefits system, self-management and federalism with
practical ‘bread and butter’ reformism within companies. Moreover, the union movement was divided by a
new Christian labor movement, which was equally wary of party politics, and a communist labor movement
which would ultimately supplant anarcho-syndicalism. The socialist-democratic tradition came to be embod-
ied in weaker, intellectual parties and was neither controlling the labor movement nor being controlled by it.
These socialist parties – French, Italian and Spanish – would practice ideological extremism and give more
than their due to Marxism while practicing shortsighted reformism.

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The communist tradition is, in fact, a variant of the social democracy which was implanted in France and Italy,
where it failed. It is a kind of fighting social democracy which has accentuated its specific features: orthodox
Marxism; centralized organization adapted to the political struggle in authoritarian regimes (democratic cen-
tralism); control over the unions which have become the ‘driving belts'; and above all the primacy of the Inter-
national. With the Komintern, communist parties were the only party with an international dimension, devoted
for many years to the interests of the USSR, which was presented under Stalin as the fatherland of socialism.
The similarity between the electorate of the French and Italian communist parties on the one hand and of the
Austrian, German and Scandinavian social democratics on the other hand favored the incorporation of some
communist parties into party systems, their unofficial social democratization including membership of the So-
cialist International.
The PCI, the Italian communist party, was the first to take this path; it was soon to be joined, with the end of
the USSR, by the Hungarians, Bulgarians and Lithuanians. The development of a Marxism sui generis adapt-
ed to Italy and the West thanks to Antonio Gramsci and the strategic intelligence and political savoir faire of
its leaders, Palmiro Togliatti and Enrico Berlinguer, who were anxious to promote ‘a national path towards so-
cialism’ helped this transformation of the PCI first into the PDS and then into the DS (left-wing democrats) and
PD, with the gradual help of the Christian Democrats. The PCF (French Communist Party) remained Stalinist
for a long time, headed by leaders of no great stature – mainly Thorez and Marchais – and did not take the
opportunity to return to social democracy. In the Scandinavian countries where social democracy is strong,
the extreme left is also of communist origin – the Danish SF (Popular Socialists) broke off links with Moscow
in 1956, and in Sweden the communist party became the Left Party. The situation has been the same in Fin-
land since the end of the Soviet Union. By contrast, the left-wing socialists in Norway are a dissident Labor
Party movement. The case of Die Linke (the Left) in Germany is more ambiguous: the former communist par-
ty of East Germany, with its strong organization, merged with social democratic dissidents from the SPD. The
most original of all parties situated ‘on the left of the left’ is the SP, the Dutch socialist party, an anti-capitalist
protest party composed of former Maoists which has won up to 10% of votes.
Center–Periphery Cleavages
Outside the dominant socio-economic one, the other important cleavage is center–periphery, which relates
to territorial defense and is divided into two opposed families. On the one hand, there are the parties of cen-
tralized state nationalism, which correspond historically to a unifying, imperialistic state nationalism which is
economically protectionist and which, socially, carries policies that are favorable to a protective state. One is
reminded of Bismarckism in Germany, which during the Weimar Republic became the German National Par-
ty (DNVP), and of Bonapartism in France, and then the republican current from which Gaullism originated.
These parties, concerned about the authority of the state, are inclined to deviate towards authoritarianism,
have engendered some extreme versions – the total state that identifies nation, state and leader in fascist
totalitarianism in Italy; Nazism in Germany – and have been emulated by many others. These extreme cen-
ter parties are wrongly assigned to the extreme right and characteristically attract not only voters from the
working class, but also leaders from left-wing parties: Mussolini, a former socialist in charge of the newspaper
Avanti; Jacques Doriot, a former communist deputy and the founder of the PPF (French Popular Party); the
less conventional Oswald Mosley, a former Labour MP and the founder of the British Union of Fascists. After
World War II, with its horror and crimes against humanity, fascism is no longer presented as such, except in
the case of marginal groups which are not parties.
Nevertheless, the ideological ground has remained fertile and able to produce analogous parties, which out
of caution tone down their discourse. Globalization, immigration and the crises since the end of the 1970s
favored the rebirth of post-fascism in places where a previous tradition existed: the National Front of Jean-
Marie Le Pen in France; the FPÖ – heir of the pan-Germanic nationalist current – in Austria; and the NPD
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(National Democrat Party) in some Länder in Germany now challenges by the new born AFD. We may add,
in Flanders, Vlaams Belang, the new name of Vlaams Blok, heir of the pro-Nazi VNV that existed between
the two world wars. In other countries where there was no previous fascist tradition, new movements have
emerged with a similar sociology and a less articulate discourse. Their creed resides in a radical xenophobia
enhanced since the beginning of the 21st century by anti-Islamism. The longest-lasting case is the Danish
popular party, DF, but the most spectacular is to be found in the Netherlands, in the LPF. That the founder and
leader of the DF is a woman – Pia Kjaersgaard – and her Dutch counterpart in the LPF was a millionaire and
a militant homosexual (who was assassinated by an animal rights activist) constitutes a break with traditional
fascism; however, it is a mistake to consider them as new parties: their organization is new, yet the issues
which fuel them – xenophobia and racism – have political roots that go back to the 19th century. Whether
moderate or extremist, democratic authoritarian, state-nationalist parties are – or were – authentic catch-all
parties.
The historical opponents of centralism are parties for the defense of the Periphery, sometimes regionalist and
federalist, sometimes nationalist and separatist. They are the expression of ethnic or linguistic minorities and
have a territory that is quite easily definable. Their existence is not recent and most often corresponds to
countries with an imperial structure: Austria-Hungary before 1919 had many such parties. Today, the oldest
party to defend the periphery is the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), founded in 1895, which identifies with the
cause of the language, culture and democratic traditions of the Basque country, where it is the main party. The
Swedish Popular Party in Finland is also an old organization – early 20th century – which holds the monopoly
of representation of the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland; for this reason it has participated in almost all
government coalitions. The Scottish National Party, founded in 1925, only managed to break through in the
1960s, when it became alternately the second or third party in Scotland. Wales also has its nationalist organi-
zation, which is less strong and has fewer seats in Westminster: Plaid Cymru. Two parties which were created
after World War II enjoy a majority in their region, though they are insignificant on a national scale: the pop-
ular party of South Tyrol in Alto Adige and the Val d'Aosta Union in Italy. In Flanders, the party defending the
periphery, Volksunie, split in two, creating the more centrist New Flemish Alliance (NVA) and SPIRIT, which
is more social-libertarian. Spain counts the largest number of parties of this type: in Euskadi, we must add to
the PNV the nationalist, left-wing EA. in Catalonia, the moderate and centrist Convergència Democràtica de
Catalunya moved quickly towards a more extreme stand. Under the new label of PD Cat (Democratic party
for Catalonia) it became Republican and separatist just like its allies of the republican left of Catalonia. In
Catalonia two parties have decided to fight in favour of independence, th left wing Esquerra Republicana de
Catalonya (which was the pre-civil war dominant party in the region) and the center-right PDCat (Democratic
Party of Catalunya), created by Jordi Pujol in 1977 under the name of Convergencia de Catalunya; this party
has ruled the Generalitat since the return of Spain among the democratic countries in 1977. Numerous Span-
ish regions have their autonomists. The periphery also has extremists; sometimes these are violent ones but,
unlike the terrorist movements of the 1970s such as the Red Brigades, are endowed with a legal electoral
voice which shows popular support. This was the case in Northern Ireland, where the IRA was linked to Sinn
Fein until Blair's Good Friday Agreement, and in the Basque country, where ETA was linked to Batasuna un-
til the party was prohibited by the Spanish courts. In Corsica, the situation is the same, but the nationalists
are only represented on a regional and local level. There is one special case: that of Lega Nord – Northern
League – in Italy, which has moved from defense of federalist positions to the instrumentalizing of xenopho-
bia, and from enthusiastic Europeanism to staunch Euro-skepticism.
Church and State Cleavage

Another cleavage resulting from national revolution as defined by Rokkan is the cleavage between Church
and State, which used to be of prime importance but now belongs to history. The Christian Democratic parties
whose role was essential for European integration are in something worse than a crisis: the major such party,
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in Italy, broke up and now only exists as the Center Democratic Union, with a marginal role. The parties’ area
of strength is limited to the Netherlands and the Benelux countries, where the Christian Democrats have lost
a great deal of electoral weight; in Switzerland, the Christian Democrat party's vote has collapsed dramati-
cally. These parties were and still remain the best examples of inter-class, horizontal parties, that is to say,
covering all the ground from the right to the left – from fundamentalism to progress through centrism. In fact,
they reflected the sociological as much as the ideological structure of the Catholic subculture. They are not
catch-all parties because, even when they are non-confessional, they embody the political will of believers
and citizens steeped in Catholic culture. Due to dialogue between their bourgeois, agricultural and working
class tendencies, Christian Democratic programs constitute a useful compromise enabling government coali-
tions either with liberals or social democrats. The latter explains their unparalleled longevity in government:
Democrazia Christiana participated in all the coalitions of the first Italian republic, but the record is held by
the Luxemburg Christian Democrats, with over a century in power, followed closely by the Belgians and the
Dutch, at almost one hundred years. They are the axis both of center-right conservative coalitions in Belgium
and the ‘Roman Blue’ in the Netherlands and of labor center-left coalitions in Belgium and the ‘Roman Red’
in the Netherlands. Even the most conservative party in Austria, the ÖVP (Austrian Popular Party), has since
1945 participated most often in so-called Red–Black governments alongside the social democrats, in spite of
the former party's questionable alliance with the xenophobic nationalists of the FPÖ. It is interesting to note
that in the Czech Republic the only non-communist party to have lived through the Soviet era is the Czech
Popular Party (CSL), which participates in all coalition governments as it did before 1938, its foundation dating
back to the Austro-Hungarian empire (see also Seiler 2003).
New Cleavages
In addition to the old families of parties, there is a more recent one – the Greens. One thesis claims that
the Greens are the embodiment of New Politics (Poguntke, 1993), based on post-materialist issues such as
quality of life, protection of nature and libertarian individualism, in opposition to the supporters of Old Politics,
based on materialistic issues and values such as wage increases and ‘bread and butter’ issues in general.
This idea was influenced by the work of Inglehart (1977), who developed his theory of post-materialism based
on the proposition that the generation marked by the Great Depression followed by war and reconstruction
was succeeded by a generation socialized in a context of prosperity, the ‘affluent society’ of the ‘golden six-
ties'. The new post-Industrial Revolution is said to have given rise to a new cleavage of materialists versus
post-materialists, with the Greens occupying the ‘post-mat’ side and the ‘extreme right’ that of the material-
ists. The ecologists represent a new force, but the parties qualified as far right are as old as parliamentary
democracy itself. The post-materialism adopted by social democratic parties partly explains the success of
extreme center parties among workers. Stefano Bartolini and Peter Mair (1990) noted that the Greens partic-
ipated in what the two authors called intra-block mobility within the left, that is to say, the workers side of the
owners versus workers cleavage. Later events seem to have proved them right, with the experiences of the
Greens in government first in Finland and then in Belgium, and finally in Germany and France in coalitions
with social democrats. In France, they owe the few seats they won in parliament to electoral alliances with
the socialists. However, in Belgium and Germany, local coalitions with the right have been seen since the
beginning of the 21st century. An intermediary hypothesis can be put forward, namely that the Greens stem
from a restructuring of the territorial–economic cleavage – primary sector versus secondary sector – oppos-
ing the industrialized world to nature, which explains the mixture of post-modern and traditionalist features in
the discourse. Their closeness to the left can be considered as the result of their hostility to capitalism, which
destroys the balance of nature.
Parties as Organizations
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Parties are not biological organisms, nor do they have a lifetime association with a cleavage: they are au-
tonomous forces. The German conservatives in the CDU (Christian Democratic Union) are an excellent ex-
ample of a change of cleavage and of realignment. The CDU was created as a Christian Democratic party,
heir of the pre-1933 Catholic Zentrum. Its founding programs defined a third way between Marxist collectivism
and liberal capitalism through a Christian socialism founded on personalism and a respect for property, the
quest for the common good and the principle of subsidiarity. The CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU,
had accepted anti-Nazi Protestant intellectuals from the ‘Confessing Church'. Under pressure from the Allies,
who were concerned about the Soviet threat, and fearing the Marxism displayed by the SPD of 1945–6, the
CDU opened its doors to Protestant conservatives who were not always former members of the Resistance.
In Konrad Adenauer, the former mayor of Cologne and a moderate, the CDU had a leader who turned out
to be a true visionary both on the question of European integration and on the future of Germany. Certain
that Germany would sooner or later be reunified and that in this context Catholics, who were roughly equal
in number to the Protestants in West Germany, would once again become a minority, he reoriented the CDU
along a more conservative line to take the place of the old Zentrum party and the German Right, which had
been discredited for its support of Nazism. The CDU/CSU became a party with a majority vocation, inspired
by the ‘catch-all party’ defined by Otto Kirchheimer (1965). As Peter H. Merkl (1963) noted, the CDU/CSU be-
came a conservative party dedicated to defending the interests of industry, business and agriculture, with its
popular voters (blue and white-collar workers) taking advantage of the spin-off from prosperity. As for Christ-
ian socialism, ‘it was a mere memory and to many of the party leaders not a pleasant one’ (Merkl, 1980: 32).
However, the CDU was the first example of political realignment where the logic of organization took prece-
dence over ideological considerations and programs. The CDU/CSU was able to considerably increase the
number of its new voters, while to a great extent keeping its traditional electorate, and was not affected by
the growing secularization of society. It increased its share from 31% in the 1949 elections to 50% in 1957.
For the change to be successful, the cleavage had to be followed by lasting electoral alignment as defined by
V. O. Key (1942). This requires good partisan organization. When, within a party, the requirements of orga-
nization – and therefore accession to power – are in contradiction with the preservation of its principles and
identity, it either undergoes a re-foundation or it changes its identity and undergoes realignment towards an
electorally more beneficial cleavage.
The organization of parties, therefore, conveys a different logic from ideas and cleavages, and needs to be
studied separately. The concept most commonly used to classify partisan organization is the opposition be-
tween mass parties and cadre parties. This is often attributed to Maurice Duverger, but he borrowed it from
Max Weber and developed it. Duverger's great contribution was to distinguish between parties of inside cre-
ation and parties of outside creation, depending on whether the founders where in parliament – a typical ex-
ample is that of Whigs and Tories – or outsiders who had no access to power, not even to parliament. The
groups that may exist before the organization of a party can be labor unions, associations, Masonic lodges,
leagues – including terrorist ones. The cadre parties are therefore parliamentary parties resulting from the
widening of the electorate, aimed at inciting new voters to enroll on the electoral register and support the par-
ty and the electoral committees of the candidates. Mass parties are parties created outside the spheres of
power, whose only means of access is to have the largest possible number of voluntary activists and regular
financial contributors.
More than the number of members, it is the criterion of funding that distinguishes mass parties. The regularity
and registration of contributions is very important in mass parties whose internal legitimacy is embodied by
its members rather than its electorate. It is necessary to add a characteristic that Duverger does not mention:
the stability of leadership indifferent to the vagaries of the economic situation. Thus, during the entire 20th
century, the Swedish Social Democrats had only five leaders, whereas other parties had many more. The
Industrial Revolution and the expansion of means of transport, communication and propaganda leading to
the development of cheap newspapers enabling national electoral campaigns and the running of centralized
national bodies favored the action and development of mass parties until the 1960s.
Some cadre parties adapted to their competition – often parties formed later, like the British and Scandinavian
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conservatives who were organized by penetration from the center to the periphery, becoming, according to
Angelo Panebianco (1988), electoral parties: professionals endowed with strong leadership, recruiting large
numbers of members and, above all, oriented towards their potential voters. The difference with mass parties
is three-fold. First, and regardless of the number of members, the funding of the party is dependent on gifts
from business or rich contributors, and not the members who sometimes do not pay their fees and are not
excluded. Second, legitimacy and power belong to parliamentarians, entrusted by voters, whose opinions are
more important than those of members. Finally, the survival of the leaders depends on their success in gen-
eral elections.
Some parties have kept a more archaic form of organization: a federation of electoral committees composed
of local personalities, headed by a much more undisciplined parliamentary party and with a weak leadership.
These less developed cadre parties are to be found in countries such as France, Spain, Portugal and, to a
lesser degree Italy. Jean Charlot (1971: 201) suggests calling them partis de notables. They were the earli-
est parties to be organized and correspond to a model of organization by diffusion; that is to say, they were
created on the initiative of constituency committees which, by coming closer and closer, ultimately became
federated, hence from the bottom up. During the hundred years from 1860 to 1960, technical development
favored mass parties which, in certain cases – Catholic Zentrum and social democrats in Germany; Catholic
and socialist parties in Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands; French and Italian communists – managed, in
the words of Sigmund Neumann (1956: 405), to ‘take charge of voters from the cradle to the grave'. These
rigid mass parties had a very large membership involved in a network of parallel organizations for women,
children, young people, cooperatives, travel agencies, sport clubs and choirs, not to mention a party press.
According to Neumann, these are ‘social integration parties'; in Germany during the Weimar Republic, they
were even qualified as ‘social ghetto parties'.
Not all mass parties reached such organizational perfection; some, what Duverger (1954) calls ‘flexible mass
parties', were content to rely on the voluntary work of their militants. But, as Jean Blondel (1978) remarks,
not attaining a large membership is always a failure for a party. In fact, parties of social integration have a
strong organizational culture, which generates ‘party patriotism’ and the attachment of members and even
voters who are more concerned with the organization itself than the idea which it embodies. Flexible mass
parties are in a perpetual debate over ideas, a source of divisions which are unproductive from an electoral
point of view. Since the 1960s and the development of political communication centered on television and
now the internet, mass parties – and especially the most powerful among them – have experienced a crisis
of adaptation brought about by a decreasing membership. This has hit all the large social and political or-
ganizations, characterized by the omnipotence of image and entertainment, ensuring a domination of form
and appearance over substance, style over ideas and the personality of the leader over the political party.
Duverger thought – rightly at the time – that cadre parties were doomed but, thanks to a ruse of history, it
is the mass parties which are the dinosaurs, and today the professional electoral parties (Panebianco, 1988)
prosper in Europe. They are more reactive to variations in public opinion and more personalized, and, while
easily disposing of leaders who fail, they are on the same wavelength as the media. As they lose more and
more members, the old parties of integration tend to be reduced, to the advantage of their apparatus, with a
large permanent staff paid by the party. The latter can be described by the concept of the ‘bureaucratic mass
party’ proposed by Panebianco.
Moreover, the increasingly high costs of election campaigns, along with the development of the media and
particularly television, have provoked a change in the organization of parties. First, whatever the social or-
ganization, individuals are less engaged in long-term action but are more willing to commit themselves in a
limited way to a precise objective: parties lose members, but so do labor unions, and there are fewer prac-
ticing members of the Church. This poses a vital problem to mass parties confronted with a decrease in the
number of their contributors on the one hand and the increasing cost of electoral campaigns on the other.
They resort increasingly to funding by private enterprises, as other parties did, which changes their nature. As
the mass parties are often unpopular with the business community, they are driven to use practices which in
some countries are considered corruption and condemned by law. Consequently, the states develop legisla-
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tion on parties, replacing or limiting their private funding with public funds. Lastly, as television does not lend
itself to a deepening of political discourse or to nuances, parties are forced to put on performances – they
have done this since the 19th century, but they now do it for television, which means they have to embody
themselves in a leader, who has to build an image of a prime minister or in France of a president. Countries
such as Belgium, the Netherlands or Italy, which were governed by coalitions of parties and appointed their
prime ministers by a process of negotiation and arbitration between parties and currents within a party, have
had to resign themselves to personalization.
The leading German parties were the first to go down this path by designating their candidates for the chan-
cellery. In the UK, around 1965, the Conservative Party decided to have its leader elected by the members of
parliament – previously, the appointment had been the result of a secret process in which the outgoing leader
played a substantial role. In the 1970s and 1980s more and more parties, which until then had had their lead-
ers elected by delegates at their congress or party conference, changed to direct election by paid-up party
members. In 1995, the French Socialist Party used this method to choose its candidate for the presidential
election and so did the British Conservatives. In Italy and France, the left-wing coalition and the socialists
tried to import the American system of primaries. The model set up in Italy appears to be closest to the origi-
nal, with the center, left and extreme left taking part – but the ballot was organized privately within the offices
of the parties. For the French Socialist Party, it was an internal election enlarged to accommodate members
admitted for the circumstance in return for a reduced financial contribution. In both cases, the analogy with
the American primaries resides in the fact that there was an internal election and even debates between the
candidates. The aim was to attract the attention of the media and thus favor the campaigns of the parties
concerned. This way of functioning does not correspond to the ideal of mass parties.
The distinction between professional electoral parties on the one hand and bureaucratic mass parties on the
other has become blurred in numerous countries. They have become publicly financed institutions oriented
towards the media and, according to Katz and Mair (1993), could even manage without members. These au-
thors suggest that the reasons for maintaining the role of members in certain parties are of a symbolic nature.
According to them, there is a new mode of partisan organization, the cartel party, which since the 1970s has
succeeded the hegemony of catch-all parties, which had taken over from mass parties after replacing elitist
parties. The fact is that what Mair (1999) calls ‘parties in opinion’ have taken precedence over the ‘central
apparatus of the party’ in an arena of dialogue with the ‘party in public office’ – leader, government, parlia-
mentary group, all political professionals. Are there any alternatives to cartel parties? There is one in Italy with
Forza Italia, devoted to the promotion and the defense of the interests of its founder, Silvio Berlusconi. Such a
phenomenon was only made possible thanks to two ‘accidents': the deregulation of television, which opened
the doors to Berlusconi's establishment of a television empire, and the collapse of the 1st Italian Republic,
which freed some space on the right of the political spectrum, that is to say, on the side of the defense of
liberal capitalism.
We can see that both the right and the democrats in Italy, as well as a large number of parties in Europe, are
greatly influenced by the organizational models of the United States. However, the latter remain different and
are based on various autonomous strata both for the Democrats and the Republicans. Since the seminal con-
tribution of V. O. Key (1942), scholars have analyzed American parties as tripartite structures: (1) the party in
the electorate; (2) the party organization; (3) the party in government. The first of these refers to the loyalty
and identification of the voters and the third to public office holders, from the President to local councilors. The
second is structured in a manner defined by Sam Eldersveld (1982: 124) as a stratarchy: ‘an organization with
layers, or strata of control, rather than centralized leadership from the top down.’ American party organiza-
tions are far older than the European ones, and, despite the decline in party identification, they have adapted
to the various and numerous changes and evolutions affecting the practice of democratic government. This is
obviously not the case in Europe, where we can speak of a ‘crisis of parties'.
Global Perspectives
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Whereas the study of parties and their political functions, social roots and organization has for a long time
been confined to the Western world where they first developed, decolonization and democratization have led
to new forms and experiences elsewhere. Some of the concepts and perspectives developed from the very
varied European experience discussed above have now to be tested and applied to different social and his-
torical contexts. Not all such concepts and typologies can easily travel, however, and it remains to be seen
(in the following paragraphs) which characteristics can be considered to be of a more universal nature and
which are more context-specific. The more general definition of parties and their raison d'être in contempo-
rary democracies still remains the same. Their social context and form of organization vary greatly, however.
As a first step we will discuss, therefore, how far the cleavage patterns described by Lipset and Rokkan ap-
ply to other parts of the world. Whereas the Church–State relation in Europe is a very specific historical one,
the center–periphery and socio-economic cleavages, in different variants, seem to be applicable in a number
of cases elsewhere. A second step describes more specific patterns of organization in the broader world re-
gions.
Latin America
When considering the origins of parties (and party systems) in the 22 independent Latin American states,
some similarities stand out, but differences prevail. Thus, although with slightly different timing (end of 19th
century–early decades of the 20th century), the elite origins of parties are in essence not different from the Eu-
ropean cases. The differences come later, mainly because of the diversity of socio-economic developments
and the institutional contexts in which mass politics emerged and parties became the necessary tools for
shaping opinions, organizing voters, recruiting politicians, forming the government and carrying out policies.
In fact, among other factors, the weaknesses of the industrialization process, the characteristics of highly un-
structured immigration societies, the high level of economic and social inequalities, the very low unionization
and the low level of literacy never created the conditions for well-organized parties with stable roots in society.
Consequently, there was almost no chance to build strong socialist parties characterized by a strong left–right
cleavage, such as the one described by Lipset and Rokkan as a result of the European industrial revolution.
The religious–secular cleavage became apparent with the creation of Christian Democratic parties in several
countries, but a serious cleavage between a strong state and the Catholic Church was missing. Ethnic parties
never blossomed, and when, more recently, ethnic interests were better represented this happened within
parties that also articulated other interests. The absence of explicit separatist policies, and in several cases
the mixing between the local people and the heirs of Spanish or Portuguese colonizers, account for this result.
The different institutional contexts were due, on the one hand, to the different success rates of democratic
regimes and military rule in the two former colonial areas, with all related legacies, and on the other hand to
the traditional presidentialization of constitutional structures in Latin America, which was very different from
the prevailing parliamentarization of European democracies.
With this background, interest differences, ideological differences and the secular–religious cleavage paved
the way for mass parties, some of them with a long history. Thus, for example, in Chile, where a more tradi-
tionally European-like party system developed, there was a Christian Democratic party with social programs
as early as the 1960s, with strong links to European Christian Democratic parties, and a Socialist party going
back to the 1930s. Chile's President, Salvador Allende, and a leftist coalition were at the core of one of the
most tragic political events of recent democratic history. Allende's presidency ended with the installation of
the highly repressive military regime led by General Pinochet after the coup d'état of September 1973.
The Argentinian Justicialist Party and Radical party also have a long history. The former was created by
Juan Perón in the mid-1940s and was again successful in the presidential elections of 2003, 2007 and 2011
(Nestor and Christina Kirchner). It was also one of the few examples where unions played an important role
in the support of the party. The Radical Party (‘radical’ in the sense of a European liberal party as in France,
discussed above), whose foundation dates back to the end of the 19th century, played a crucial role in the
transition to the new democratic regime under President Raul Alfonsin and the end of military rule in 1983.
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The oldest Brazilian party, the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), was created in 1965 under military rule
as the official opposition party, and is a legacy of that period, although today a fully transformed one. It was
the Worker's Party (PT), founded in 1980 – one of the largest and most important socialist parties of Latin
America – that was able to govern at the federal level for most of the first two decades of the 21st century
(2003–16), with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and later Dilma Rousseff as Presidents. The Mexican Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI) is not the oldest Latin American party, having been founded in 1929, but it is the
party with the longest incumbency both in the authoritarian period and after a transition to competitive multi-
party politics, without interruption until 2000. Through adaptation and leading regime change, the party was
able to survive and even prosper for some years with the transition to democracy.
Trying to put Latin American parties into a typology seems an impossible exercise. If we think about classic
categories as cadre parties or professional electoral parties (see above) or clientelistic or personalistic parties
(Hellinger, 2011: chapter 15), no party can be exclusively classified in this way, but personalistic and clien-
telistic features are embedded in many of these parties, strengthened by the caudillistic military traditions,
the presidential regimes and a widespread clientelistic culture (Kitschelt, Chapter 29, this Handbook). Orga-
nizational changes in this area went along similar lines to the European ones and were brought about by
technological transformations, with the dominant role of media and, later, of social networks within the party,
as evidenced by the successful presidential election campaign of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil in 2018. Bolsonaro
was originally nominated by the small Social Liberal Party (PSL) and later supported by other parties, and a
basic reason for his victory is the transformation of the key tools of the electoral campaign through the adop-
tion and exploitation of the much higher propaganda reach created by the new social media.
Growth of distrust and indifference, increased authoritarian attitudes, party dealignment and the fading away
of the parties’ already weak social roots, compounded by a stronger role for leaders in their actual work, are
the main features of party developments during the first two decades of the 21st century. Thus, if we recall
Mainwaring (1999: 22–39), who suggested analyzing the institutionalization of parties and party systems ac-
cording to four dimensions (stability in the competition between parties; strong partisan roots in society and
related strong voter attachment to parties; public legitimation of elections and parties by political actors; in-
dependent, stable party structures), we can reach the conclusion that in the first two decades of this century
there was a progressive process of de-institutionalization (see also Mainwaring, 2018). Looking at the phe-
nomenon of the emergence of independent candidates without any partisan attachment, especially in local
elections in a number of Latin American countries – for example, in Mexico – we can conclude that the degree
of party de-institutionalization has reached a point of no return. This widespread delegitimization of parties,
favoring populism, personalism and extremism, has serious consequences for Latin American democracies.
Middle East and South Asia

The formation of parties in the Middle East and in South Asia was first dominated by the national liberation
process. Instead of expressing domestic cleavages, they were primarily organized to claim a national identity,
as the Shabab al-Ba'ath al-Arabi did from 1942, and, one year after, the Hizb al-Ba'ath al-Arabi: both were
the predecessors of the Baath Party in Syria and in Iraq (Batatu, 1999). The same development could be
observed in India, with the Congress party created in 1885; in Indonesia, with the Indonesian National Party,
created in 1923, or in Malaysia, with the Malay Union (1926) (Robison, 2011: chapter 1). When the liberation
process was achieved through violence and war, the party was basically organized along military lines, as
was the case in Algeria (with the NLF being created in October 1954, when the independence war began).
This origin gave a specific orientation to these parties, which became ‘dominant parties', strongly oriented
towards national unity, personal and charismatic leadership, centralized organization and mass mobilization,
with a very vague ideology focusing on sovereignty and development.
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Their first challenge came from the international context in the Cold War era and the creation of communist
parties, which appeared as their first serious rivals in Malaysia and in Indonesia (where CP counted more than
one million activists) – but also in India, where they played an important role as local forces (e.g. in Kerala),
and in Egypt, Iraq and Syria, where their success hinged upon their capacity to mobilize cultural minorities.
Later, religion, and particularly Islam, appeared as a second challenge, either by mobilizing the Muslim minor-
ity (as the Muslim League did in India around Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who founded Pakistan) or by promoting
an alternative vision of politics, as in the case of the Indonesian Islamic Union Party (1923), the Nahdatul Ula-
ma (1926) in Indonesia, or the BJP in India, created in 1980 and derived from the RSS (Rashtriya Swayam-
sevak Sangh), constituted in 1926 (Jaffrelot, 1996).
Today, these historical parties are often weakened by power erosion and the fading memory of the heroic
liberation period. They are now moving more toward populist orientations, a new religious rhetoric (around a
radical vision of Islam, Hinduism in India or Buddhism in Sri Lanka) and a kind of depoliticization caused by
a consensus around a form of state capitalism promoted in Indonesia, India and Malaysia. For this reason,
recent debates are more often created inside civil society, marginalizing the role of party politics.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Except for the very special case of South Africa, parties have come into being only with political independence
since the mid-1950s and early 1960s, or shortly before. Some parties were successors of earlier indepen-
dence movements; others were created in the newly independent and constitutionally democratic states. In
many cases, however, the new regimes soon degenerated into single party states proclaiming some form of
‘African socialism', as in Tanzania, or were instead taken over by military rulers. But even where some form of
party competition persisted for a while – as in Kenya, for example – the regimes remained at best ‘semi-com-
petitive'. The only exceptions worth speaking of were Botswana, with a dominant party, and the island state
of Mauritius. It was only after the ‘second liberation’ and the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s that truly
democratic and pluralist political parties emerged.
Initially, newly founded parties proliferated and found many expressions, from tiny ‘telephone booth’ parties
(where all members, it was said, would fit in a booth) to truly mass parties with a large and regular mem-
bership. After a while some clearer patterns became apparent. To get an initial indication of the overall order
of magnitude, out of the 48 Sub-Saharan African states, 9 were classified as ‘free’ and another 23 as ‘partly
free’ by Freedom House in 2018. Only there does some level of effective party competition exist. The free
and partly free countries are mostly concentrated in West, Eastern and Southern Africa; authoritarian states
predominate in Central Africa and in territories bordering the Sahara.
A closer look reveals that in a number of countries, single dominant parties, often linked to the independence
movement, prevail, as in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. In some other countries some more stable
competitive patterns have emerged, which show a strong regional/ethnic orientation, as in Cote d'Ivoire, Nige-
ria or Uganda. Party names and organizations change very quickly and show a very fluent pattern, as in
Kenya, for example. More generally speaking, strong center–periphery cleavages are apparent, indicating
dominant ‘neo-patrimonial’ personalistic and clientelistic relationships between those in power and their fol-
lowers (Bratton and van de Walle, 1997; Temelli, 1999). Nevertheless, with emerging middle classes, so-
cio-economic cleavages with corresponding party organizations also become stronger – as, for example, in
Malawi and Zambia. In the longer run, therefore, a differentiation along a more common left–middle–right di-
mension may be observed (Langhans, 2013). In some of the more stable new democracies, as in Botswana,
Ghana or Senegal, a certain amalgamation of traditional sources of power and forms of decision-making at
the local levels (involving elders, chiefs, marabouts and similar authorities) has occurred.

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The level of institutionalization and organizational strength also varies greatly. At the one extreme there are
highly institutionalized parties such as Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM, the ‘party of the revolution’ – the succes-
sor of the original Tanzania African National Union, TANU) in Tanzania and the Botswana Democratic Party
(BDP), both in power since independence. At the other extreme, there are many very fragile and loosely or-
ganized parties, often centered on a particular personality, such as the roughly 40 registered parties in Benin
or the approximately 50 parties standing for election in Nigeria. More important are often shifting coalitions
between parties and leading personalities, as in Kenya (Basedau and Stroh, 2008).
Conclusion
As this overview has shown, political parties, as essential elements of modern forms of democratic repre-
sentative government, have a checkered history in various parts of the world. On the one hand, there have
been oligarchic and cartel tendencies within parties, emphasizing control from above and losing touch with
their membership and electorate. This has contributed to a widespread disillusionment with established par-
ties, a more general dealignment and much greater electoral volatility. On the other hand, more direct forms
of democracy, facilitated by the digital revolution and new social media, cannot really replace them. At the
extreme, this could lead to purely plebiscitarian politics with a great danger of manipulation by demagogic
leaders, disrespect for essential democratic rights and freedoms, discrimination of minorities and nationalist
aggressions. A proper balance must be found between these two tendencies, guaranteed by the rule of law,
to ensure viable and effective forms of democracy, including political parties, in this century.
Note
1 This chapter is based in part on the author's contribution to the International Encyclopedia of Political Sci-
ence (Badie et al., 2011) and has been revised and supplemented by the editors of this Handbook.
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• conflict
• civil war
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n36

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Pluralism
Contributors: Roland Czada

Chapter Title: "Pluralism"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Pluralism
Roland Czada
Pluralist ideas and politics regard the diversity and autonomy of social groups not only as relevant but also
as valuable. Pluralism, in its many ramifications, represents a particularly broad line of political and social
thought as well as an approach to empirical analysis. The intellectual roots of the concept can be traced back
over centuries. In modern political science, the term has been mostly associated with analyses of the influ-
ence of interest groups over executive political decision- making. As a paradigmatic theory and method, the
approach was not fully elaborated until the mid 20th century. It then quickly developed into a classic, often
dominant approach to the study of politics in the Western world. Originating from the American group school
of political science (Bentley, 1908; Truman, 1951; Latham, 1952), pluralists of the 1950s and 1960s conceived
of governmental policies as the result of countervailing pressures and lobbying exerted by a multiplicity of
autonomous, more or less organized social groups competing for political influence.
A Short History of the Concept

A genealogy of pluralist thinking could begin with Greek philosophers and their teachings on how to live in
groups side by side in tolerance and diversity, instead of on top of each other in a hierarchy. The image of
a plurality of worlds, as it was taught and lived in ancient schools by Democritus, Epicurus, Herodotus and
Xenophon, was curbed by Christian monotheism from late antiquity into the Age of Enlightenment. The con-
cept was then revived during the early modern period. It influenced the American constitutional debate of the
late 18th century, legal theories of corporate group personality of the 19th century, and political science theo-
ries of the 20th century in particular.
His work on associations in politics earned Johannes Althusius great recognition as the founder not only of
federalism but also of early modern pluralistic thought. Althusius (1563–1638) was the first to formulate a
comprehensive theory of what he called a ‘consociationalist’ (associationalist) constitution, and thereby reject-
ed the arguments of his contemporaries in favor of monarchic monism and indivisible territorial sovereignty.
The question of how to reconcile social groups’ quest for autonomy with a government's claim for sovereign-
ty continues to permeate the discourse on pluralism to this day. In this debate, taming the Leviathan can be
regarded as the overarching goal of pluralist thinking past and present.
Since the early 20th century, pluralist thoughts and studies have contributed above all to justifying the role of
interest groups in policy making. They were generally aimed against monism, autocracy, hierarchical state-
hood and elitist politics, and thus took center stage in many scholarly works on theories and operating prin-
ciples of liberal democracy. From the very beginning, studies of pluralism focused on the power bases of
governments, and modes of participation and equilibration – balancing of interests – in politics. Starting as
a particularly North American political science approach, the modern notion of democratic pluralism spread
globally. It influenced political science in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Simultaneously, its basic research
theme stretched out into a number of subtopics. Since the 1960s, political systems based on party competi-
tion and institutional divisions of power have been referred to as ‘pluralist democracies'. Today, pluralist think-
ing inspires debates on the limits of principled universalism and on concepts of moral and value pluralism,
democratic elitism, legal pluralism, religious governance, up to controversies on identity politics and cultural
pluralism worldwide.
Basic Theories and Conceptual Variations

The many faces of pluralism correspond with variations in terminology. Different names and emphases of
pluralistic thinking can be recognized over time. Common to all approaches is the association and action of
individuals in groups as a starting point. The concept embraces terms such as interest group politics, asso-
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ciational governance and political power-sharing, advocacy, lobbying, pressure politics, collaborative gover-
nance, mutual partisan adjustment, corporate pluralism, consociationalism – from consociatio, the Latin word
for association – societal interest intermediation, and corporativism and corporatism – from Latin corpora,
meaning social organisms or corporate group personalities. Today advocacy has, in a way, replaced the for-
mer semantics of pluralism.
Early Forerunners of Modern Pluralism

The universal commonwealth (consociatio universalis) proclaimed by Althusius is a polity based on au-
tonomous manifold social groups, rather than a concept of sovereign statehood as embodied in the evolving
European absolutism of his time. A state or polity has to be understood – in his own words – as ‘an association
inclusive of all other associations (families, collegia (i.e. guilds), cities, and provinces) within a determinate
large area, and recognizing no superior to itself’ (Althusius, 1964 [1603]: 12). In conceiving the social con-
tract as a real pact among corporate legal entities – semi-autonomous associations that compose society –
he set himself against his near contemporary Thomas Hobbes, who in his famous book Leviathan consid-
ered a single agreement entered into by individuals who commit themselves to absolute subjection under a
common power. Johannes Althusius had a notion of shared sovereignty that stands in deep contrast not only
to Hobbes’ unitarism but also to Jean Bodin's doctrine of monarchical sovereignty. Due to his emphasis on
associational autonomy, the subsidiarity principle and the multilevel character of his constitutional system, Al-
thusius is now considered an early modern protagonist and forerunner of both federalism and pluralism.
In Europe, the medieval notion of shared sovereignty became prominent again with the doctrine of the real
personality of the association, as put forward by Otto von Gierke in his works on medieval law and political
theory. In the second half of the 19th century, when he referred to and translated parts of Althusius’ works
– originally published in Latin – to a wider German audience, Gierke's pluralism played an important role in
disputes between the Germanists and Romanists over what kind of law should be adopted in Germany. Plu-
ralism, in addressing groups as legal personalities or semi-sovereign corporate bodies with their own will and
capacity to act for their members and followers – as in medieval law – has had considerable significance in
constitutional thought as well as for the political movements of the time (Dewey, 1926: 672).
Gierke's writings – and through them Althusius’ political philosophy – found a broad reception not only in the
United States but also in Britain (Dreyer, 1993). His Political Theories of the Middle Ages (Gierke, 1900) paved
the way for a newly emerging English school of academic and political pluralism, of which guild socialism had
the most far-reaching impact. Frederic Maitland, George D. H. Cole, J. Neville Figgis and Harold Laski, the
masterminds of English guild socialism (Glass, 1966), were greatly concerned with labor unions and self-gov-
ernment in industry. In search of a pluralist blueprint, they fought against the alienation of the individual under
conditions of unrestrained capitalism. Their ideas moved toward a participatory democracy beyond individual
citizens’ voting rights. Functional representation in voluntary associations should integrate the individual into
communities that would complement or even replace the society of market participants, with its deprivations
and social uprooting, as well as the state as an institution of compulsory membership and coercion. Against
this backdrop, the English guild socialists belong to the early theorists of a ‘moral economy'.
In an attempt to diminish the discretionary exercise and unequal distribution of political and economic power,
the proponents of socialist pluralism used the medieval structure of guilds, chartered cities, villages, monas-
teries and universities as a model for a worker-controlled economy. Their research and political activities
came to an abrupt end soon after World War I. The ideas, however, continued to live on in Austromarxism
and concepts of industrial democracy. They had a strong impact on Karl Polanyi's conception of a socially
embedded economy free of centralist command and market dominance.
Early pluralists were focused on associational autonomy mostly in a legal and constitutional view. They re-
jected monistic theories of sovereignty endowing state institutions with supremacy over society. For them,
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sovereignty resides not exclusively with governments or parliaments but with many social, political, cultural
and economic organizations in society. These community institutions are perceived as free and prior to state
institutions.
Pre-Classic American Theories of Pluralism

In the United States, the history of pluralist reasoning begins with the debates on the constitution of the Union
from 1787 onwards. The American constitutionalists worked out an embryonic theory of pluralism in an at-
tempt to combine the best features of John Locke's postulates of liberalism, Edmund Burke's social conser-
vatism and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's thoughts on participation in politics (Connolly, 1969: 3). Among the
founders, James Madison, in Federalist Papers No. 10 of 1787, states that the political mechanisms created
by the new constitution were specifically designed to protect freedom of association and should simultane-
ously balance conflicts between factions and interests in domestic politics. The US Constitution stands out
explicitly from the monistic traditions in Europe in this respect. Its social implications were impressively de-
scribed by Alexis de Tocqueville, who placed the activities of autonomous groups and their preeminence in
public life at the center of his famous two volumes on Democracy in America, published in 1835 and still re-
garded as a groundbreaking contribution highly important to later academic works on pluralism (Tocqueville
2000). The American group school in political science, the beginnings of which go back to the 1920s, and its
successors could draw on this national intellectual heritage.
But there was another, similarly important academic influence coming from Europe. Otto von Gierke's Political
Theories of the Middle Ages attracted political scientists in the United States, among them Arthur Bentley,
whose studies in Germany in 1893/4 are reflected in his later writings on the role of group associations in
politics. Leading ideas from the work of Georg Simmel, whom he had met in Berlin, found expression in Bent-
ley's pluralistic view on society and politics, namely Simmel's theory of ‘crosscutting social circles’ according
to which modern societies consist of groups that cut across each other in many directions and hence forbid
any classification of diverse societies into stationary and sharply divided classes or status groups.
David Truman used this thought to great advantage in his path-breaking basic work on pluralism, The Gov-
ernmental Process:
As Arthur Bentley has put it: ‘To say that a man belongs to two groups of men which are clashing
with each other; to say that he reflects two seemingly irreconcilable aspects of the social life; to say
that he is reasoning on a question of public policy, these all are but to state the same fact in three
forms'. The phenomenon of the overlapping membership of social groups is thus a fundamental fact
whose importance for the process of group politics, through its impact on the internal politics of in-
terest groups, can scarcely be exaggerated. (Truman, 1951: 158)
Individual cross-pressures resulting from overlapping group affiliations in society became essential for plural-
ists, since they tend to mitigate conflicts, foster a rationally motivated open-mindedness toward various inter-
ests in society and, thus, promote the reconciliation of clashes between social groups. Individual conflicts of
preference that result from multiple overlapping memberships form integrative forces that bring the general
interest to bear at the level of individual citizens – this was a grandiose discovery and principle that gave the
theory of pluralism a firm base and finally caused its breakthrough in the North American political science
community (Czada, 1991: 278–81).
Classic Empirical Theories of Pluralism

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The proponents of classical pluralism widened the scope by searching for institutional power structures and
channels of political influence in given societies. In this way, the concept developed into a regime type called
pluralist democracy (Dahl, 1967). Robert Dahl, the first and most renowned proponent of the classic theory of
pluralism, no longer conceived of civil society associations as a counterweight to a sovereign political majority,
but insisted that a constitutional-cum-societal pluralism replaces rather than counters the sovereignty of the
people or the majority of the people in a majoritarian democracy. Thus he returns to early modern approaches
that are critical of sovereign supremacy:
• Instead of a single center there must be multiple centers of power, none wholly sovereign. Although
the only legitimate sovereign in the perspective of American pluralism is the people, even the people
ought never to be an absolute sovereign; consequently, no part of the people such as a majority,
ought to be absolute sovereign. Why this axiom? The theory and practice of American pluralism tend
to assume, as I see it, that the existence of multiple centers of power, none of which is wholly sover-
eign, will help (may indeed be necessary) to tame power, to secure the consent of all, and to settle
conflicts peacefully:
• Because one center of power is set against another, power itself will be tamed, civilized, controlled,
and limited to decent human purposes, while coercion, the most evil form of power, will be reduced
to a minimum.
• Because even minorities are provided with opportunities to veto solutions they strongly object to, the
consent of all will be won in the long run.
• Because constant negotiations among different centers of power are necessary in order to make de-
cisions, citizens and leaders will perfect the precious art of dealing peacefully with their conflicts, and
not merely to the benefit of one partisan. (Dahl, 1967: 24)
In this interpretation, the idea of pluralism turns from a theory of political influence into a political system type
that Dahl (1971) himself called ‘polyarchy’ (lit. rule of the many). He points to the American presidency, Con-
gress, the Supreme Court, the states and ‘The Other Ninety Thousand Governments’ as being policy makers
in their own right. ‘These territorial governments below the national level are of bewildering variety and com-
plexity. The governments of the fifty states constitute a vast field of themselves. The thousands of towns and
cities create a political tapestry even more complex’ (Dahl, 1967: 171–2).
The benefits of such a horizontally and vertically differentiated political system, according to Dahl (1967:
172–3), are fourfold: (1) diversity in public governance reduces the workload of the national government and
makes democracy more manageable; (2) it prevents conflicts accumulating at the national level and, thus,
makes democracy more viable; (3) providing numerous semi-autonomous centers of power reinforces the
principles of balanced authority and political pluralism; (4) facilitating self-government at the local level of ad-
ministration creates opportunities for learning and practicing democracy.
In his most influential empirical study of community power dynamics in New Haven, Connecticut, Dahl (1961)
showed that no one could effectively monopolize political power in a pluralist society of groups free from
political control. Decision-making turned out to be shared instead among different groups and individuals in
competition with each other. Dahl's method was not based on reputation or positions in power networks, as
in most contemporary analyses of political power structures (Hoffmann-Lange, Chapter 30, this Handbook).
Rather, he compiled a number of empirical policy analyses. In focusing on how political decisions were made
on certain issues and areas of policy, various observational means had been employed, among them lists of
persons who were involved to a measurable degree in decision-making. The study identified a series of elite
groups who dominated areas of public policy such as education, nominations to public office, urban renewal,
and so on. While there was some overlap of names, particularly when elected public officials were concerned,
its extent was surprisingly small.

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Empirical studies on pluralism did certainly not confirm the idea of equal opportunities for all groups to in-
fluence the political process. They rather showed a pluralist democracy without a single recognizable power
elite. In concluding that there are ‘multiple centers of power, none of which is wholly sovereign', Dahl (1967:
24) rejects the concept of parliamentary sovereignty based on majority rule, as enshrined in the British West-
minster model of government. In its golden age of the 1960s, classical pluralism described an open, largely
unpredictable competitive system of political power sharing with multifarious access routes to political deci-
sion-making. At the same time, the concept departed from earlier optimist assumptions of equilibration among
a great number of political forces neutralizing each other.
Deficits and Critique of the Classic Pluralist Model

Pluralism – societal, political and ethical – was not only the most prominent approach of the 20th century used
to describe, understand and explain the functioning of Western liberal democracies; it was also among the
most criticized concepts. One finds numerous attempts of empirical refutation as well as some strong theo-
retical counterarguments. The strongest empirical critique could be seen on the streets of American cities in
1967, just as Robert Dahl's major work Pluralist Democracy in the United States was published. Riots struck
56 American cities, among them New Haven, the ‘home of pluralism', where, in late August, four rebellious
nights put the city in a state of terror.
‘Substantial areas of twelve great cities lay in ruins … How could this happen in a society of slack resources,
in which any active and legitimate group can make itself heard effectively? […] There must have been some-
thing fundamentally wrong with the theory of pluralist democracy or the analysis would not have gone so wide
off the mark'. (Burtenshaw, 1968: 586–7)
Neo-Pluralism and the Corporatist Turn

Concepts of neo-pluralism and neo-corporatism departed from the notion of social groups operating indepen-
dently from and outside the sphere of government. Neo-pluralism ‘is one of a class of research findings or
social science models – such as elitism, pluralism, and corporatism – that refer to the structure of power and
policy making in some domain of public policy’ (McFarland, 2007: 45). The term refers to new concepts in the
critique and succession of classic pluralist approaches, among them neo-corporatism, clientelism, consocia-
tionalism, advocacy coalitions, issue networks and policy niches. Theodore Lowi (1969) was among the first
to reject Dahl's concept of interest group liberalism since – according to his research – associational elites
put their resources on the table without any moral or rationalist meaning. They would only exchange with bu-
reaucrats instead of establishing democratic links between people and government.
Neo-pluralist thinking can be divided at least into four strands of argument. First, the classical school has
been expanded to the extent that some interests – for instance, those of big businesses – are now being rec-
ognized as having a privileged influence, if not over single political decisions then in terms of an overarching
political agenda that, according to neo-pluralists, is ultimately biased toward business power. In this sense,
neo-pluralists no longer regard governments as neutral mediators, but just as other players on the field who
are in some ways connected to economic power holders.
Second, neo-pluralist approaches include so-called sub-governments consisting of networks of members of

parliament, their staff, ministry officials, experts and representatives of interest associations and firms that
are linked by close and lasting relationships. Some other labels relate to the sub-government phenomenon,
such as ‘iron triangles’ and ‘issue networks’ (Heclo, 1978), or even state capture. Regardless of their differ-

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ences, these concepts are all based on empirical observations indicating that there is no open competition
among interest groups and that only those with clientelistic relations get access to administrative departments
or agencies (Kitschelt, Chapter 29, this Handbook). This view is obviously different from the classic idea of
competitive laissez faire pluralism.
Third, a variety of neo-pluralist approaches refer to the state – politics and administration – as a relative au-
tonomous entity. They emphasize governments’ capacity to withstand pressures exerted by powerful eco-
nomic groups or companies in pursuing their own policy agenda backed by parliamentary majorities. At the
same time, Fraenkel (1964) insists that the whole of society, and not just the state, needs to be viewed as a
complex constitution. The state and civil society are linked through a compound of laws, practices and proce-
dures that define the rights and roles of public and private institutions. The necessity for the state to counter
the excessive influence of oligopolistic, if not monopolistic, carriers of socio-economic power has been em-
phasized in this view. The democratic state must protect all those sections of the population that are unable
to form and maintain sufficiently powerful associations to the end that their interests are not neglected. This
normative variety of neo-pluralism is reminiscent of Paul Hirst's notion of an ‘associative democracy’ (Hirst,
1994) and its implicit assumption of a common good. It entails a paradigmatic turn, since classic pluralism
abandoned any notion of a public interest or a common good. The modern classics replaced the search for
the common good, which has shaped the history of political ideas over millennia, with a process of articula-
tion, aggregation and integration of manifold interests to achieve a result that is subsequently considered to
be in the public interest.
A fourth distinctive concept refers to neo-corporatist patterns of interest intermediation based on close re-
lations between governments and producer groups, highly centralized top associations of labor and capital
in particular (Lehmbruch and Schmitter, 1982), and arrangements of sectoral self-regulation up to semi-au-
tonomous ‘private interest governments’ (Streeck and Schmitter, 1985). In its most basic meaning, corpo-
ratism refers to a political power structure and practice of consensus formation and self-government based
on the functional representation of professional groups.
The corporatist paradigm has been deliberately placed against some central assumptions of mainstream plu-
ralism. It overcomes the influence perspective that underlies all theories of pluralism and their empirical ap-
plications so far (Mattina, Chapter 32, this Handbook). Corporatist patterns of interest intermediation certainly
do not comply with any conception of lobbying. The latter addresses one-directional relations of influence and
impacts on the formulation of policies, whereas the concept of corporatist intermediation emphasizes ongoing
‘exchange relationships’ between governments and well organized interest associations representing impor-
tant parts of the economy and society. Their participation and even integration concerns not only the formula-
tion but also the implementation of policies.
Corporatist interest intermediation has been mainly a European phenomenon that applies to smaller countries
such as Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Sweden in particular. Comparative public policy analyses
indicate that policies coordinated between governments and top associations of labor and capital resulted in
lower unemployment and inflation, enhanced industrial productivity and increased economic growth rates dur-
ing the 1970s and 1980s (Calmfors and Driffill, 1988). The explanation lies in the comprehensive organization
of interests: ‘encompassing’ functional groups who are organized in a centralized, hierarchical fashion have
more incentives than small special interest groups to consider the common good (Olson, 1986).
Corporatist interest intermediation declined in the wake of a neo-liberal turn in economic policy and major
shifts from social democratic to conservative governments in Europe. At the same time, a large number of ad-
vocacy groups, social movements and new forms of activism have emerged worldwide. These include man-
ifold idealistic groups that pursue non-commercial purposes, such as civil and human rights, environmental
protection, gender equality, gay rights, food safety, grassroots lobbying, animal rights, and so on.

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Advocacy and the Civil Rights Movement

Organizations that emerged from social and economic justice movements represent marginalized groups
such as single mothers, racial minorities, gays and lesbians or the poor. They were born out of the ‘advocacy
explosion’ (Andrews and Edwards, 2004: 479) of the late 1960s and 1970s. Civic activism has grown enor-
mously since then. Starting from worldwide political mass movements, student revolts and protests against
the Vietnam War, civic initiatives, citizen groups and public interest groups established new methods of advo-
cacy, lobbying and legal action. These civic activities seem so dissimilar from earlier forms of pluralist interest
politics, as well as from corporatist concertation, that Tichenor and Harris (2005: 257) attested the older the-
ories to ‘be of little or no theoretical utility’ in understanding policy making in such diverse activist pluralist
democracies.
A look at social movements of the time reveals indeed some change. Citizens’ initiatives mushroomed and
contributed not only to the expansion but also to the differentiation of interest politics worldwide (della Porta,
Chapter 39, this Handbook). Contrary to widespread expectations, however, this did not replace the still pow-
erful old-fashioned interest-group lobbies, nor do these movements refute the basic thoughts of pluralism. On
the contrary, the strong and continuous rise of advocacy groups is reminiscent of Truman's (1951) original
theory according to which modern societies tend to generate more and more interest groups – all the more
so if they are stimulated to organize because of dissatisfaction with governments and in view of social distur-
bances that alter their relationship with other groups or institutions. To the extent that latent groups associate
in order to remedy grievances and discriminatory experiences, they contribute to pluralist power dynamics,
and a new equilibrium may be reached.
The advocacy explosion exposes multiple, diffuse, interacting groups and factions resembling the original
idea of pluralist interest politics as it was originally put forward by Bentley (1908) and Truman (1951). The
rise of idealistic non-profit organizations posed new questions on the role, character and impact of groups
in a society. They induced research and debates about the benefits of social capital and civic engagement
(Putnam, 2000). This line of research directed attention to the local and regional level and sectoral dynamics,
as well as cultural determinants of organizations and how they generate opportunities for and constraints on
participation.
Jenkins, Wallace and Fullerton (2008) identified a general global shift toward a ‘social movement society’ in
which protests have become a routine part of political bargaining. Environmental risks, postindustrial values,
gender equality and affluence went along with the growth of the state, sub-governments and corporatism in
causing popular opposition and unconventional group activities. This development has gone hand in hand
with the fragmentation of parties and party systems. Some analysts fear that the rise of assertive advocacy
gave rise to strong emotional, cultural, ideological and religious motivations and will eventually fragment poli-
ties, split societies, and lead to populism and crises of governability (Karolewski, Chapter 31, this Handbook).
This could jeopardize pluralist democracies, understood as political and social systems of overlapping, mutu-
ally compensating cleavages among groups who leave passions and ideologies behind and focus mainly on
material interests.
Strolovitch and Forrest (2010) found that, compared to group organizations in general, those representing
marginalized groups are far less likely to use professional lobbyists, employ legal staff or mobilize party do-
nations. They also stress that advocacy for identity groups shows much less interest homogeneity than, say,
narrowly defined business associations. The former groups are characterized by less clear-cut interests that
overlap between class, race, gender and ways of life, coming together in one single organization. Marginal-
ized constituencies within these groups often receive the least active representation (Strolovitch and Forrest,
2010: 475f.).

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The Rational Choice Perspective

Pluralist group theories long neglected the rational motives of individuals to join and become dues-paying
members of interest associations. Mancur Olson (1965) revolutionized the earlier views on why individuals
associate. According to Olson, it is not rational for an individual to voluntarily support an organization in pur-
suing a collective good that is indivisible so that everyone can benefit from being a member or not. The ben-
eficiaries of collective goods will, therefore, tend to avoid paying membership fees and act as ‘free-riders’
instead. Olson demonstrates that the conditions for organizing interests vary by group size: there is little in-
centive to join large interest organizations, because they act independently from an individual's contribution.
In small groups, however, individual membership may decide whether one can enjoy the fruits of lobbying
or not. Thus, the organization of small groups is facilitated by their members’ individual material interests,
whereas large groups suffer from opportunism and free-riding. These arguments refute the pluralist belief in
equal opportunities to associate resulting in a balanced system of representation.
Olson presents the most comprehensive critique of the pluralist group school so far. In pointing to problems of
mobilization and internal maintenance, he posed a number of questions that the pluralists had wrongly taken
for granted. His classic study (Olson, 1965) is based on six basic premises:
• The primary function of groups is to advance the interests of individuals.

• Groups seek to provide collective goods whose benefits can be limited to members only, or – if indi-
visible common goods are concerned – can be enjoyed by everyone in the field.
• As it will not be rational for self-interested individuals to contribute to the groups that deliver benefits
to everyone, groups are facing a free-rider problem.
• In order to overcome the free-rider problem, groups will have to provide extra incentives or sanctions
to get potential members to join.
• The larger the group, the smaller the value of participation by rational individuals.
• Non-material solidarity incentives are important only in small groups or sub-circles of large groups as
long as interest trumps ideology.
‘Interests trump ideology’ has been a basic assumption of pluralist theories from Madisonian reflections on
taming the moods and promoting a reasonable consensus through countervailing diversity up to the classic
and neo-pluralist approaches to interest politics. James Q. Wilson (1995) casts doubt on this rationalistic view.
He modified a widely held view on the role of material interests and their impact on the associability of individ-
uals, as well as on their prospects of collective action. In maintaining an organization, political entrepreneurs
may use different motivational resources. Groups can rely on any combination of four general types of asso-
ciational incentives. Besides material incentives, which are at the heart of Olson's theory, Wilson (1995) dis-
tinguishes between specific solidarity incentives that can be withheld from individual group members (honors,
prices, positions), collective solidarity incentives (friendship, fun, fellowship and conviviality) and purposive
solidarity incentives (beliefs, ideological goals). These motivational forces vary in precision and goal specifici-
ty: material incentives can easily be decoupled from goals and directed in precise quantities, whereas purpo-
sive solidarity incentives are closely related to a group's stated goals. It follows that groups based on material
interests are more adaptive and flexible in their internal organization as well as in relation to their organiza-
tional environment, whereas idealistic groups are less able to compromise.
Wilson's theory, in reaction to the material interest bias in Olson's rational choice approach, supports a wide-
spread conviction that collective action is also motivated by ideals, without any expectation of material re-
wards. Even if one looks at all sorts of solidarity incentives as quasi-material payoffs from membership, such
subjectively felt rewards cannot be calculated in a consistent and precise manner. In this respect, Olson's cri-
tique of the classical school of pluralism has become somewhat attenuated.

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Cultural Pluralism
We find pluralistic diversity not only in conflicting interests and ideologies, but also in the area of group values,
identities and cultural ways of life. Cultural pluralism and identity politics have been among the most flourish-
ing research fields in the wake of minority and group rights discussions and as a result of increasing interna-
tional migration movements. Especially with the end of the Cold War, there was a dramatic rise in the political
significance of cultural pluralism and a change in scholars’ understandings of what drives and shapes ethnic
identification in established Western democracies as well as in the successor states of the former Eastern
Bloc and in the Global South (Young, 1993). Diversity of culture and values includes differences in group
identities and lifestyles marked by religious, linguistic, ethnic and regional affiliations or along the lines of skin
color, ancestry, caste, gender and sexual orientation.
Cultural pluralists share some premises with classic pluralism, namely that societies are by no means ho-
mogeneous, nor are they determined by distributive social class conflicts. The main difference lies in their
special consideration of value conflicts and of cultural differences. Cultural pluralism entails a twofold critique
of assimilationist concepts as they prevail in classic interest group pluralism. Culturalist approaches replaced
the image of a ‘melting pot’ of culturally amalgamated citizens with the new metaphor of a ‘salad bowl', sug-
gesting that social belongings or identities determined by oneself or others do not melt away but combine like
the ingredients of a salad. In addition, there is a functional distinction: cultural pluralism works in other ways
than interest pluralism. In culturally segmented societies the amount of overlapping membership seems to
be restricted, if not completely absent. One cannot be a Muslim, a Catholic, a Jew and a Hindu at the same
time. Even if cultural communities maintain close relationships, their members may not feel the same cross-
pressures from overlap as, for example, a unionist and member of a shareholders’ club, consumer, motorist
and nature lover when it comes to conflicting interests in high wages, high profits, low prices and a clean
environment or – more specific – members of a fishing club finding fisheries polluted by their workplace. The
reassuring effects of overlapping membership – and thus of interest pluralism - appear to be less pronounced
in culturally segmented social environments where identitary group loyalties outweigh interest. In societies
characterized by strongly felt affiliations along ethnicity, skin colour, language or religion, the integrative func-
tions of interest pluralism may thus be weakened by cultural plurality (cf. Smits 2005).
Cultural pluralism is mostly a normative theory proposing protective group rights for minorities. Kymlicka
(2003), for instance, argues that different groups within the same society should be eligible to receive different
rights to protect their cultures, religions or worldviews against external pressures. This, however, should not
support any attempts of organizational elites to limit their individual members’ freedoms in the name of cul-
ture. The proposal obviously reveals a dilemma between protective policies for group rights and the liberalist
concern for equal rights of individuals, among them defensive rights against political interventions into the
private sphere (Deveaux, 2000). Moreover, proposing political valuations of different rights not only leads to
legal pluralism, as opposed to the idea of legal unity; it also reflects a normative split of ideals that seems in-
appropriate for pluralist liberal democracies. Protective group rights could also contribute to the segmentation
and division of societies. In this respect, multiculturalism as suggested by the proponents of cultural pluralism
could intensify conflicts and would, thus, violate the ideal of social balance, peace and compromise to which
the pluralistic idea was first and foremost committed. This seems particularly threatening if cultural, economic
and social cleavages reinforce each other and this eventually throws modern societies back to segmented
tribal structures.
Some aspects of cultural pluralism resemble the concept of ‘consociationalism’ that Arend Lijphart has vehe-
mently advocated since the 1960s (Lijphart, 1971). The key elements of consociational democracies are cul-
tural groups forming relatively closed social ‘pillars’ that are integrated through cooperative relations among
their highest representatives at the elite level of societal sectors such as public media, religion, education,
administration and political parties, in particular. Such systems, also known as ‘Proporzdemokratie’ (propor-
tional democracy) or ‘Konkordanzdemokratie’ (concordance democracy), existed and still exist in somewhat
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looser versions in Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium. Initially, political camps were formed
comprising parties that are linked with ideological (e.g. Austria, Switzerland), religious (e.g. the Netherlands)
or language (e.g. Belgium) groups in those countries, resulting in a two-tier system of electoral and associ-
ational political participation (Lehmbruch, 1977). Such non-majoritarian democracies based on political pow-
er-sharing instead of majority rule are considered to solve conflicts in societies that are divided by deep cul-
tural, ideological, religious or linguistic cleavages (Lijphart, 2004). They often occur together with corporatist
interest intermediation and traditions of social partnership. In such cases, political camps are formed in which
certain parties and the electoral channel of participation are linked with respective interest associations and
subsystems of political interest bargaining. Political systems based on non-majoritarian consensual forms of
political conflict regulation have also been labeled ‘consensus democracy’ or ‘negotiation democracy'.
Regional Varieties of Pluralism

The United States is the homeland of pluralism. Pluralist politics is anchored in its constitutional history just as
variants of liberal corporatism characterize policy making in some small European countries, whereas state
corporatism prevails in parts of Latin America and in some states in Asia and Africa. This has to do with em-
pirical realities, but also with traditions of political thought and regional academic legacies.
The many political science approaches dealing with pluralism still lack a coherent understanding of interest
politics. The American perspective remains focused on lobby groups influencing governmental decision-mak-
ing. Research on European state–group relations emphasized bi-directional exchange relations between gov-
ernments and organized groups instead. In Latin America and newly industrialized countries in Asia, the view
prevails that governments use state–group relations to structure and guide national economies and societies
in a top-down process.
Pressure on governments, negotiations with governments and subordination to governments can be seen as
three distinct major modes of interest politics. They differ in the direction of the influence and are known as
pluralist pressure politics, liberal corporatism and state corporatism respectively.
American researchers’ continuing and recently renewed obsession with one-directional lobbying is difficult
to explain, as studies on sub-governments, issue networks and iron triangles have proven the existence of
bi-directional collaborative relationships between state authorities and private interests in the United States.
Most American studies on pluralism missed the realities of interest intermediation outside the United States.
Similarly, after the 1970s, European researchers rarely took the North American perspective. Thus, theories
as well as empirical work have been split along paradigms and continents so far.
During the 1960s a number of case studies appeared in an attempt to apply the American perspective to
some European and Latin American countries. Skilling (1971) suggested that the ‘group theory’ might prove
useful to examine Soviet politics, since he found public manifestations of the influence of special interests on
policy formulation in the post-Stalin phase. Apparently, even under authoritarian regimes in developing and
communist countries, informal groups and various forms of pluralist pressure politics had been identified to
drive the political process (Linz and Stepan, 1978). Up to the 1970s, international debates were dominated by
an ethnocentric view, which treated political systems and processes as a variety of American pressure group
lobbying. Implicit to this analysis was a functionalistic optimism which attributed the modernization of societies
and the postwar economic boom to the beneficial consequences of democratic pluralism.
Many empirical analyses of political process in African or Asian countries have been shaped, if not dominated,
by liberal pluralist thinking. In assuming Euro-American value terms and working conditions, most of them
tended to downplay or screen out the diversity of cultural viewpoints and conflicts, which differ fundamentally
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from interest group pluralism. As a consequence, the pluralist approach often went hand in hand with an
assimilationist thrust in favor of modernization and Westernization. This may have contributed to the rise of
anti-pluralist attitudes of politics in the guise of cultural nationalism and populism, which have, in different
ways, become a significant feature of contemporary politics in some Asian countries (Mobrand, 2018). As in
most parts of Africa, majoritarian and exclusionary policies and agendas with a strong emphasis on public
order and security form the core of the ruling elite orientation. The intersection of social conservativism and
populism is a key feature of present anti-pluralist politics. Anti-pluralism often builds on legacies of ‘authoritar-
ian statism’ that once pushed back representative institutions and strengthened the authority of bureaucratic
agencies not directly accountable to the public.
Research on interest politics in the EU showed that its institutions and policies contribute to the transformation
of interest intermediation in Europe (Streeck and Schmitter, 1991). Most research indicates that business as-
sociations do particularly well in promoting their agendas and preventing policies they do not want (Klüver,
2013). Others found that the EU's multiple tiers of government offer opportunities for citizen groups to defend
and advance their interests (Dür et al., 2015). In addition, the EU Commission regards citizens’ groups as
allies in its efforts to improve its competences and legitimacy, and to establish a European public space. The
European Parliament's receptiveness toward citizen groups additionally supports these efforts. Besides, the
ability of activists to expand public debates and conflict exceeds that of established business associations
who prefer to shape the policy process quietly, avoiding open conflict (Dür et al., 2015: 958, 967, 975).

Research on interest groups has made great progress over the past century. Much has been learned – how
they emerge and organize, aggregate and articulate demands, interact among each other, influence the leg-
islative and executive branches of governments, and how all this effects the outputs and outcomes of public
policy-making in pluralist democracies. Following David Truman's (1951) extension of Bentley's (1908) sem-
inal study on social pressures and their effects on governing, a bulk of interest group research appeared, a
considerable part of which led to disillusionment. Early notions of balancing private interests have been con-
tinuously refuted. In most of the cases investigated, the forces of interest influence were found to be unevenly
distributed. However, most studies also confirmed that powerful single interests were not able to monopolize
political decision-making. In this respect, the central thrust of pluralist theories could be confirmed: there is no
single private interest, nor any sovereign power, in a pluralist democracy commanding the outcomes of public
policy.
Olson's (1965) rational choice approach to the study of interest groups demystified some long established
views on the functioning of pluralism. He could demonstrate that there is no level playing field in pressure pol-
itics. Moreover, what early pluralists saw as equilibration appeared to be more of a series of distributive strug-
gles among small special interest groups exploiting the general interest: in other words, a sort of wrestling in
a china shop, damaging the common good (Olson, 1986: 173).
Olson's theory exposed some serious flaws of the pluralist model but did not falsify the approach as such,
nor replace it with a new one. On the contrary, Olson affirmed the idea of policy making being a multi-channel
process of political influence. He even emphasized the key role of lobby groups for national welfare (Olson,
1986). Gary Becker, however, considered Olson's condemnation of small interest groups to be exaggerated
‘because competition among these groups contributes to the survival of policies that raise output’ (Becker,
1983: 344). Small interest groups may be more efficient in controlling the negative effects of free-riding, but
they are handicapped in taking advantage of scale economies in the organization of pressure. Becker as-
sumes that policies reducing social outputs stimulate more countervailing pressures from negatively afflicted
groups than welfare-enhancing policies do. This is mainly because the potentials to compensate cost-bear-
ers decrease owing to the dead-weight losses of collusive cartelization or redistributive policies. Therefore,
in democratic states, the rising marginal costs of socially destructive lobbying should mark the limits of an
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excessively unbalanced growth of narrow interest groups (Czada, 1991: 272).
After the turn of the millennium, new approaches were largely inspired by attempts to take into account policy
attributes and thematic factors that affect the course and outcomes of interest politics. It has been established
that the issue context, in terms of number of actors involved and their public interest position, matters for the
strategies used and for their political success (Mahoney, 2007). Baumgartner et al. (2009) found that groups
defending the status quo usually do better in realizing their goals than groups seeking to change policies.
Research on the effects of interest group action on policy outputs still suffers from a lack of data. It is much
more difficult to measure the political weight of interest groups than that of political parties. Except for simple
cases, the relationship between the stakes of groups and their political strengths remains a mystery, large-
ly because in nearly all studies neither stakes nor gains in regulation are directly measured. This is all the
more lamentable as the relative power to influence served as a key explanatory variable. The causal impact
of interest groups on outcomes is still unsolved. Theories of pluralism and most research contributions simply
assume that groups have an influence on policy outcomes. In contrast, theories on corporatism turn the in-
fluence vectors around or are based on the assumption of bi-directional causation and repercussions of gov-
ernmental policies on group strategies in particular. It seems at least reasonable to assume that redistributive
policies in favor of certain groups make them stronger and more influential. Lehmbruch (1991), in an attempt
to establish a developmental theory of interest systems, points to the fact that interactions between interest
organizations and governments are shaped by long established national administrative cultures. Corporatist
relations prevail in Scandinavian and some other small European countries. Lasting close relationships be-
tween administrations and associations were also found in Germany, but to a much lesser extent in the UK,
and hardly at all in the United States. They are practically absent in France due to the pronounced claim of
autonomy of the French bureaucratic elite. The closest state–society networks could be found in Switzerland,
where - at the end of the 19th century - the federal government began to subsidize the formation of represen-
tational monopolies of top associations due to the
peculiar structure of the Swiss state. Because of its institutional decentralization and, at that time,
its extremely weak administrative capacities, the government of the federation found itself not well
equipped to reconcile the conflicting interests in foreign trade and conduct successful international
negotiations on tariffs. Therefore, it proposed to the ‘Vorort’ (hitherto an association run by leading
businessmen in a honorary capacity) and to the Swiss Union of Articrafts and Trades (small busi-
ness) financial grants to employ full-time secretaries for the establishment of trade statistics and oth-
er documentation needed by the government. (Lehmbruch, 1991: 137)
To be sure, state-society links, sectoral sub-governments, issue networks and iron triangles have been part
of the American research agenda. But close state–group interactions have been interpreted more as an ex-
pression of inadmissible state capture than as two-sided exchange relationships. This, however, is just an-
other indication of how strongly the focus on group pressures and lobbying shapes the American tradition
of research on pluralism. This is not just a blind spot on the research agenda. Rather, it points to a possi-
ble tautology that lies in assuming a clear causality to the ambiguous relationship between political pressure
and public policy. Since most policies have redistributive effects, researchers have been tempted to identify
winning groups as the most powerful. Such a backward conclusion would only apply if one interprets public
policies solely as the result of group pressure. It turns into tautology when other explanatory factors, such as
factual constraints, scientific expertise, institutional imperatives, policy routines or strategies of governments
toward particular groups, are taken into account, to the point that governments exert pressure or ask interest
groups to exert pressure on them in favor of a particular policy.
Conclusion and Prospects

In summary, it can be said that pluralism research has gone through several stages of development and
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branched out in many ways, but without abandoning its reference to the impact of interest group politics on
political decision-making. Leaving the early history of ideas aside, research on democratic pluralism began
with the American group school and its assumption that public policy making was determined by the interac-
tion of groups (Truman, 1951). The second stage focused on the concept of ‘pluralist democracy’ based on
a decentralized, non-majoritarian political system called ‘polyarchy’ by Dahl (1967). Major contributions to the
third stage denied former assumptions that all groups have equal opportunities to organize and to deal with
conflicts. McFarland (2010: 40) describes this stage as one of ‘multiple-elitism’ because of its particular focus
on special-interest coalitions, sub-governments and issue networks. The fourth stage of neo-pluralism and
corporatist intermediation extended the thematic range by emphasizing the role of governments and admin-
istrations and their exchange relationships with interest groups.
In the course of this development, each subsequent variant of theory and research retained elements of ear-
lier ones, but rejected others that were thought to be erroneous. This looks like an ideal case of cumulative
research and discovery. However, it did not lead to a coherent theory of pluralism. On the contrary: in dealing
with diversity, the research on pluralism has itself very much diversified. This is due to the fact that one finds a
multitude of democratic models of interest intermediation over time, along policy fields and in a cross-national
comparative perspective.
The conclusion drawn long ago that group influence is fundamentally biased in favor of business and profes-
sional interests is still generally correct. Nevertheless, many studies point to a much more diverse interest
group system in which weak groups are somewhat better represented now than in the 1970s and 1980s. Sus-
tained distortions are mainly caused by barriers to collective action as explained by Olson (1965) and lacking
resources on the part of underrepresented interest groups.
Most promising new avenues point to the effects of government policies on the structure and development of
interest groups. Increasing government activities seemingly led to a massive shift in interest group activism,
creating a more diverse and densely packed political environment. Moreover, attributes of state institutions go
hand in hand with access opportunities for groups, and specific policies shape their choices, opportunities and
strategies – an observation that Eckstein (1960) already made more than half a century ago with reference
to the British case. This is reminiscent of two critical statements on pluralism research: first, Almond's (1983:
252) comment that research in pluralism reveals signs of ‘professional amnesia … impairment of professional
memory [that] has become common in political science and helps to explain its fragmented and faddish char-
acter'; second, LaPalombara's (1960: 29, 34) warning not to simply transfer American approaches elsewhere,
but to take other countries’ different traditions and structures of interest politics as a basis for cross-national
comparisons. This task, suggested in a paper delivered at the 1959 Annual Meeting of the Midwest Confer-
ence of Political Scientists, is yet to be undertaken.
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• pluralism
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http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n37

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Political Behavior
Contributors: Oscar Gabriel

Chapter Title: "Political Behavior"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Political Behavior
Oscar Gabriel
The Origins of Behavioral Research

Compared to other sub-disciplines of political science, political behavior is a new field of research. It was not
before the 1920s that scholars presented the first findings on the patterns and determinants of electoral choic-
es. The contours of behavioral analysis became first visible in the path-breaking study The People's Choice
(Lazarsfeld et al., 1944), which embedded the analysis of electoral behavior in a broader context of political
communication, information processing and attitude formation, and thus – much earlier than other studies –
highlighted the dynamics of people's political attitudes and actions.
Although political behavior was broadly investigated in the following decades, behavioralism as a new par-
adigm in political science was not outlined systematically before the 1960s. Inspired by methodological and
theoretical advances in neighboring disciplines, some scholars claimed the need for a more professional pro-
file of political analyses. As a consequence, the demand to broaden the scope of political science by putting
analyses of political behavior on the research agenda gained momentum (Almond, 1996: 64–78).
Besides sketching the methodological creed of behavioralism, a couple of empirical studies served as the
blueprint of the evolving behavioral program. In electoral research, Lazarsfeld et al. (1944) established the
sociological school. The socio-psychological model introduced by Campbell et al. (1954, 1960) has figured
as the leading approach in electoral research up to now. Researchers around Verba and Nie (1972, 1978)
have played a key role in research on political participation. The Civic Culture (Almond and Verba, 1963/1989)
should also be mentioned in this context as a point of reference for large-scale cross-national studies using
individual-level data (Berg-Schlosser, Chapter 37, this Handbook).
Between 1950 and 1970, research on political behavior developed into an innovative and flourishing discipline
in the United States. In other nations, the institutionalization of behavioral research was delayed by at least a
decade. Aside from electoral behavior and political participation as the two main fields of behavioral political
science (see also Dalton and Klingemann, 2007), the behavioral paradigm inspired research in diverse fields
such as political representation, legislative and judicial behavior, coalition building, political socialization and,
mostly outside of political science at first, political communication (Almond, 1996: 73–8).
Behavioralism in Political Science

A major step toward establishing behavioral research as a subfield of political science was made when the
behavioralist revolution formed as an academic movement. Psychological behaviorism, as promoted by John
B. Watson (1913), served as a blueprint for the behavioralist research agenda. Behaviorism limited psycho-
logical research to observable behavior and developed a stimulus response model as an explanation of be-
havior. Sharing with behaviorism an interest in human behavior, the behavioral approach in political science
focuses on the description and explanation of a wide range of individual and collective behaviors in politics.
This goes alongside the assumption that macro-level characteristics such as stability and innovation, perfor-
mance and responsiveness of political regimes are rooted in civic behavior in the last instance (Almond and
Verba, 1963/1989; Easton, 1965). The demand to shift the focus of political research from institutions and
history to political behavior has always been accompanied by a plea for the use of quantitative empirical data
as a means of theory testing. The methodological guidelines of behavioralism, as stated by Easton (1967:
16–17), can be summarized as follows:
1. Focusing research on testing hypotheses/theories that explain regularities of political be-

havior, that are validated by observing political reality, and used as a basis of scientific
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forecasting and social technology.

2. Using standardized research methods in order to gather quantitative data as a basis for
describing political behavior and testing explanatory theories.
3. Strictly distinguishing empirical explanation from ethical evaluation and limiting research
to the former.
4. Learning from the theoretical and methodological achievements of the more advanced
neighboring disciplines of political science.
The principle of theory-oriented empirical research serves as the glue keeping the behavioral movement to-
gether. Starting from the psychological stimulus–organism–response paradigm, behavioral analyses describe
how people perform their various roles in politics and how the interplay between the citizens’ social position,
social context and political attitudes accounts for that (Smith, 1968). Theories are understood as (sets of)
hypotheses stating a causal relationship between two kinds of empirical observables: dependent and inde-
pendent variables. An explanation is seen as valid only if the dependent variable is empirically proved as a
consequence of the independent variable and cannot be attributed to the influence of third factors.
The behavioral creed was put into practice in a variety of ways. Theoretical behavioralists such as Easton
(1967) and Eulau (1969) elaborated the methodology of behavioralism and outlined the building blocks of a
general theory of political action. Easton's A Systems Analysis of Political Life (1965) stands out as a promi-
nent example of a macro-level analytical framework explaining which factors contribute to the survival of po-
litical systems in a changing environment. Rational choice theories (Downs, 1957; Simon, 1957) stand for an
intellectual tradition of methodological individualism and emphasize the ideal of a rational decider. This latter
approach has evolved into the leading paradigm in modern political theory and has inspired more recent psy-
chological theories of political behavior (Mutz, 2007).
Instead of working on a general theory covering the whole array of civic activities, empirical behavioralism has
proceeded by testing middle range theories that explain specific forms of political behavior. Most empirical
studies have focused on voting behavior and political participation and have generated a plurality of mutually
compatible theoretical approaches.
Electoral Research
Electoral research is a good example of theoretical pluralism showing a co-existence of sociological and so-
cio-psychological approaches. The sociological school dates back to a regional study of the presidential elec-
tion of 1940 in Erie County, Ohio (Lazarsfeld et al., 1944), while nationwide studies of the 1952 and 1956
presidential elections (Campbell et al., 1954, 1960) were the starting point of the socio-psychological ap-
proach to voting behavior. The first American National Election Study (ANES) providing the data for electoral
research in the United States was conducted in 1948 and has been repeated regularly since then. From its
beginnings, the ANES inspired national, international and cross-national research on political attitudes and
behavior in several respects. First, the project developed the design of representative population samples al-
lowing inferences on the characteristics of national publics. Second, it drafted the key concepts aiming to de-
scribe and explain political behavior. Third, it translated the relevant constructs into survey questions allowing
the measurement of behavioral, attitudinal, social and contextual characteristics of citizens. As a result of a
debate continuing over a long time-span, the methods for sampling and data collection, as well as theoretical
constructs and the explanatory models, were steadily improved. Continuous, cumulative empirical research
conducted in an increasing number of democratic countries has successively generated a huge amount of
comparable data for empirical research. Thus, the developmental work performed in the ANES context left its
traces across the entire field of attitudinal and behavior studies (Arzheimer et al., 2017; Dalton and Klinge-
mann, 2007: 9–13; Lewis-Beck et al., 2008: 10–18).

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The Sociological Models of Voting Behavior

The sociological approach to electoral behavior was never elaborated as a coherent theory. Apart from shar-
ing the view of social characteristics as key determinants of behavior, most studies analyzing the electoral
choices of different social groups referred rather loosely to the work of Lazarsfeld et al. (1944: 27). In a dif-
ferent respect, this applies also to the second pioneering study of the sociological school, the social cleavage
theory developed by Lipset and Rokkan (1967). Beyond their focus on social characteristics, these two vari-
ants of the sociological approach do not have much in common. While Lazarsfeld and his associates aim to
explain individual voting decisions, the cleavage theory is a macro-sociological approach linking societal di-
visions to party system characteristics. It serves as a background theory for individual-level voting analyses
rather than as a basis of systematic empirical studies testing the impact of conflict resolution on party system
change throughout modern history (Berntzen, Chapter 23, this Handbook). Without elaborating a stringent op-
erationalization of the ideas of Lipset and Rokkan, the cleavage theory has nevertheless inspired numerous
national and cross-national studies of the impact of social change on party identification and voting behavior
(von Schoultz, 2017). In a broader approach, Lazarsfeld et al. not only investigate the role of social back-
grounds, but also include interpersonal and mass communication as determinants of electoral choice.
The Micro-Sociological Approach

According to the micro-sociological approach, a large number of individual social characteristics and contextu-
al factors account for voter turnout and party choice. Among the social background variables, socio-economic
status (SES), religion, residence, occupation and age were first separately analyzed as determinants of indi-
vidual voting decisions and then combined into an Index of Political Predisposition (IPP). When charting the
social basis of party support, it was found that the Republicans were preferred by around 75% of Protestant,
high SES people living in rural areas. An even higher percentage of low status, Catholic, urban dwellers voted
for the Democrats (Lazarsfeld et al., 1944: 16–27). Pro-business attitudes were other important antecedents
of party preference (Lazarsfeld et al., 1944: 28–39).
Political interest, the intensity and consistency of exposure to political stimuli, active search for political infor-
mation and anticipation of the winner of the election, media consumption and contact with opinion leaders
made a difference to the timing, stability and direction of the voting choice (Lazarsfeld et al., 1944: 52–158).
In analyzing the role of these factors, the authors highlighted the dynamics of the processes of opinion forma-
tion and voting choice. Some of these assumptions returned to the research agenda when electoral studies
sought to build bridges with the neighboring disciplines of communication research and psychology.
The Macro-Sociological Approach

Compared to the micro-sociological school, the cleavage theory has far more strongly shaped empirical re-
search on the social antecedents of electoral choices, particularly in Europe. The term ‘cleavages’ is used as
a description of durable political divisions that are rooted in the structure of a society and find their expression
in the party system. Cleavages build the basis of voter–elite coalitions and are stabilized by intermediary or-
ganizations (churches, unions) and anchored in ideologies (left–right) (von Schoultz, 2017: 33–6). Lipset and
Rokkan (1967) distinguished between two kinds of cleavages: socio-cultural and socio-economic. The former
separate center from periphery and state from church; the latter divide urban from rural areas and labor from
capital. While socio-cultural conflicts center on values and group identities, socio-economic divisions relate to
the organization of economic life (state versus markets) and to the shape and size of the welfare state.
According to Lipset and Rokkan, the European party systems of the 1960s reflected the cleavage structures
prevailing at a point at which the European societies had passed crucial thresholds in the processes of mod-
ernization and democratization (‘freezing hypothesis'). The cleavages of this period were assumed to reflect

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the nature, number and sequence of modernization conflicts. In one ideal constellation, the four modernization
conflicts were resolved stepwise and generated a two-party system exclusively built on the last cleavage, the
division between labor and capital (‘Left’ and ‘Right'). One of the competing parties represents labor (Social
Democrats), the other business (Liberals). When, by contrast, the political system faced the four moderniza-
tion conflicts more or less simultaneously and when there was no opportunity to resolve them successively, a
multi-party system reflecting the citizens’ positions in the multiple cleavage structure was formed. In addition
to Social Democrats and Liberals, religious, agrarian and ethnic or regional parties then competed for elec-
toral support.
As demonstrated by empirical research, the citizens’ position in the cleavage structure does not fully deter-
mine voting choices. Nevertheless, the basic assumptions on the voter–party coalitions were broadly sup-
ported by empirical studies, mainly in Europe. Earlier than studies using the socio-psychological approach,
sociological analyses of electoral behavior evolved as a field of cross-national and cross-temporal electoral
studies. They present broad evidence on the social basis of partisan choices and, moreover, explain varia-
tions in electoral behavior over time, as well as between and within nations (von Schoultz, 2017; Dalton and
Klingemann, 2007: 9–13).
The Socio-Psychological Model of Voting Behavior

Compared to the complexity of the micro-sociological approach, Campbell and his associates offer a parsimo-
nious, coherent and powerful explanation of individual voting behavior. Although well aware of the manifold
influences on electoral choices, a minimal number of political attitudes, that is, the citizens’ attitudes toward
the parties and candidates running for public offices, are in the focus of the socio-psychological school. These
are conceived as located close to the party choice and as genuinely ‘relevant conditions'. This clearly reflects
the behavioral creed that exogenous (historical, social and contextual) factors will not become meaningful for
behavior unless they are translated into political attitudes immediately preceding that behavior. All relevant
components of the model were arranged in a funnel of causality, with the voters’ social position and their po-
litical experience as starting points, the attitudes toward parties and candidates in an intermediary position,
and the voting behavior at the end of the causal chain (Campbell et al., 1960: 18–64, 523–38).
Among the attitudes toward parties and candidates shaping the electoral choices, party identification plays
the decisive role (Campbell et al., 1960: 120–45). This concept is rooted in psychological group theories and
characterizes a more or less stable affective link between individuals and a political party. It is seen as affec-
tively charged, varying in direction and strength, persisting over time and serving as the prime direct determi-
nant of party choice. Under normal conditions, most people cast their vote in favor of the party they identify
with. At the same time, party affiliation shapes citizens’ attitudes toward candidates and issues and thus also
exerts an indirect influence on the voting decision.
Issue orientations depict the impact of public policy on voting choices (Campbell et al., 1960: 168). Stated sim-
ply, issue voting means that voters prefer the candidate or party they perceive as most competent in dealing
with public policy matters, that is, domestic and foreign issues, and as best representing their policy stances.
In order to become salient for party choices, political issues must be cognized (issue familiarity) and induce
a minimal intensity of feeling (salience), and voters must perceive one of the parties to be closer to their po-
sitions or expectations than the others (Campbell et al., 1960: 170–87). Due to shifts in the political agenda,
the citizens’ issue orientations may change from one electoral contest to the next.
The perception and evaluation of the candidates running for public offices figures as the third component of
the socio-psychological model. Campbell et al. (1960: 52–9) regarded voters’ attitudes toward the presidential
candidates as a multidimensional phenomenon. Candidates are perceived as representatives of their parties
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and assessed according to their personality, qualification, experience and record. These attitudes can rest on
diffuse (‘a good man') as well as on more specific attributes, such as being strong and decisive or presenting
themselves as kind, warm and likable.
By conceptualizing party identification, issue and candidate orientations as main determinants of party choice,
the socio-psychological model incorporates long-term and short-term factors. While the former account for
behavioral stability, the latter are a source of electoral change. The stabilizing function is attributed to party
identification, while the attitudes toward issues and candidates are seen as fluctuating more strongly between
elections. Due to its specific characteristic as a stable and influential attitude, party identification exerts a di-
rect influence on the vote and has an indirect impact on it through shaping attitudes toward candidates and
issues. When voters assess one of the competing parties positively on all three relevant dimensions, they
will be strongly disposed to participate in the election and to cast their vote in favor of the respective party.
However, party identification is not immune to changes and can, for instance, be altered over the long run
by assessments of candidates and issues contradicting the existing party affiliation. Inconsistency between
those factors makes abstention from voting probable and will also elicit changing party choices (Campbell et
al., 1960: 523–38).
The socio-psychological theory has served as a basis for innumerable studies of electoral behavior all over
the democratic world. Due to variations in study design, time and context, we cannot derive general conclu-
sions from existing empirical evidence. Nevertheless, party identification has proved the crucial determinant
of voting behavior in the United States and in a large number of other democratic countries over the years.
As expected, the impact of issue orientations and the attitudes toward candidates on voting choices differs
strongly between elections, with no clear pattern over time or across nations (Dalton and Klingemann, 2007:
9–13; Lewis-Beck et al., 2008: 31–59, 60–81, 111–200; Thomassen, 2005a, 2005b).
Innovations
In the last quarter of the 20th century, electoral research was institutionalized as a sub-discipline of political
science in many democratic countries. Nationwide survey data are used as the main source of electoral stud-
ies. The scope of electoral research has broadened by including analyses of so-called second order elections,
as for the European Parliament. At the same time, scholars have sought to integrate the core assumptions of
the traditional approaches, but have also opened the discipline to new psychological approaches. The search
for a common theoretical frame of reference, the updating of the key concepts, the improved availability of
national and cross-national data and the formation of international research networks has laid the ground
for cross-national and cross-temporal comparison of voting behavior. Answering the question of how societal
change was going to alter the role of party identification, issue and candidate orientations and their impact
on electoral choices moved to the top of the research agenda. These conceptual and theoretical innovations
went alongside the development of new methods of data gathering and data analysis. Finally, electoral re-
search that originated in the United States and then was institutionalized in the OECD countries has expand-
ed to other world regions such as Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America and parts of Asia and Africa,
where social cleavages and party alignments do not play the same determining role in voting behavior as they
do in the established democracies. As a consequence, electoral volatility and rapid party system changes
seem to play a major role in the political process of the emerging democracies (Arzheimer et al., 2017: 5;
Dalton and Klingemann, 2007: 12–13; in greater detail LeDuc et al., 2002, 2010, 2014).
Revising Established Concepts

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Changing Views on Party Identification

Since the publication of The American Voter, research on party identification has been mainly influenced by
two factors. First, as electoral studies were conducted in an increasing number of democratic societies over
an extended time-span, scholars observed considerable cross-national and cross-temporal variations in lev-
els of party identification. This elicited a dispute as to whether party identification exists and how it affects vot-
ing choices in non-American, often multi-party systems. A follow-up problem referred to the measurement of
party identification under varying institutional and cultural conditions. Third, findings on the variation of party
identification over time stipulated broad research on the nature and causes of the respective attitude (Budge
et al., 1976/2010; Lewis-Beck et al., 2008: 138–56).
After a series of long and controversial debates, party identification is now mostly understood as a stable,
affective link between voters and political parties that differs from formal party membership and also from
party choice. It exists in most contemporary democracies, is rooted in processes of primary and secondary
socialization and shapes voting choices as well as other political attitudes and behaviors. In broadening the
concept, some scholars assume that people can develop stable affective links to more than a single party,
particularly in multi-party systems. Under specific conditions, the voters’ relationship to political parties may
also consist in rejecting one or more parties rather than in upholding stable affective linkages to others – what
is called negative party identification. These conceptual refinements reflect variations in the institutional and
cultural contexts in which party identification emerges and operates (Arzheimer et al., 2017; Lewis-Beck et
al., 2008: 127–37; Thomassen 2005a: 11–12).
The broadly documented cross-national decline of party alignment gave rise to debate as to the changing
nature of party identification and the impact this might have on electoral choices. While some scholars plead
for a new look at party identification as a volatile tally in the evaluation of party performance, most uphold
the view of party identification as a stable affective political attitude impacting a large number of less stable
orientations to parties and politics. However, the traditional conceptualization was also challenged by findings
that voting behavior could also affect party identification. In revising the prevailing view of party identification
as being mainly transmitted by parental socialization and largely persisting over time, Converse (1969) em-
phasized the role of increasing electoral experience and repeated decisions in favor of a particular political
party as stabilizing party attachments.
While most scholars have dealt with party identification as an individual-level concept, there were also at-
tempts to explore the distribution, source and impact of party identification at the macro level. While analyses
of normal voting and critical elections highlight the impact of the distribution of party identification on long-
term party system changes, the concept of macro-partisanship is preoccupied with (short-term) changes in
the distribution of party identification as a reaction to fluctuating political conditions (Lewis-Beck et al., 2008:
131–6).
Refining the Concept of Issue Orientations

Research on issue voting developed as a particularly innovative field and yielded a series of conceptual and
theoretical advances (Arzheimer et al., 2017; Lewis-Beck et al., 2008: 185–200). Among other reasons, there
was an uptake in attention to issue voting due to the increasing attractiveness of rational choice theories. The
construct of a rational voter who carefully processes information about political parties and their issue posi-
tions and performance attributes a decisive role to political issues in the making of electoral choices (Downs,
1957). In addition, the finding of a decline in party identification stipulated scholarly attention to issue voting.
Long before the debate on a decline of party identification began, Stokes (1963) introduced a distinction be-
tween valence and position issues. Valence issues, such as employment, growth and social security, are not
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a matter of disagreement on goals. Instead, people often attribute varying levels of salience to these issues
and have different perceptions of the competence of parties and candidates in handling these problems. By
contrast, position issues refer to controversial goals such as liberalization of abortion or immigration. In these
cases, the voters do not reason about priorities and competences, but ask whether and to what degree polit-
ical parties share their own viewpoints.
Spatial models of voting derive from the distinction between valence and position issues by addressing the
nature of agreement between the issue positions held by voters and political parties. Directional voting means
that voters prefer a party because they share its general views, such as a liberal immigration policy. In con-
trast, distance voting focuses on the perceived distance between the voters’ and the parties’ stances on is-
sues, irrespective of whether both stay on the same side. This may be particularly relevant for moderate vot-
ers who do not take a position in the same sector of the political space as a moderate party, but are closer to
it than to the standpoint of more extreme parties perceived as being on the right side.
The concept of issue ownership rests on the idea that a specific political party is consistently seen as most
competent in dealing with an issue or a set of issues. Therefore, this issue is given a prominent role in the
parties’ political agenda and will be strongly highlighted in its campaign activities in order to prime the vot-
ers’ judgments. Examples are the association of law and order with conservative parties and of social welfare
measures with socialist ones.
Analyses of economic voting as a particular case of issue voting (Campbell et al., 1960: 381–401; Lewis-Beck
et al., 2008: 365–89) are anchored in the tradition of the rational choice approach. Accordingly, the individ-
uals’ cost–benefit calculations serve as the decisive factor in their voting decisions. They calculate the eco-
nomic return they had obtained or might expect when being governed by alternative parties and candidates.
In the end, they prefer the alternative which appears most economically advantageous for them. In view of
the ambiguous meaning of economic benefits, different approaches to economic voting have developed. One
distinction is between pocketbook and sociotropic voting and refers to the personal economic situation ver-
sus the state of the national economy as the basis of calculating economic return. Finally, as an alternative
to evaluating the handling of a large set of specific political issues, voters can consider the general record of
the incumbent officials as a less costly alternative and either use past performance or expectation of future
actions as the basis for their preference building.
Candidate Orientations
Research on candidate orientations took a strong impetus from the debate on the decline of party identifica-
tion. By adopting psychological concepts, scholars have dealt in depth with the dimensions and the impact
of candidate orientations. The use of schema theory marked one major advance and conveyed evidence on
voters’ ability to organize their assessments of political leaders alongside broader classes of characteristics.
The major dimensions of candidate evaluations found in a large number of empirical studies vary in detail, but
many findings confirm the view of Campbell and colleagues (1960) that competence, integrity, strong leader-
ship and problem solving capabilities are perceived as relevant candidate traits.
A good deal of research on candidates has dealt with the question of whether the decline of party identification
and changes in the system of mass communication have elicited an increasing personalization of electoral
choices. In the context of voting choices, personalization means that candidate orientations have become
more influential as determinants of electoral behavior over the years and that performance counts less than
personality in this respect. However, the assumption of an increasing personalization of the vote has not gen-
erally been supported by empirical research so far (Garzia, 2017; Lewis-Beck et al., 2008: 53–8).

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New Perspectives on the Determinants of Voting
De-alignment and Re-alignment: The Impact of Traditional and New Cleavages

on Voting Choices
Parallel to other domains of political life, changes of electoral behavior became obvious in the 1970s and
scholarly interest turned to the ‘changing voter’ (Thomassen, 2005a, 2005b). The increased electoral volatility
and corresponding processes of partisan de-alignment and re-alignment were traced back to worldwide soci-
etal changes. Accordingly, the transition from industrial to post-industrial society and a concomitant process
of value change seemed to weaken the traditional social cleavages that had long shaped electoral behavior.
Indeed, the share of blue collar workers and self-employed people has been shrinking in favor of an emerg-
ing new middle class in the post-industrial economies. The parallel processes of cultural secularization and
the shift from materialist (law and order, economic growth and prosperity, welfare politics) to post-materialist
(lifestyle, emancipatory) values undermine traditional values.
In terms of cleavage politics, socio-economic and socio-cultural changes have a double impact on the tradi-
tional voter–party coalitions. As demonstrated by a large number of empirical studies, the social groups that
have built the basis of the electorates of socialist, liberal, conservative and Christian parties that have tradi-
tionally dominated the electoral process in Europe no longer make up the majority of the electorate, which
decreases the support for traditional parties. Since these parties still emphasize traditional political concerns,
they face difficulties in finding support from the growing segments of the electorate who prioritize new polit-
ical values and issues – the young, well educated, new middle class post-materialists. Moreover, there are
indications that identification with and electoral support for these parties is declining in their traditional so-
cial milieus, too. This applies particularly to social democratic parties, which are divided between a traditional
materialist and a new post-materialist left. As a consequence of the decline of party identification, it is said
that short-term factors (candidate and issue orientations) increasingly shape voting choices and nurture elec-
toral volatility. Generational replacement plays a key role in the process of de-alignment (Inglehart, 1983; von
Schoultz, 2017; Thomassen, 2005b; Dalton and Klingemann, 2007: 9–13).
While the de-alignment concept explains how and why voters’ support for traditional political parties vanishes,
the idea of re-alignment goes one step further by showing what accounts for the voters’ switch from well-es-
tablished to new party alignments and for the resulting formation of new political parties. In the 1970s and
1980s, the success of Green parties was explained as induced by the diffusion of post-materialist values.
More recent re-alignment processes account for the rise of right wing populist parties. As demonstrated by
Kriesi and others, the conflicting attitudes toward globalization versus national identity build the ground for an
emerging new cleavage that divides supporters of right wing populist parties from supporters of the traditional
ones (see Kriesi, Chapter 90, this Handbook). The shift of party loyalties elicited by the conflict around glob-
alization goes alongside strong anti-establishment and anti-system attitudes. It displays true characteristics
of re-alignment, since many working class socialists have joined the camp of anti-globalists and now support
right wing populist parties.
As traditional cleavages have weakened, assumptions of the micro-sociological approach were also revital-
ized. Thus, the voters’ position in their social environment, namely the local and regional context, patterns of
interpersonal communication and integration into social networks such as neighborhood and primary groups,
is seen as an important determinant of voting behavior. Moreover, analyses of issue and candidate voting
benefited from the inclusion of mass communication in electoral studies. Agenda setting, framing and priming
are concepts highlighting the indirect influence of mass media reporting on electoral choices. Attention to in-
stitutional factors, for example electoral laws, as determinants of voting choice also increased (Arzheimer et
al., 2017; Dalton and Klingemann, 2007, Thomassen, 2005b).

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Cognition, Emotion and the Vote

In the 1990s, attention to psychological paradigms rose among electoral researchers. Although concern with
cognitive processing is not completely new, the inclusion of emotions brings a previously neglected element
into the analysis of electoral choices.
Cognitive approaches are preoccupied with political information processing as preceding voting choices – as
was already addressed by classical rational choice analyses of the role of information costs in the making of
political judgments. The idealized figure of a fully informed voter was contrasted to a rational ignorant voter
who made no effort to achieve well-informed and considered choices (Downs, 1957). Similarly, Campbell et al.
(1960: 188–215) had broadly analyzed the role of belief systems as a basis of well-informed voting choices.
Subsequently, this concept was more deeply elaborated by Converse's (1964) idea of ideological reasoning.
Accordingly, when evaluating political objects, ideological reasoners rely on a hierarchically and horizontal-
ly organized belief system encompassing a few fundamental, stable and abstract principles together with a
large set of specific preferences derived from these core values. By contrast, Campbell pointed to party iden-
tification as an information shortcut for those voters who were neither capable nor willing to consider in full
detail the characteristics of the issue agenda and the positions taken by the competing candidates or parties
(Campbell et al., 1960: 128).
The impact of information processing on the vote has become a prominent theme in electoral research over
the past decades. Aligning to psychological dual modes theories that distinguish between a central and a
peripheral route of information processing, these approaches incorporate the established explanatory con-
cepts of voting choices, party identification, issue and candidate orientations into the framework of cognitive
theories. Accordingly, well-structured and informed reasoning on parties, issues and candidates on the one
hand, and the use of information shortcuts on the other, is mainly a result of the characteristics of the decision
situation. When facing salient political issues, having sufficient time and disposing of adequate cognitive re-
sources, voters take a central route of information processing. This implies a careful search for and evaluation
of information that is needed for a rational decision. By contrast, low salience of issues, short time and limited
cognitive resources elicit the choice of the peripheral route and induce people to simplify the choice situation
by the use of heuristics, shortcuts or some other ways of ignoring or eliminating alternative information. Rea-
soned choice relies strongly on values, ideologies, a careful evaluation of the issue positions and problem
solving capacities of political parties and assessment of the personality and performance of the candidates
running for public offices. By contrast, heuristic judgments make use of party identification, group stereotypes,
media reporting and physical appearance of candidates, or rely on the preferences of persons in the voters’
personal environment when it comes to making a voting choice. Easily available information and impressions
as well as past behavior may also shape the voters’ preference building (Mutz, 2007).
Similar to cognitive dual mode theories, the theory of affective intelligence distinguishes between a central
and a peripheral route of information processing, but infers the difference in information processing from the
kind of emotions prevailing in the decisional situation. When emotions such as joy or pride prevail and the
circumstances are not perceived as threatening, people rely on heuristic processing. By contrast, threatening
situations elicit fear and lead people to use a systematic method of information processing. In the electoral
situation, the party choice of people who feel fearful was shown as more strongly influenced by candidate and
issue orientations and less so by party identification, while the opposite held true for voters experiencing joy
and pride (Mutz, 2007; Redlawsk and Pierce, 2017).
A second approach, the theory of motivated reasoning, also starts from the premise that people handle in-
formation processing differently when asked to make a decision. According to Lodge and Taber (2000), deci-
sions rest on a different weighting of accuracy (information) and directional goals (predisposition). In addition
to the classical model of rationality (strong accuracy and weak directional goals), they consider the three oth-
er combinations of accuracy and directional goals as ideal types. Turning to real politics, they emphasize that
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every information is affectively charged. Thus, voters often do not conform to the ideal model of a rational
decider but rather follow their predispositions, select information, simplify the decisional situation and seek
justification of decisions they have already made before evaluating the available alternatives. Online process-
ing of information and resorting to ‘how do I feel’ heuristics are other core elements of Lodge and Taber's
theory (Redlawsk and Pierce, 2017).
The changing views on electoral choices and the processes preceding the final decision have fostered a se-
ries of methodological innovations. Experiments and the use of data gathered by panel surveys and rolling
cross sections have become established instruments in dealing with the dynamics of electoral behavior. More-
over, multi-level analyses have facilitated research on the interplay of macro- and micro-level variables in
shaping electoral choices (Arzheimer et al., 2017).
Political Participation
Since the act of voting rests on the double decision to go to the polls instead of abstaining from vote and
to make a choice among the competing parties, analyses of turnout were included in electoral studies from
the beginning (Lazarsfeld et al., 1944: 40–52; Campbell et al., 1960: 89–115). Early re-search equated politi-
cal participation with activities embedded in the electoral process. As the citizens’ repertory of political action
broadened, scholars turned to the analysis of additional forms of political engagement and to the way these
activities related to each other.
While early analyses of political participation remained mostly descriptive, interest in explaining the level and
type of citizens’ political engagement increased in the 1970s. Individual as well as macro-level approaches
tried to integrate social, attitudinal and institutional factors into middle range theories exploring why and how
people make their voices heard in politics. However, a broadly accepted theory of political participation does
currently not exist. Instead, multiple, but compatible, explanatory approaches trace political participation back
to a variety of individual and systemic factors (Gabriel, 2012: 11–20).
Changing Views on Political Participation

As an ambiguous and contested concept, political participation is defined in different ways. Most early con-
ceptualizations did not go beyond listing a set of activities understood as political participation (Campbell
et al., 1960: 90–3), and no major attempts to define and operationalize the concept were made before the
1960s. Even then, there was no common understanding of what should be subsumed under the heading of
political participation (Milbrath and Goel, 1977: 2; Verba and Nie, 1972: 2). Avoiding the limitations of older
approaches, Verba et al. (1995: 38) define political participation as an ‘activity that has the intent or effect
of influencing government action – either directly by affecting the making or implementing of public policy or
indirectly by influencing the selection of people who make those policies'. Meanwhile, this view has become
widely accepted as distinguishing political participation from other kinds of social and political behavior.
As the scope of activities people use in order to influence politics has increased, research has more intensely
analyzed the distinctive characteristics of various forms of participation and the relationship existing between
them. In a first encompassing report of existing research, Milbrath described political participation as a pyra-
mid of activities mainly differing in terms of required effort. He identified three types of political actors: the in-
active, who largely stay outside the political arena and take a position at the base; the spectators, who mainly
limit themselves to political communication and are in an intermediary position; and the gladiators, who ac-
tively seek to exert influence in the political arena and make up the small top of the pyramid (Milbrath and

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Goel, 1977: 10–12).
The varying levels of effort required by an activity have remained an important aspect in the classification of
participation, but were eventually not seen as sufficient. Instead, political participation was shown as encom-
passing a variety of qualitatively different systems serving different purposes and used by different people
(Verba and Nie, 1972: 45). In addition to the effort caused by the activity, Verba and Nie introduced three
further characteristics that distinguished between electoral participation, campaigning and contact because
of collective or individual concerns: (1) information or pressure as the function of the respective activity, (2)
the level of implied conflict, and (3) the individual or collective impact of the outcome of participation. With
only minor modifications, these assumptions were supported by empirical analyses. To better understand this
conceptualization, it has to be mentioned that the authors originally excluded political protest from their analy-
sis. Similar to the Verba group, (Barnes et al., 1979) claimed a qualitative difference between the observed
systems of participation, conventional and unconventional activity based on the criteria of institutionalization,
legality and legitimacy. This distinction was also validated empirically (Kaase and Marsh, 1979a).
A series of follow-up studies came to similar conclusions on the structure of political engagement. Participa-
tion in elections, other activities related to electoral protest, contacting politicians, and both legal and illegal
protests were found to be the main groups of activities that people use to influence politics. In some studies,
the system of participation appeared less complex than previously described; others found additional factors,
such as consumer participation and political violence. Moreover, being involved in one of the systems of par-
ticipation was shown as by no means excluding other activities. Although many people are either inactive or
use all available kinds of exerting influence on politics, a certain segment of the citizenry specializes in using
one or several forums to exert influence (Kaase and Marsh, 1979b; Verba and Nie, 1972: 82–95; also Armin-
geon, 2007; Gabriel, 2012: 6–11; Teorell et al., 2007).
The approach to newer types of political participation is different: Only a few encompassing studies of citizens’
initiatives and referenda, deliberative forms of democracy and electronic participation are theoretically and
methodologically integrated into the mainstream of behavioral research; most are limited to mere description
and do not systematically investigate the factors leading people to become active in politics.
Although the study on political participation conducted by Verba et al. (1978) found similarities between the
Western (USA, the Netherlands and Austria) and the four non-Western countries (India, Japan, Nigeria and
Yugoslavia) under observation, far more research on civic engagement has subsequently focused on tradi-
tional democracies. Recent studies on participation in new democracies deal with traditional forms of political
participation (Norris, 2002: 113–16, 119–32, 168–88), but more interestingly, some of them observe these
countries as taking a pioneer role in developing innovative, deliberative modes of participation and citizen
empowerment, for example participatory budgeting, referenda and e-participation (Dalton and Klingemann,
2007: 13–16; Norris, 2002: 194–202, 207–11; LeDuc et al., 2002, 2010; Weldon and Dalton, 2014).
Explanatory Approaches
Irrespective of the lack of a general theory, research has explored from early on what factors enhance political
participation. Education, age, gender and political interest were determinants of electoral turnout analyzed by
Lazarsfeld et al. (1944: 40–52). In investigating the attitudinal correlates of turnout, Campbell et al. (1960:
89–110) found that intensity of party affiliation, political interest, sense of political efficacy and the view of vot-
ing as a civic duty fostered participation in elections.
These findings were soon incorporated into research on political participation in general. Milbrath and Goel
(1977) traced political participation back to macro-level characteristics of the social and political system, life
position factors, the citizens’ personality and the stimuli set by the political environment. Broad empirical evi-
dence underlines the role of these factors in citizens’ decisions to take an active role in politics. While attitudes
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such as political interest, party identification and political efficacy were part of individual-level analyses, the
role of socio-economic factors as antecedents of political participation is analyzed in micro- and macro-level
approaches (Gabriel, 2012: 11–20).
Scholarly interest in integrating available empirical evidence on the determinants of political participation into
more complex theories has highlighted different factors. Starting from an observed gap between the norma-
tive idea of political participation as a right that should be accessible to all citizens on the one hand, and the
unequal use of this right by upper and lower status groups on the other, Verba et al. explored in depth the
socio-economic antecedents of political participation. In line with previous research, they found people who
are well equipped with socio-economic resources are politically more active than those with fewer resources,
not only in the United States but also in other countries. Regarded against this background, the search for a
way to achieve greater equality in democratic participation led the authors to state an additional assumption.
Accordingly, institutional affiliation (party identification and politicized membership in voluntary organizations)
could mitigate the social bias of participation. Depending on the strength of the mediating effect of citizens’ re-
lationship to political institutions, the authors distinguished between weak, additive, dominant, restrictive and
mobilizing institutional systems. Unfortunately, the analysis failed to establish a clear and consistent impact of
institutional affiliation on the relationship between the socio-economic resource level and the level and type of
political participation in the observed countries (Verba et al., 1978). Notwithstanding the inconsistent results,
the key variables of the resource institution model were incorporated into subsequent research and the ques-
tion of the relationship between participation and political equality has remained a prominent theme to date
(Schlozman et al., 2012).
During the 1960s, research on political participation was challenged by the worldwide spread of protest and
political violence, which contradicted conventional wisdom in several respects. First, protest was more com-
mon in socio-economically advanced post-industrial societies than in less developed ones which were addi-
tionally characterized by strong socio-economic inequality. Second, with only a few exceptions, supporters
of the protest movements in post-industrial societies were mainly recruited of among young, well-educated
upper middle class people. Two different approaches addressed the problem of political protest in modern
societies. The first, the theory of value change, explains the broadening of the citizens’ action repertory as a
product of societal modernization (Barnes et al., 1979; Inglehart, 1983). The second approach was anchored
in theories of alienation and understood political protest as an expression of a growing rejection of politics and
society by the people (Schwartz, 1973; see also della Porta, Chapter 39, this Handbook).
As mentioned above, the transition from industrial to post-industrial societies was accompanied by a shift
from materialist to post-materialist values. This did not only alter electoral behavior but also elicited elite-chal-
lenging forms of political participation in addition to the elite-directed activities that had prevailed so far. Two
factors, value change and cognitive mobilization, account for the changing style of political action. First, high
levels of education and related cognitive capacities provide the necessary resources for playing an active role
in politics. Second, post-materialists feel a need to rely on protest as a means of exerting influence on politics
because they perceive political elites as insufficiently open to new political concerns. These assumptions were
broadly supported by empirical research (Inglehart, 1983). Additional findings on the new social movements
underlined the strong role of post-materialist priorities in mobilizing collective protest (Norris, 2002: 188–212).
Variants of alienation theory trace political protest, political apathy and conformist political participation back to
an interplay of two facets of a complex syndrome of alienation: powerlessness (inefficacy) and normlessness
(distrust). In a broader approach to the antecedents of disruptive political behavior, elements of alienation
theory were combined with rational choice theories and assumptions derived from Easton's (1965) concepts
of diffuse and specific support (Muller, 1979). Empirical research yielded mixed findings on the impact of po-
litical alienation on political participation: political inefficacy made the greatest difference between becoming
politically active or remaining passive, but regime support and trust in authorities proved poor predictors of
political participation. Moreover, there is no evidence on the assumed interaction between political inefficacy
and distrust in eliciting protest, conformist participation and political apathy.

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Together with social networks, the role of social and political trust as a determinant of political engagement
was also emphasized in the theory of social capital (Putnam et al., 1993). While some types of social activity
indeed seem to foster political participation, this mostly does not apply to social and political trust (Armingeon,
2007; Norris, 2002: 137–87).
Although broad agreement on the determinants of political participation has developed over time, a theory in-
tegrating these various factors in a theoretically meaningful way is still missing. The ‘civic voluntarism model’
(CVM) of Verba et al. (1995) comes close to that ideal by including social background, political attitudes and
the citizens’ integration into social networks, and, moreover, by elaborating in detail how these factors influ-
ence political participation. Attributes such as time, skills and social background are seen as resources en-
abling people to become active. Attitudes such as political interest, political efficacy, party identification and a
sense of civic duty work as factors motivating people to take an active role in politics. Finally, integration into
social networks contributes to mobilizing people for political engagement. Although not all constructs included
in the civic voluntarism model proved valid predictors of political participation, it gives a convincing explana-
tion of why some people become politically engaged while others remain passive. Numerous current studies
of political participation support the core assumptions stated in the CVM model.
While much electoral research focuses on a single political system, a couple of studies of political participation
entail cross-national comparisons (Barnes et al., 1979; LeDuc et al., 2002, 2010, 2014; Norris, 2002; van Deth
et al., 2007; Verba et al., 1978). As the micro- and macro-level data available for cross-national research have
improved considerably over time and new tools for simultaneous analyses of individual-level and systemic
data have become available, research has recently turned to political institutions as determinants of political
participation. As supply factors, institutional arrangements make some forms of participation available while
incentivizing or restricting others. Due to variations in the selection of units of observation, variables and study
designs, a valid general conclusion on whether, how and why institutions matter as determinants of political
participation cannot be drawn from the available findings (LeDuc et al., 2002, 2010, 2014; Norris, 2002).
Similar to voting choices, the types and levels of political participation show considerable variation over time
and across nations. However, the determinants of political participation seem to be less dependent on pre-
vailing circumstances than is the case for party choices. Notwithstanding dissimilarities in detail, empirical
research shows that political participation – of whatever type – is fostered by resources such as education
and cognitive abilities, by motives such as interest, political efficacy, support of participative norms, and party
identification, and by inclusion in informal and formal social networks.
Advances and Needs

In a time-span of almost a century, research on political behavior has been established as a productive sub-
discipline of political science. Due to advances in the techniques of data collection and analysis, such studies
have been conducted in an increasing number of countries. Starting from the empirical observation of voting
behavior, they have successively included a broader array of elite and mass behaviors and made efforts to
integrate different middle range theories. Recently, research has considerably progressed by turning to dy-
namics of political behavior. Voting behavior and political participation have evolved as the most advanced
subfields of behavioral studies in all these respects, though a general and encompassing theory of political
behavior is not yet in sight.
Evidently, research on political behavior is still most advanced in stable democracies such as the United
States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Western Europe. But due to a variety of changes in society, pol-
itics and academia, alongside an increasingly internationalized school of political science, political behavior in
Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, parts of East and Southeast Asia and some African nations has
also become a more or less prominent topic of empirical research (Almond, 1996; Dalton and Klingemann,
2007). While there have been substantial advances, some blind spots have remained in the research agenda.
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While, in general, the patterns, trends and determinants of political behavior have been broadly studied, the
impact of electoral behavior and political participation on the quality of citizenship and democracy has largely
remained outside the scope of empirical research. Little is known as to whether and how variations in political
behavior contribute to elite responsiveness, strengthen systemic stability and promote performance and inno-
vation. This is partly due to a lack of appropriate data, but it also has to be said that convincing assumptions
on macro-level determinants of political behavior are missing. Finally, the inclusion of new forms of political
behavior into mainstream behavioral research remains desirable.
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• political behavior
• political research
• political communications
• voter behavior
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n38

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Political Communication
Contributors: Gianpietro Mazzoleni & Cristopher Cepernich

Chapter Title: "Political Communication"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Political Communication
Gianpietro Mazzoleni Cristopher Cepernich
Introduction
What is meant by ‘political communication'? The question is not an idle one, since the mass media and the
digital media have come to play a pivotal role in the new communication ecosystems and have become vital
to present-day polities. We have, in fact, reached a point at which it is difficult for scholars and commentators
to make sound analyses of any political phenomenon or trend without giving due consideration to issues of
communication.
There are copious examples, including the rise and success of Donald Trump, the broad diffusion of populism,
Brexit and international terrorism, all of which have been influenced by media activities, by the manipulation
of news sources and by the rise of online communication platforms, which, to varying degrees, explain the
nature and cause of those events. The role of communications in politics has been investigated since the
early studies on voting in the 1940s (for example, Paul Lazarsfeld), including by political thinkers such as Karl
W. Deutsch (1963), who considered them ‘the nerves of government'. Scholarly literature on the subject, both
theoretical and empirical, has proliferated in the past 70 years, and the field of political communication has
attained a standing of its own, even though mainstream political science had long ignored the importance of
media and communication in the political process.
Besides – and before – being an academic discipline, political communication is the conveying of ideas and
information by people engaged in politics, elections and government on the one hand, and in news produc-
tion, news management, debate and entertainment on the other. The flow of political content posted and
circulated via social media is also a tangible form of political communication. All of these activities involve
senders and receivers, messages and feedback, and have a verifiable impact on political reality – that is,
on election outcomes, the formation of government coalitions and policy-making – and also in shaping pub-
lic opinion, political views and citizen engagement. It is political communication that practitioners perform in
assisting political actors running for office or in office, in devising marketing, advertising, PR strategies, in lob-
bying activities and the like. It thus has a wider meaning than that of an academic disciplinary field. Political
communication as a discipline is, rather, the field in which communication dimensions of politics are investi-
gated and interpreted from a scholarly perspective. This is the object of this chapter.
One outstanding example, now a standard reference for innumerable studies, is the comprehensive outline of
the state of political communication in post-war democracies written by Jay G. Blumler and Dennis Kavanagh
(1999). They identified three ‘ages’ in the evolution of political communication, which they defined as the dy-
namic between political actors, news and the public.
Age 1 corresponds to the first two post-war decades, in which the party system adhered to entrenched social
divisions and the electorate related to politics via a strong party identification and voted according to group
loyalties. The communication system was dominated by political parties and to a significant extent was also
‘partisan': political messages were ‘substantive'; political leaders focused on issues and enjoyed ready ac-
cess to mass media.
Age 2 spans from the 1960s through the 1980s, when television strengthened its grip on politics. This was
a time when traditional party allegiances based on the subcultural divisions of the immediate past weakened
rapidly and politicians and their parties discovered television to be a powerful means to contact hitherto un-
reachable audiences. Political communicators therefore had to adopt the typical formats of television produc-
tion in order to address wider, more varied audiences.
Age 3 ran from the 1990s onwards, a challenging period in which the media environment became more frag-

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mented and witnessed the rise of the internet. It seemed a bonanza for established political players: although
the multiplication of public communication channels made it hard to keep the media in check, the new, inter-
active platforms represented unprecedented resources for every kind of political communication. Blumler and
Kavanagh highlighted the main features of this age as: (1) a professionalization of the relationship between
political leaders and public opinion, making use of an array of systems, from spin doctoring to news manage-
ment; (2) the populist nature of much political communication that yields to market imperatives, privileging
‘popular’ formats, transmitting soft news to the detriment of debate on serious political issues; (3) a ‘centrifu-
gal’ communication by political players that was forced to ‘chase’ an audience distracted by the popular or the
new social media.
The first two decades of the 2000s may well be labeled Age 4, one in which the internet has become firmly
rooted in everyday life, impacting on the polity as a whole. The web is changing the ecology of political com-
munication, with important implications – first, for the working of established democratic institutions, which
have been unsettled by the rise of political leaders astute in the use of all media; second, for the political
empowerment that the new social media gives citizens who are now able to actively produce messages and
be involved in a process of ‘disintermediation’ from both the traditional party-centered networks and from the
gatekeeping of mainstream mass media; third, for traditional communication theory, built almost exclusively
on decades-long research carried out within the mass communication paradigm. While most of this theory
is still valid – given that the mass media, especially television, still occupy center stage in political commu-
nication – politics finds itself submerged in a ‘hybrid’ media environment (i.e. mass media together with new
media) (Chadwick, 2013), in which new political dynamics are at work that scholars suspect cannot be fully
understood and explained by mainstream theory.
The Discipline
Political communication as a field of study is the object of several disciplines. While being a complex phenom-
enon that has politics at its core, it also involves a wide array of aspects and cannot be restricted to narrow
theoretical confines. It is a multi-faceted phenomenon, multi-disciplinary in character on account of being es-
tablished by contributions, direct and indirect, from disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, public opinion
research, political philosophy, history, semiotics, discourse analysis, linguistics and psychology.
This chapter concentrates on the crossroads between political science and the sociology of communication,
since these have produced the largest amount of empirical research and theoretical reflection. However, the
discipline has also been enriched by the ideas of such theorists as Hannah Arendt and Jürgen Habermas (for
instance, their views on the role of informed citizens engaged in discussion in the ‘public realm', an activity
substantial for democracy yet clearly one of political communication). Habermas developed his theories while
speaking explicitly about the centrality of the media for the functioning of the ‘public sphere'. Critics such as
Robert Putnam (2000), meanwhile, have accused television of distracting millions of Americans from social
and civic engagement. And new ground was broken by political thinkers such as Murray Edelman, who pro-
posed an insightful typology of ‘political language’ in his book The Symbolic Uses of Politics (1976), which has
inspired generations of political communication scholars. A further example is that of anthropologist David I.
Kertzer, who, in his seminal book Ritual, Politics and Power (1988), sheds light on the non-rational dimensions
of political action, where symbols and rituals are used by politicians seeking to gain (through those types of
communication) their followers’ support. In addition, the linguist and cognitive scientist George Lakoff (2008)
used neuroscience to show how narratives, metaphors and frames can influence voting patterns.
Finally, as a discipline in its own right, political communication displays diverse degrees of academic institu-
tionalization because of its connections worldwide. As a relatively new sub-field of the wider domain of com-
munication science, it has found little room among the well-established disciplines that constitute the tradition-
al pillars of university teaching. Departments of political communication are still rare in academic settings, and
the discipline is often grouped with other curricula of either political science or social studies. The reasons for
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this negligible academic recognition are its inherent multi-dimensional nature – making it a territory colonized
by other scientific interests – and, more importantly, its lack of a defined statute.
Even so, intense and ever growing international cooperation between scholars and innumerable comparative
research efforts has produced a profusion of publication projects, and these have helped to show how essen-
tial political communication scholarship is for a clear understanding of some of the key political phenomena
of our time.
The Basic Theories and Research Traditions
Campaign Communication
Scholars from a variety of disciplines have devoted considerable time to the study of election campaigns.
These are moments in which the contest for power is planned and played out in front of the electorate, and
their outcome will be of great consequence. The machinery of parties and candidates work at full speed, me-
dia coverage is at its highest and voters are the constant target of political propaganda: no wonder, then, that
campaigns provide the best opportunities for academic analysts to investigate electoral communication, its
unfolding and its potential impact.
Research into electoral campaigns has focused first on the sum of communications produced by the various
players – politicians, parties, candidates, consultants, activists, media outlets, grassroots movements and
the like – and then on the extent to which communication efforts affected the election outcome. Pippa Nor-
ris (2000) developed a useful typology of US election campaigns, taking a historical perspective to classify
them as pre-modern, modern or post-modern. She also studied their various features, taking into account the
development of democratic awareness, the diffusion of the media (especially television) and the growth of
professional expertise in support of political contenders. Norris’ typology proved well suited for categorizing
the development of campaigns in political contexts quite unlike that of the United States. Campaigns can in
fact be either candidate-centered (as in the United States) or party-centered (as in most non-presidential sys-
tems), and this obviously has important implications for the organization of propaganda and communication
strategies.
The academic analysis of campaigns has contributed to the crafting of a sub-field of political communication,
that of ‘political marketing', which borrows much from the canons of established commercial marketing. The
language of politics has quickly adopted its jargon – targeting, positioning, attack and defense strategies, po-
litical commercials, negative advertising and the like – and professional figures such as political consultants,
spin doctors, image builders and media experts have become familiar with political hopefuls, government offi-
cials, party leaders, journalists and, of course, even scholars, who have produced a mass of studies on each
of those new types of political communicators.
The introduction of new media, especially social networks, into the campaign arsenal has itself attracted the
attention of scholarly researchers in many countries. Their countless publications explore the idiosyncratic us-
es that politicians make of such media, as well as the conditions required for effective communication, types
of content, intensity of use and the profiles of ordinary citizens responding to or addressing candidates. One
of the main findings is that social media enable – at least potentially – a truly interactive exchange between
candidates and voters.
Research on the effects of election campaign communication is one of the oldest academic traditions in the
field, going back to the pioneering studies of, first, the 1940s Columbia School of Lazarsfeld, who in The Peo-
ple's Choice (1944) and Voting (1954) discovered that the social characteristics of target voters are powerful
filters of campaign persuasion stimuli, and, second, the Survey Research Center of the University of Michi-
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gan, with Angus Campbell et al., who in The American Voter (1960) emphasized the psychological and affec-
tive determinants of voting behavior, especially party identification. The analysis of campaign effects stems
from a wider question that refers to the impact of mass communication (and online media) on politics and
political dynamics, from the perspective of both senders and receivers.
Media–Politics Interaction Patterns

The role of media in the political sphere is another key area of scholarly investigation in the field of political
communication. Two of the many questions addressed by academics are worthy of particular attention: (1) To
what extent has the presence and activity of various mass media affected the way politics is performed? (2)
Taking account of the different and somewhat irreconcilable rules that govern them, how do the news media
and political actors interact?
Although the existence of specific differences between political systems is taken for granted, research has
found that the media respond generally and primarily to market imperatives and to the determinants of their
industry, as David L. Altheide and Robert P. Snow explained in their influential book The Media Logic (1979).
When political content, political figures and political stories are handled by the media – whether they be news
or entertainment outlets – politics undergoes a significant mutation, clearly mediated by the cultural environ-
ments in which the media function.
This process is described as the ‘mediatization’ of politics (Mazzoleni and Schulz, 1999). The personalization
of political communications is an example of it. In the media, the words and actions of party leaders and key
politicians take precedence over abstract ideas or impersonal statements, and thus individuals take center
stage at the expense of the party and its manifesto. Other effects of mediatization are to be seen in the grow-
ing tendency to spectacularize political communication, perceived by some as political action degenerated
into the triviality of show business. A similar trend is that of composite political discourse, whereby complex
issues are squeezed into a string of soundbites, mainly for the benefit of the breathless flow of news. This
inevitably produces an oversimplification of political debates to the detriment of a healthy democratic process.
A further effect of the mediatization of politics is the capacity of the media to set and shape the political agen-
da, either through journalistic investigations, or by directing the spotlight to certain critical events, or by taking
canny editorial stances. The media play the role of key actors on the political stage, choosing what is to be on
the public agenda and compelling politicians to follow rather than lead.
The nature of the interaction between media and politics is an ongoing object of scholarly interest and spec-
ulation. There have been several attempts to define the role of the (news) media in the political process, from
considering them as political institutions in themselves on a par with traditional political forces – a hypothesis
that stems from the reflection on the ‘fourth estate’ – to highlighting a more obvious interdependence between
the two independent entities.
Two theoretical conceptualizations have been widely implemented by comparative research. One was pos-
tulated by Jay G. Blumler and Michael Gurevitch (1995), who spoke of an interaction based on a continuum
between a ‘pragmatic’ distance, which responds to a logic of independence, and a ‘sacerdotal’ closeness,
where the news media reflect existing political stances. In the former case, the highest degree of indepen-
dence is a conflict in which the media play the role of watchdog, and the medium level is an equal exchange
based on a balance between opposed interests. In the latter case, the media are to a large extent subservient
to political logics, thus producing biased journalism.
The other attempt to explain the intricate, inevitable ‘cohabitation’ in democracy of media and politicians can
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be found in the tri-partition developed by Daniel C. Hallin and Paolo Mancini (2004), who condensed the great
variety of relations one observes at different political levels into a typology built on systemic parameters con-
cerning political systems (i.e. political history, consensus or majoritarian government, level of pluralism, role
of the state, regional legal authority) and media systems (nature of newspaper industry, type of political paral-
lelism, level of professionalization, degree of state intervention). The first model, the ‘Mediterranean/Polarized
Pluralist Model', reflects the state of government–news media relations prevalent in countries such as France,
Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal, where one finds low newspaper circulation, an elite-oriented press, high
political parallelism, weaker professionalization of the news profession and generally strong state intervention
through press subsidies.
The second model, or the ‘Northern European/Democratic Corporatist Model', shows opposed features such
as high newspaper circulation, more neutral, commercially oriented media, strong professionalization and in-
stitutionalized self-regulatory policies, and state intervention which is strong but mitigated by equally robust
protection of press freedom. The countries where these characteristics are most evident are Austria, Belgium,
Denmark, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.
The third, the ‘North Atlantic/Liberal Model’ – which encompasses the UK, the United States and Canada – re-
flects conditions of medium newspaper circulation, a strong commercial press, established models of broad-
cast governance, but also market-dominated media practices and a long tradition of the professional training
of journalists.
Hallin and Mancini's models – recently revised to incorporate other geo-political experiences, such as those
of Eastern Europe and Asian countries (2012) – are key to identifying the typology and temperature of pol-
itics–media interactions. For example, if one explores the degree of independent, critical, watchdog-like at-
titudes of the media, one cannot ignore the distinctiveness between diverse sets of historical, political and
cultural traditions.
Media Effects on Voters’ Behavior

Empirical research on media effects on audiences has a long history in the social sciences. Many theorists
and scientists have developed a large corpus of investigations and explanations, often conflicting, that spans
from the early studies by Lazarsfeld's team on the impact of commercial advertising in the 1940s to the cur-
rent efforts of researchers to measure the influence of the use of new communication technologies on individ-
ual and collective behaviors. The political concern about the presumed powerful effects of media, especially
if used for manipulative ends, even precedes commercial investigations, being associated with the rise of
authoritarian regimes between the two World Wars. Radio and cinema were blamed by analysts for having
helped dictators to brainwash the masses, although this was mostly theoretical speculation that remained an
untested hypothesis since no empirical research was available to support what appeared to be a legitimate
fear.
The phase in question was named after the hypodermic needle, as it was based on behavioristic views of the
actions and conduct of people that considered mass media stimuli to be especially powerful. This determinis-
tic explanation was countered by subsequent research employing methods used in empirical sociology (such
as surveys and participant observation) that did not find significant changes in people exposed to certain me-
dia content, and led to the formulation of the opposite theory of ‘limited effects'.
With the diffusion of more sophisticated investigative tools, research found it should be acknowledged that
media have significant effects on the political behavior of voters, albeit ones that work in addition to other
important determinants. Many theories have been developed by various schools, such as ‘uses and gratifica-
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tions', which emphasizes the active role of audiences and citizens in counteracting attempts at persuasion;
‘information processing', which explains how people resort to ‘schemas’ to process and evaluate political in-
formation; ‘agenda setting', which on the contrary points to the capacity of the media to influence people's
assessment of what is or is not important; and ‘framing’ and ‘priming’ hypotheses, which highlight how the
way in which the media cover (political) events conditions people's perceptions of reality and their subsequent
attitudes. Finally, the most recent perspective is ‘emotion in politics', which reappraises the workings of affec-
tive factors on voters’ choices: people tend to vote for the leader who voices the right sentiments, rather than
for the candidate who uses the right argument, and ‘elections are decided in the marketplace of emotions’
(Westen, 2008: 35).
Political communication scholarship contributed significantly to research on effects, exploring and explaining
what is at work in the dynamics of media influence on political knowledge, political participation and voting. A
major study by Michael X. Delli Carpini and Scott Keeter (1996) on what Americans know about politics high-
lighted a series of findings that have also been observed in other liberal democratic contexts. They found that:
(1) the number of citizens who are well informed on political affairs make up a small minority of the general
public, yet the knowledge they possess ensures a sufficient level of citizenship; (2) the inequality of citizens’
knowledge is correlated with the socio-economic inequality between social groups; (3) motivation, interest,
level of education and cultural environment are factors that condition the acquisition and processing of infor-
mation and knowledge circulated by the media.
It is a traditional normative tenet that democracy thrives with an informed citizenry. According to this view,
the media perform the role of providing substantive knowledge to the citizenry. Scholars have long discussed
what level that transmission of knowledge should aim for, and at what point it is sufficient for citizens to make
(political) choices. Pippa Norris (2000) sums up the debate and addresses the various theoretical questions
by speaking of two fallacies: the ‘civics fallacy’ of ‘regarding the news media as analogous to a third-grade
civics teacher', while ‘the capacity to make reasoned electoral choices does not require encyclopedic infor-
mation’ (211); and the ‘relativist fallacy’ of assuming that ‘any beliefs that voters use to help them to come to
judgements, whether true or false, are the equivalent to knowledge’ (212). The balanced view, according to
Norris, is that of a ‘practical knowledge’ that the news media provide through sufficient information, which can
help citizens ‘to connect their political and social preferences to the available options’ (213).
One of the questions raised by analysts concerns the effect of non-informative media, like the entertainment
media, on people's political views. If most people are barely, if sufficiently, knowledgeable about politics be-
cause they prefer to be entertained rather than informed by the media, is this detrimental to their reasoned
choices? Convincing research findings are still largely missing on this issue, but several authors (e.g. van
Zoonen, 2005; Jones, 2005; Mazzoleni and Sfardini, 2009; Baym, 2010; Day, 2011; Baumgartner and Becker,
2018) argue that fictional political stories; satirical, comedic TV shows; ‘engaged’ music; celebrities voicing
political claims or advocating social apolitical causes; infotainment programs; and even the ‘soft news’ are to
be seen as additional – if not unique – sources of information for a large part of the citizenry, with as much
relevance to people's choices as the ‘hard news'.
Whether exposure to mass communication content has negative effects on civic engagement is also a matter
of dispute among political scientists. Theorists of the ‘media malaise’ (Robinson, 1976; Putnam, 2000) have
claimed that the legacy of media's typical ways of covering public affairs spreads cynicism and disengages
voters, and that more television weakens civic engagement. Norris (2000) found evidence from comparative,
cross-national data that proved fears of negative media effects to have been ‘misplaced and exaggerated',
and indicated ‘that the people who pay the greatest attention to campaign coverage in newspapers and tele-
vision, as well as the messages from the parties, are more likely to participate in the political process’ (277).
In the new media environment that has risen in the past decade alongside the diffusion of the internet, people
have more tools with which to become informed, get involved and make their voices heard.
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Recent research examining the impact of digital media on different types of political engagement suggests an
overall positive effect. The case of the election campaign of 2008 that brought Barack Obama to the presiden-
cy is generally taken as proof that an intelligent use of Facebook successfully mobilized millions of support-
ers. The evidence, however, varies according to political cultures, and the interpretation is still contentious.
Clearly, there is a need for more nuanced explorative studies. For example, the transfer of political expression
via social media to ‘real-world political action’ appears to be less likely in non-democratic systems (Skoric et
al., 2016). According to Dimitrova et al.,
the use of different forms of digital media, controlling for other factors, has little impact on political
knowledge. As in the era before the Internet, what matters more for political learning is political in-
terest, prior political knowledge, and attention to politics in traditional media formats. … In terms of
effects on political participation … results show some support for the notion that use of digital media
leads to increased political activity among the public at large. (2014: 16)
New Directions and Perspectives: The Digital Paradigm Shift

Since the 1990s, widespread access to the internet and personal media has profoundly changed the relation-
ship between the media and politics. The fourth phase of political communication, as defined above, coincid-
ed with a new paradigm. The mass ownership of smartphones used in everyday life as personal communica-
tion hubs, linked to the central role assumed by social networks and instant messaging and content sharing
platforms, has produced a different, and in many ways speculative, media logic compared to that of the old-
er media, despite often overlapping and interconnecting with them. The ‘networked media logic’ (Klinger and
Svensson, 2015) is thus one of the basic aspects of a ‘mediatization without media’ that is integrated and
interdependent with that of traditional media.
Manuel Castells has called this new communication paradigm ‘mass self-communication', to point out the
state of post-medial individualism brought about by the restructuring of communication practices into net-
works. On the one hand, mass self-communication remains a form of mass communication because it allows
political actors to reach a relatively huge audience. For example, the President of the United States, Donald
Trump, can count on more than 57 million followers on Twitter. On the other hand, mass self-communication
is ‘self-communication because the production of the message is self-generated, the definition of the poten-
tial receiver(s) is self-directed, and the retrieval of specific messages or content from World Wide Web and
electronic communication networks is self-selected (2009: 55).
The most innovative element of contemporary political communication is therefore the centrality accorded by
the digital paradigm to the individual, who is the producer, distributor and consumer of political communica-
tion. Every connected individual is an active hub of social interconnections, no longer limited to being just a
passive viewer of televised politics. He or she operates primarily through the opportunities provided by the
technological infrastructures that interconnect online communicative action and offline mobilization with differ-
ent communication models: one-to-many (essentially websites), many-to-many (Facebook, Instagram, Twit-
ter), one-to-one (WhatsApp, Telegram, Snapchat). By developing and enhancing connectivity and interactivi-
ty, personal media enable the rediscovery of the importance of interpersonal communication. The basic result
is the recovery of the individual as the central piece of the digital mosaic that is created through the reciprocity
of members of a social network. This networked media logic structures the communication dynamics in the
new digital paradigm and directs political actors to a radical change in the way they communicate and present
themselves in public.
The engine of contemporary political communication is fueled by data. In its fourth phase, the importance of
opinion polls is matched by that of individual-level voter data. Digital environments are first and foremost im-
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mense databases covering the consumption habits, values, attitudes and opinions of billions of individuals,
built on a global scale. Thus, the communication strategies of political actors become data-driven, and big
data are used primarily to optimize the diffusion of their message. The ability to use data provided by social
media on a large scale allows them, for example, to direct messages with unprecedented precision at voters
who fit a particular profile, to measure the microclimates of opinion through advanced techniques of sentiment
analysis and to observe how members of an interpretative community interact on the social media page of a
leader (Wagschal and Ettensperger, Chapter 16, this Handbook).
Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign represented a turning point in the strategic use of data. The con-
struction of a huge database of electors, the coalescing of the many databases built by local staff from as ear-
ly as the 2008 primaries, allowed the campaign to carry out in-depth analyses of target voters. Operationally
this enabled a massive micro-targeted mailing strategy and the compiling of efficient walk lists designed to
direct door-to-door and phone-calling activities, identifying which doors to knock on in order to meet receptive
voters.
The same data-driven model has been used to increase online engagement, for example through the analysis
of social network interactions between audience members during televised debates. The central role of data
analytics was an even more important feature of the 2016 US elections, as is demonstrated, on the one hand,
by the global impact of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and, on the other, by Hillary Clinton's extensive dig-
ital media and data staff, which included 65 people involved in communication, advertising and media, 27
digital advisors, 32 data analysts and 18 field operations strategists.
Data, then, constitute the prerequisite that permits political communication to implement micro-targeting
methodologies, that is, to apply techniques for the super-segmentation of communication targets with four
main goals in mind: first, to break through the wall of widespread disregard for political messages in a climate
of profound distrust of the political system; second, to eliminate the information overload and the thunder-
ous background noise of the entropic ecosystem of mass communication; third, to customize the message,
identifying which voters to reach with particular content through the processing of information on individual
interests, prioritizing of issues and ethical, cultural and – most importantly – political values; fourth, to maxi-
mize the effectiveness of field operations, in other words, the campaigning of on-the-ground volunteers. From
this point of view, political communication in the digital era is intrinsically scientific in the sense that party war
rooms make decisions based on quantitative and qualitative research methods that can accurately identify
key voters.
The detailed map of key demographics and electoral micro-targets produces greater communication effective-
ness both through traditional media, because during election campaigns advertising can be programmed ac-
cording to TV schedules, and online, because it enhances the targeted effects of sponsored content through
social media and the various techniques of mobile marketing. The media in fact retain a central role in strate-
gies of awareness-building, for the task of positioning a campaign in relation to issues and for the branding
of a political organization. In addition to these, however, are communication functions that belong to digital
political marketing: the participation of the electoral base, the activation of undecided or abstaining voters and
the mobilization of supporters.
Digitalization has provided political communication with a high-tech infrastructure. As we have seen, it has
profoundly transformed techniques and strategies, but in an even more radical way it has changed how it
is organized. Today, in fact, communicating is organizing. With reference to ‘technology-intensive’ electoral
campaigns, Kreiss (2016) has emphasized the impact that technological innovation and digital infrastructure
(social media, smartphones, apps) have had on communication, mobilization and participation. High-tech or-
ganizational models applied to politics have completely restructured social relations, and have recalibrated
the distribution of power within the decision-making centers of political organizations, making it more diffuse:
On one level, networked politics refers to electoral activities that take shape through the technical

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infrastructure of interlinked computer networks. On another, I refer to networked politics as a mode

of organizing electoral participation. Networked politics involves sustained and coordinated collec-
tive action that occurs outside of direct managerial relationships and is premised on the voluntary
contributions of supporters. (Kreiss, 2012: 6)
In this sense, the European political scene provides some interesting examples of the fluid evolution of the
parties, which are now characterized by ever weaker post-bureaucratic apparatuses and by increasingly ef-
ficient systems of digital connectivity. Representative cases include En Marche!, the post-ideological move-
ment of Emmanuel Macron victorious in the 2017 French presidential elections, and the Five Star Movement
founded by the Italian comedian and blogger Beppe Grillo in 2009, which won the Italian general elections of
2018. Ultimately, communicating and organizing politics in digital ecosystems involves first of all the strategic
use of technology.
Chadwick (2007) considers the internet to be the main factor in the organizational hybridization of political
actors collectively, as a consequence of which the classic differences between parties, interest groups and
social movements are dissolving. There are four practices originating from the digital network that leave tradi-
tional parties looking more and more like social movements, resulting in less involved and more flexible forms
of membership. First is the use of a growing number of online forms of action made available in communica-
tive environments that make it possible to engage (for example in fundraising activities, which has become
decisively important) and to organize offline mobilization locally, especially through the most popular channels
such as social networks, chats, apps, blogs and emails.
The second practice concerns building reciprocal trust – imperative for collective action – by means of the
horizontal connection between groups of citizens. No mobilization is possible without an ideological integra-
tion between the mobilized groups and a connection with external parties that are interested but not directly
involved. The trustworthy relationship established between individuals and groups is the driving force of the
networks’ interconnected mechanisms, making provision for the blend of coordination and decentralization
that generates organized spontaneity. In contemporary democracies it is no longer possible to build trust in
the political and media system merely by relying on a single authoritative source of legitimation, such as, for
instance, the mass political party of the past. Instead, Chadwick stresses, ‘what emerges is what I have in the
past termed “distributed trust” – a by-product of the discursive context of the issue network itself’ (2007: 290).
The third practice is that of the insertion of subcultural codes into political discourse. The deployment of this
stratagem is intensified during electoral campaigns, in parallel with an increased use of tactics aimed at pop-
ularizing political content and facilitating the spread of online content. The most commonly used form of this
kind of cultural remixing is that between politics and satire, which generates memes.Finally, the fourth prac-
tice is that of sedimentation, a process through which membership of the movement is built. The base grows
slowly in successive waves, especially after high-visibility promotional events that make an emotional impact.
In short, digital technologies make possible new and more flexible ways of organizing political mobilization
and participation. More and more often, these are alternatives to traditional approaches, born out of the self-
evident crisis of representative democracy and of intermediary social bodies such as political parties. The
emerging organizational model is referred to as ‘netroots'. This neologism was coined by Jerome Armstrong,
a blogger, strategist and political consultant on the grassroots campaign staff of Howard Dean during the De-
mocratic primaries of 2004, and describes those forms of political activism that are either self-organized or
organized from the bottom up through the use of systems such as blogs, social networks and platforms for
civic engagement.
Karpf (2012) has identified three participation models that use the internet as their organizational infrastruc-
ture: advocacy organizations structured online around general themes or single issues, an example being
America's MoveOn during the early 2000s; the online communities composed of people with a common
cause, such as campaigning against the indiscriminate spread of guns and gender violence; and finally, neo-

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federated political associations based on the model of member-driven action committees like Howard Dean's
Democracy for America, which fought against corporate politics and policies responsible for social inequality.
The ever more widespread presence of netroots organizational models in Western democracies confirms the
theory of a long tail of the MoveOn Effect. In other words:
Those groups take a variety of forms, but all share similar membership and fundraising practices.
They tend to be issue generalist, mobilizing citizen support around the pressing issues of the day.
They are sedimentary organizations, developing their member lists by riding waves of public inter-
est and offering an outlet for citizen action … Their advocacy work extends well beyond ‘clicktivism',
engaging supporters in large-scale, sustained collective action. Their work routines and campaign
strategies are built around the Internet – these organizations would be impossible without e-mail and
the World Wide Web – but they are far different from the ‘organizing without organizations’ often her-
alded in public discourse. (Karpf, 2012: 156)
In conclusion, if, on the one hand, in digital environments communicating means organizing, on the other
hand, organizing means communicating. Technologies generate and structure political engagement that in
the digital sphere evolves toward personalized forms based on social relations. As Nielsen (2012) has ob-
served, people serve as media for messages that originate elsewhere.
Advancements: Personalized and Direct Communication to Re-connect with

Voters
Political communication is first and foremost a practical application in the field of advanced knowledge built on
qualified professional skills. As we have seen, innovation in political communication is determined by the ac-
quisition of scientific information, which allows for an analytical approach to the formulation of strategies and
tactics, as well as by the technical use of communication infrastructures. It follows that sophisticated special-
ization in the requisite skills of political communication today necessitates the recruitment of staff with a high
level of expertise. In this sense, election campaigns in the United States are the most advanced laboratory
of skills: it is no coincidence that for a long time we have talked of the ‘Americanization’ of political commu-
nication (Nelson and Thurber, 2019). There are currently four processes that establish the sudden turns (or
bursts) of speed/breakaways/forward spurts of the evolution of contemporary political communication.
The first is the process of hybridization within the media system. Social TV, which enables the use of dual
screens for debates between candidates and political talk shows, is an obvious example. In general, flows
of communication are increasingly the product of hybrid media logics. A hybrid environment ‘is built upon in-
teractions among older and newer media logics – where logics are defined as technologies, genres, norms,
behaviors, and organizational forms – in the reflexively connected fields of media and politics’ (Chadwick,
2013: 4). As a result, the digital world renders invalid the classical dichotomy of old and new media because
the privileged space for digital communication is that of ‘flux, in-betweenness, the interstitial, and the liminal’
(4). For example, during the 2016 presidential race, Trump's concerted attempts to attract the attention of the
media with events, unscheduled interactions and even aggressive social media activity succeeded precisely
because they exploited hybrid logics. The trend, however, is widespread and can be found in all political con-
texts: for example, election candidates who make maximum capital out of Facebook Live, a format that can
disrupt the rigid hierarchies of television news and crystallized talk-show liturgies by imposing the political ac-
tor's times and ways of communicating on the logic of journalistic mediation. The same is true of the tsunami
of live tweeting during media events and personal appearances.
A second fundamental process, which presents to us future scenarios of political communication, is the dis-
intermediation of communication between political actors and the electorate. For the most part this function
is carried out through the main social networks, principally Facebook and Twitter, but apps, text messages,
instant messaging platforms and email may also be used for this purpose. Strategies of disintermediation
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concentrate their propaganda on the fan base of the leaders and parties, but do not overlook the broader
boundaries of supporters and sympathizers. Disintermediating communication means strategically exploiting
self-representation by speaking in the first person, bypassing the mediation of journalism and traditional me-
dia. On a practical level, this involves obtaining the following: (1) a direct relationship with the citizen, hence
the reinsertion of public engagements into the leader's agenda such as community events, meetings and ral-
lies typical of pre-medial electoral campaigns; (2) the potential for spreadability or virality of content, an in-
dispensable attribute for boosting the circulation of online messages and heightening their visibility; (3) the
conditioning of the media agenda ‘upstream’ by which information and journalism are obliged to pursue the
political actors, rather than the opposite; (4) the recovery of interpersonal communication within campaign
communication devices, aimed at establishing ‘opinion leaders’ (or ‘influencers,’ as we say today) as trans-
mitters of informal communication.
A third fundamental process is that of personalizing the flow of communication, in two ways. One is through
the ‘leaderization’ of the communication strategy, to be construed as a general process and long-term effect
of the mediatization of the political sphere: using a political personality is the most efficient cognitive shortcut
to making a political offer visible and comprehensible. The celebrity politician is the ‘primary material’ of elec-
toral branding and rebranding. The leaderization of political parties has led to the definitive leaderization of
communication strategies. We must, however, note the central role played by social networks and the internet
in enhancing and speeding up the leaderization of communication: social media in fact ‘represent semi-pub-
lic, semi-private spaces for self-representation where borders between offline personal and online mediated
relations are blurred. They allow politicians (and voters) to stage their public and private rules, and to shift
between them seamlessly and more or less consciously and strategically’ (Enli and Skogerbø, 2015: 121).
The second way in which the communication flow is personalized is subjectivization, that is, the humanization
of the leader's public role. The leader must present himself to the people as an institutional figure, but also as
a person. This is vital since his (or her) personal qualities as a human being are a significant part of the rep-
utational and moral capital that is offered as a practical alternative to the weakness of trust relationships with
the electorate that are based on ideology. As James Stanyer (2013) has explained, the personalization of the
public representation of a political figure involves, on the one hand, his privatization, in other words putting on
view his subjective characteristics and ‘backstage’ life, and on the other hand, his intimization, allowing his
private space (health, sex, sorrow), relationships (family, marital, extramarital) and living space (home, places
of leisure) to be seen by all. In this sense, the ideological and political images evoked by a particular figure
are inextricably linked to individual and subjective matters, to psychological considerations and to his or her
emotionality, all more or less openly displayed. Depending on the context, all of this becomes, to varying de-
grees, an object of observation and media representation. Thus, emotional judgments on profoundly private
matters become an integral part of public political judgment.
The fourth fundamental process is the increasing emotionalization of political communication. This trend is an
emblematic reflection of the radical change of paradigm brought about by digital technologies.
From Society to the Brain: The Emotionalization of Political Communication

In the current phase of political communication, a change of an affective kind is taking place that reflects the
systemic changes in relations between the media and politics. This prospect opens up new, unprecedented
scenarios for the discipline. It is rooted in the gradual but comprehensive emancipation of the social sciences
from the paradigm of calculating rationalism and from the dichotomous conception of the relationship between
reason and emotion (Cepernich, 2016).
Today emotions are considered an integral part of rationality, in that they fulfil the necessary function of re-
ducing the complexity induced by the environment, selecting the problems that reason is required to tackle.
They support reason by delimiting a set of possible solutions when the quantity of available options seems
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overwhelming (Damasio, 1995). The crumbling of the myth of the rational social actor in the field of politics
has come about through the demolition of the idol of the voter as a homo oeconomicus faced, for instance,
with a choice in elections. Neuroscience, cognitive psychology and linguistics have confirmed the interdepen-
dence between rationality, emotion and affection, going so far as to record different modes in the functioning
of neural circuits in the light of political affiliation (Westen, 2008; Schreiber et al., 2013).
A first body of research on this by now established subject examines the impact that emotionalized commu-
nication has on voting decisions. The reference point is the theory of affective intelligence, which has demon-
strated how negative emotional states favor the research and processing of information (Marcus et al., 2000,
MacKuen et al., 2007). Paradoxically, anxious and fearful voters are more inclined to take a reflexive attitude
and make rational choices, since their emotional state prompts them to gather information on the state of their
surroundings. By contrast, subjects who are enthusiastic about their leader or candidate are more likely to be
partisan.
This evidence has had implications for two interconnected fields. The first is that of using GOTV (Get Out
The Vote) techniques designed to stimulate electoral participation. This has been systematized by social op-
portunity theory, according to which: ‘To mobilize voters, you must make them feel wanted at the polls. Mo-
bilizing voters is rather like inviting them to a social occasion. Personal invitations convey the most warmth
and work best’ (Green and Gerber, 2004: 92). For example, door-to-door mobilization campaigns carried out
by militants, volunteers and activists have a high level of effectiveness, with 14 face-to-face conversations
with a canvasser resulting in one vote being cast. The classic study of New Haven, Connecticut revealed an
increase in turnout after door-to-door contact of 9.8% compared to the control sample (Gerber and Green,
2000). This confirms the fact that the effectiveness of GOTV techniques is contingent on the personalization
of electoral communication. In other words, it is a result of those strategies and communication practices that
include direct interpersonal communication in their campaign action plans.
No less fertile is the line of studies that investigate the strategic use of emotive appeal in election campaigns,
particularly through recourse to images and music (Brader, 2006). These researches agree that the use of
certain highly emotionalized forms of content can have an effect on voter behavior, at both individual and
aggregate levels. Nevertheless, (1) advertisements do not influence viewers directly, but instead change the
way that choices would be taken through ‘set framing', which defines the margins of meaning within which de-
cisions mature; (2) there is no confirmation of the viability of the conventional interpretative scheme according
to which positive messages lead to positive impressions of the promoter and negative messages lead to an
aversion to a competitor.
A second body of studies investigates empirically the means through which emotional states are transmitted
between individuals on a social network, both as an effect of simply being connected to each other and as an
effect of interacting directly. These analyses, carried out on a large scale, have revealed a high capacity for
transmitting emotions through the mechanism of contagion (Kramer et al., 2014). On Facebook, for example,
(1) the emotions expressed by a particular network influence the individuals that belong to it and direct inter-
action is not required for this transmission; (2) the positivity or negativity expressed on the newsfeed of users
varies in line with the changing emotions of others; (3) people who are less exposed to emotive content for
a period communicate less emotionally afterwards. The study carried out by Kramer and his colleagues thus
provides further confirmation of the concept of ‘public mood', construed as a widespread affective state that
individuals experience through their membership of a community. This means that the emotional climates and
microclimates produced by the major social networks can by themselves exert significant influence on the
more general climate of public opinion (Noelle-Neumann, 1986). This spill-over effect is also demonstrated
by important later studies of other social networks. Predictably, not all users have the same ability to propa-
gate the contagion: opinion leaders and those who connect clusters with a low rate of information redundancy
(‘structural hole spanners') have greater influence (Yang et al., 2016).
The third and final body of empirical investigations into emotionalization addresses the effects of emotion-

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alized communication on online engagement. The use of emotively codified rhetoric by, for example, party
leaders is a variable that can increase the level of polarization in the climate of opinions and, consequently,
of cognitive mobilization. This is also true of offline communication, as the past decade of election campaigns
has shown (Stromer-Galley, 2014; Johnson, 2018). The campaign for the re-election of Barack Obama in
2012 engaged around 2.2 million volunteers, with more than 30,000 of them taking responsibility for manag-
ing 10,000 neighborhood teams. It has been calculated that this produced around 24 million direct interactions
and, it is estimated, 1.8 million votes (McKenna and Han, 2014). Emotive communication on social networks,
on the other hand, has activation effects chiefly on subjects who are already politically engaged (Jones et al.,
2012).
In conclusion, all the factors considered contribute to defining a structurally partisan disposition of the political
communication ecosystem. This tends to favor the effects of polarization between different communities in
accordance with their respective loyalties and political points of view. Typically, this relates to support for a
leader, candidate or party and resistance to its detractors and opponents. Online oppositions can be so rad-
icalized that they lead to serious instances of negative campaigning, hate speech, confrontation and disre-
spect. Hate campaigns can even take an organized form, supported technologically by the use of bots that
multiply their viral potential exponentially. And this naturally reinforces the symbolic meaning and proliferates
the political implications. These types of tensions emerge as the product of the logic of opposition between
ingroups and outgroups, on the basis of the identification of a political adversary as an enemy that must be
eliminated.
At the root of the drive towards polarization is the process through which the digital public sphere splinters
into echo chambers (Jamieson and Cappella, 2008). These are formed when individuals connect by reason
of homophily – that is, the affinity between subjects who seek recognition and the sharing of their points of
view – and relate to Fritz Heider's attribution theory, which can be simplified as ‘the friends of my friends are
my friends, and the enemies of my friends are my enemies'. Social networks provide the technological in-
frastructure that brings these elementary dynamics into play. Thus, the echo chamber is a social space for
political debate that is characterized by a high degree of internal homogeneity between its members, by the
self-referentiality of the communication system and by informational redundancy. For this reason, it is also
a place in which fake news and disinformation have the greatest chance of circulating and registering their
desired effects. This brings powerfully distorting forces to bear on opinion-building processes on the internet.
Moreover, the effects of selective exposure are increased, leading to the affirmation and reinforcement of pre-
existing opinions. Like everywhere else, on the internet people seek information and data that are compatible
with their current convictions and capable of delivering an adequate level of emotional coherence with their
state of mind (Kahneman, 2011). Given its actor-centric structure, this occurs more pervasively on the web
than in other communication channels.
This controversial and conflictual fragmentation of internet user-groups has been described by Sunstein
(2017) as the ‘Balkanization’ of knowledge and understanding. In the new paradigm of digital communication,
one no longer asks the subject – accommodated and flattered by the ‘filter bubble', and huddled in the comfort
zone of his echo chamber – what he thinks, but rather what side he is on.
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• political communications
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• politics
• discipline
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n39

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Political Cultures
Contributors: Dirk Berg-Schlosser

Chapter Title: "Political Cultures"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Political Cultures
Dirk Berg-Schlosser
A Short History of the Subject

Perceptions (and stereotypes) of other peoples’ mentalities, mindsets, ways of life and cultures, or Toc-
queville's famous ‘habits of the heart', are probably as old as humankind. Culture, however, is one of the most
elusive concepts of the social sciences. Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952), for example, found 164 different defi-
nitions ranging from words like agri-culture to very elaborate notions of ‘enlightenment and excellence of taste
acquired by intellectual and aesthetic training’ (as per Merriam-Webster). Several distinctions are necessary
at this point.
First, the scope of the concept has to be defined. In a very broad sense, culture refers to a large cultural area
(Kulturkreis) which in the past has been largely shaped by the major world religions (Weber, 1920). The term
‘civilization’ as used by Huntington (1996) and others is largely synonymous with this concept. The number of
cultures identified in this way varies to some extent. Weber speaks of six major world religions: Confucianism,
Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Huntington, in his map of ‘The World of Civilizations:
Post-1990', lists nine, where he adds a Latin American, an African and a separate Japanese one. He fur-
ther separates orthodox Christianity from the ‘Western’ and subsumes Judaism under the latter (Huntington,
1996: 27f.). This very broad concept thus neglects further important distinctions within these religions, such
as those between Catholic and Protestant churches, or the Sunnite and Shi'ite divisions in Islam. It also does
not take any existing political borders into account. Whether any concrete social identities are formed on this
basis is an empirical question, which will be addressed below.
Second, the content of what is covered by the term culture varies enormously as well. This ranges from very
encompassing definitions as the customary beliefs, social forms and material traits of social groups or, in oth-
er words, their ‘way of life’ (Thompson et al., 1990), to specific forms of ‘high culture’ in the arts and sciences.
Quite often the term also has strong normative connotations, distinguishing those who are ‘cultured’ and ‘civ-
ilized’ from, at the other extreme, ‘barbarians’ (from Greek barbaros, meaning foreign or ignorant).
In contemporary political science, the current use of the concept of political culture was coined in a seminal
article by Gabriel Almond reflecting a ‘Weberian’ tradition in the social sciences. There, he defined it as ‘the
particular pattern of orientations toward political actions in which every political system is embedded’ (1956:
396). In the by now classic ‘Civic Culture’ study, together with Sidney Verba, he first put this approach into
empirical practice (Almond and Verba, 1963; see also Almond and Verba, 1980). Another pioneer of this ap-
proach, Lucian Pye, proposed a more elaborate definition:
Political culture is the set of attitudes, beliefs, and sentiments which give order and meaning to a po-
litical process and which provide the underlying assumptions and rules that govern behavior in the
political system. It encompasses both the political ideals and the operating norms of a polity. Political
culture is thus the manifestation in aggregate form of the psychological and subjective dimensions
of politics. A political culture is the product of both the collective history of a political system and the
life histories of the members of that system, and thus it is rooted equally in public events and private
experiences. (Pye, 1968: 218)
Over the course of time, the concept has generated many criticisms and controversies. Almond himself, in
retrospect, distinguished four main lines of criticism. One, advanced by Barry (1970), for example, questions
the assumed causality: culture is not an independent but a dependent or, at best, ‘residual’ (Elkins and Sime-
on, 1979) variable. It is not socialization, attitudes and subsequent behavior that shape political institutions
and decide the fate of a polity, as in Weimar Germany, but rather the other way round: institutions and perfor-
mance influence attitudes and determine the eventual downfall of a regime. This Almond considers a ‘straw

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man polemic', because the concept has to be seen in a dynamic sense with feedback mechanisms working
in both directions.
The (orthodox) Marxist critique that the mode of production and the resulting social structures determine at-
titudes and behavior is similarly dismissed as one-sided and ‘monistic'. More recent neo-Marxists referring
to Gramsci's concept of cultural ‘hegemony’ discuss the complexity of the relationship between ‘basis’ and
‘super-structure’ and arrive at more balanced and (self-) critical accounts (Galkin, 1986).
A third line of criticism puts into doubt the separation of political attitudes and actual behavior. This is a general
problem for a ‘behavioralist’ perspective mainly based on survey research, such as is seen in election stud-
ies. Almond refutes this argument, saying that by separating the two, the complexities of the relation between
political thought and political action – for example, including situational aspects – can be more fully explored.
Finally, Almond dismisses the rational choice anti-culturalist critique that replaces historically shaped values
and norms with mere calculations of (material) self-interest of political actors as reductionist and, at least
again in a maximalist and scientistic variant, ‘monistic'. On the whole, thus, Almond considers his original con-
cept to have withstood these criticisms quite well.
Beyond these more immediate criticisms and further specifications and refinements which have taken place,
distinguishing for example between system, process and policy aspects of political culture (Almond and Pow-
ell, 1978) and its cognitive, affective and evaluative components, some more fundamental critiques of Al-
mond's position still have to be mentioned. One questions the overall behavioralist and ‘attitude-centered’
perspective from a more holistic social–anthropological or semiotic point of view (Dittmer, 1977). The analysis
of culture, referring to macro-level phenomena, should not be reduced to individual attitudes and survey re-
search. This amounts to an ‘individualistic fallacy'. Rather, the overall meaning of culture, its interpretation by
relevant groups and actors and its expressions in certain symbols or rituals must also be taken into account.
Another more specific criticism concerns not so much the political culture approach as such, but more the
normative position implicit in the original ‘Civic Culture’ study. There, the authors not only described the po-
litical cultures of five countries, but also advocated, to some extent, the more balanced and mixed ‘civic’ An-
glo-Saxon culture of the United States and Great Britain, consisting of a more or less harmonious blend of
‘parochial', ‘subject’ and ‘participant’ elements. This was heavily criticized as an American and conservative
bias by advocates of more participatory or ‘radical’ forms of democracy (Barber, 1984). Almond (2002) him-
self re-emphasized ‘Civic Culture as Theory’ by referring to Eckstein's (1988) Theory of Democratic Stability
emphasizing the congruence between a democratic political system and the supporting culture, and to Dahl's
(1989) more restricted concept of ‘polyarchy'. In this more restricted sense, ‘civic culture’ clearly refers to the
embeddedness of modern democracies in deep-rooted popular attitudes. In new democracies, however, first
a period of adaptation and learning – ‘habituation', in Rustow's (1970) sense – is required. Then strong dis-
crepancies between respective elite cultures and the populations at large may occur (Higley and Gunther,
1992).
In a broader sense, Almond himself saw the concept of political culture as not limited to democratic regimes
only. In the following, we also use the concept in this broad sense, looking at cultural manifestations across a
variety of contemporary political regimes. For this purpose, a more comprehensive analytical framework will
be presented, in which the various approaches discussed so far can be located and, to some extent, integrat-
ed.

The concept of political culture, as it has been discussed so far, still suffers from two major flaws. One is its rel-
ative diffuseness and vagueness. The other concerns a more elaborate conceptualization of the micro–macro
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relationships. Both can be remedied by more general frameworks of sociological theory, one building on a
broader ‘system’ perspective, the other incorporating James S. Coleman's ‘general model of social explana-
tions’ (Coleman,1990).
Almond and many others share a conceptualization of politics derived from cybernetics, where the interac-
tions between a society and its political system as the central regulatory unit can be described as a flow of
inputs, conversions and outputs which, if well functioning, maintain a dynamic equilibrium in the longer run
(Easton, 1965). In the Parsonian tradition four major social sub-systems and their interactions can be dis-
tinguished: the community system identifying the external boundaries, the socio-cultural system expressing
its value orientations, the economic system providing its material basis and the political system as the major
regulating body. These have been placed by Parsons in his well-known AGIL scheme (Parsons, 1951). With
some modifications, this scheme can also be used to identify the major contents of a political culture and to
locate the specific emphasis of some of the varying approaches discussed so far (Figure 37.1).
Figure 37.1 Components of political culture in a system framework
Source: Adapted from Parsons (1951).
This general taxonomic scheme has to be filled with a more differentiated pattern of variables, which, accord-
ing to the cases and regions analyzed, can vary in time and space. Without claiming to be exhaustive, the
following dominant features of each sub-system must be considered.
The Community System

First, the boundaries of each case have to be determined. In modern times, the nation-state has become
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the most pertinent unit of analysis. Its objective borders today are defined by international law, but its actual
impact can also be assessed with the help of communications research (Deutsch, 1966). In political–cultural
terms, the extent and degree of a sense of identity with a person's political community is the most relevant
aspect (Karolewski, Chapter 31, this Handbook). This national identity tends to become a social ‘skin’ for the
individuals concerned which, after a certain age, cannot be shed very easily. In this regard, a person's social
identity is linked to his ego-identity and his personality system in general. Problems and crises at one level
may easily affect the other, and an excessive sense of nationalism, for example, is not rarely found in persons
who experience other serious psychological problems.
In many cases, the political community is not homogeneous and various sub-national identities persist. Each
contemporary nation-state has been formed by specific historical developments, some of which – for example,
the drawing of boundaries by the colonial powers in Africa, but also the division of Germany after World War
II – have been arbitrary and accidental. In this way, sometimes quite curiously composed units have come
into being, which, however, over the course of time develop their own ‘life’ and weight. As far as the forma-
tion of nation-states in Europe is concerned, Stein Rokkan has developed the most explicit model (Rokkan,
1975; Flora, 1999). The most important cleavages discerned were those of center–periphery, state–church,
countryside–town, capital–labor and their respective interactions and developments over time. In each case,
then, a specific pattern of these cleavages with their respective ethnic/regional, religious and socio-economic
identities emerged.
Characteristically, it is the ethnic/regional identification – which is often reflected in linguistic variations as

well – that tends to be articulated most strongly. Religious attachments similarly may be very intense, but
they have become weaker in many instances in the course of processes of secularization. A sense of iden-
tity based on socio-economic differentiations, on the other hand, often requires a specific context and more
explicit forms of organization – farmers’ associations, trade unions, and so on. In this regard, the level of dif-
ferentiation and development of the economic sub-system and the objective class distinctions which can be
based on it are of particular importance.
It must also be noted that the kind and degree of identification of a certain group should not be confounded
with the actual content of its conflicts with others. Only very rarely, for example, do conflicts arise about ethnic
or religious matters per se. Usually they concern the economic position and access to political power of these
groups in the overall system and are articulated along the dominant ethnic or religious cleavage (as in Bel-
gium or in Northern Ireland, to give only two of the numerous historical and contemporary examples: Horowitz,
1985).
In certain instances, different aspects of objective group differentiations can be combined in a social milieu
with a common sub-culture. In Imperial Germany, for example, a rural–catholic, a protestant–bourgeois, and
a workers’ milieu, each with its specific regional concentrations, could be distinguished. These milieus can
develop quite extensive internal structures and organizations (e.g. in the fields of education; common social
and cultural activities; the media; economic and political organizations, and so on) and become largely au-
tonomous from the wider community. It has been shown that such sub-milieus have been persisting in Ger-
many, for example, since the territorial and religious divisions of the Peace Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, and
still influence electoral behavior (more Catholic or Christian versus other parties) to a considerable extent
(Rohe, 1992; Berg-Schlosser and Rytlewski, 1993).
In more extreme cases, these milieus can ossify into certain ‘Lager', which view each other as hostile camps
as in Austria in the 1930s, and which, at best, cooperate only in a consociational manner at the elite level
(Lijphart, 1977). In such cases it is not rare to see the other alternative – civil war or, if a group is more remote
and regionally concentrated, secession.

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More often, however, multiple identifications, which need not necessarily be in conflict with each other, can be
found within the larger community. Thus, a person can be a local, regional and national ‘patriot’ at the same
time, with the kind and intensity of his attachment depending on the concrete circumstances. The respective
scope and intensity of expressions of social trust may similarly vary in each instance. In extreme cases, it
may extend only to members of a person's immediate family or other narrow in-groups. In others, it may be
quite pervasive and generalized (Banfield, 1958; Putnam, 1993). At the overall community level, certain often
unconscious consensual norms are also at work, which accept and support the social system as such, even
though individuals and groups may act mostly in a conflicting manner within it.
The Socio-Cultural System

The socio-cultural system reflects the basic values of each society and gives meaning to its existence. In
traditional societies, the interpretation and internalization of these values was closely linked to a transcenden-
tal sphere that legitimized the existing social and political order. In modern societies, a certain secularization
and rationalization of values has taken place. But even there, common rituals and symbols can be observed
which give meaning to political life by referring to constitutive historical events in the light of some universally
claimed values and their particular evolution in a certain society. Examples such as the American, French or
Soviet revolutions and their respective value bases, but also more gradual evolutions (as in the UK) or more
peaceful events elsewhere, such as celebrations of independence in ‘new’ nations, are cases in point. Some
authors have coined the term ‘civil religion’ in reference to this phenomenon (Bellah and Hammond, 1980),
which is in part congruent with this aspect of political culture.
Such values justify the place of individuals and groups in the society (e.g. in a more egalitarian or more hierar-
chical sense, but also concerning differentiations of age, sex, and so on), determine their scope of action (e.g.
in a more dependent or more participatory way) and define the respective realms of solidarity, in particular
when claims running counter to egotistically perceived or other more immediate material interests have to be
made. These values also define the extent of the political sphere proper (in a more pervasive or more limited
sense), in which authoritative common decisions have to be made. They include, basically, the rules for the
resolution of conflicts in society (e.g. in a more consensual or more antagonistic way) and for decision-mak-
ing (e.g. in an authoritarian or more democratic manner) in the political system. In this regard, they closely
interact with the bases of legitimacy of the political system proper.
Here again, close interactions between this social sub-system and individual personality characteristics can
be observed. Cultural values are transmitted through the usual socializing agents of each society (families,
peer groups, the educational system, the media, etc.), and are more or less internalized by each member
(Marczewska-Rytko, Chapter 38, this Handbook). They are, in turn, shaped by collective historical experi-
ences (in particular traumatic ones such as wars, intensive political or economic crises, assassinations of po-
litical leaders, etc.) and form the collective memory of each society. The strength and durability of this memory
varies culturally, too, depending to a certain extent on the more specific orientation of each society towards
its past and future. It seems that during long periods of external political suppression, such memories can
become particularly keen (as in Ireland or Poland, for example).
In many communities, the interpretation of basic values has been the particular domain of priests and similar
specialists. In modern societies, secular intellectuals and scientists have increasingly taken up this role (Pog-
gi, Chapter 3, this Handbook). They reflect and justify such values in a discursive manner at a higher level of
abstraction. In this sense, they contribute to a cultural meta-system (‘culture of culture'). Their role, however,
is not limited to legitimizing the existing political order in a docile way; on the contrary, they may critically point
to existing insufficiencies in the realization of certain values and inconsistencies and contradictions between
them.
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The analysis of the more general distribution of attitudes and values in the socio-cultural subsystem is
amenable to the usual tools of modern representative and quantifiable survey research, if a certain minimal
technical infrastructure exists for this purpose and the general ‘climate’ of a particular regime permits it. In this
way, on the one hand, too ‘holistic’ generalizations, as in former ‘national character’ studies (Inkeles, 1997),
can be avoided and, in a critical sense, existing stereotypes and prejudices concerning other communities
which are assessed in the same manner can be refuted. It is important, however, that such overall distrib-
utions of certain characteristics are broken down by the major social structural categories and linked to the
cleavages in the community system. On the other hand, the political codes and meanings, and their interac-
tions with the socio-cultural sphere, have to be assessed by more qualitative methods and interpretations. In
this respect, the complementary nature of quantitative and qualitative methods, requiring a certain in-depth
knowledge and sensibility of the respective researcher, is of particular importance.
The Economic System

The economic system constitutes the material basis for the existence and development of each society.
Again, it is not so much its ‘objective’ side (i.e. the different modes of production, the concrete allocation of re-
sources, the effects on social structure and their dynamics over time) with which we are concerned here, but
more its ‘subjective', political–cultural implications. This sub-system is determined by its own logic of instru-
mental–rational (zweckrational in Weber's sense) thinking and behavior. To a certain extent, however, these
orientations are also conditioned by interactions with the general socio-cultural sphere. They relate to individ-
ualistic versus more collective orientations, attitudes toward work, property, the accumulation of wealth, pat-
terns of consumption, certain lifestyles, and similar ones. The interactions with the political sub-system con-
sist of certain regulatory needs (with which we need not deal at this point) and concrete demands toward the
public sphere. Their satisfaction may create ‘specific supports’ for the political authorities in Easton's sense
and may contribute in the longer run towards a ‘diffuse support’ for the political system as a whole (Easton,
1965).
The Political System

The ‘core’ of political culture can be found in the sources and the extent of legitimacy of the political system,
the ‘diffuse support’ it enjoys in the political community. Whereas this support is always based to a certain
extent on the customary acceptance of certain rules and institutions, if they have existed over a longer period
of time, its value-base also has to be justified in terms of the more general discourse of the socio-cultural
system. Again, in more traditional communities, this base is grounded in the transcendental sphere, as for
example the believed divine origin or ‘gift of grace’ of certain dynasties or the consecration of political rulers
by religious authorities. In modern societies, the major source of legitimacy is a ‘rational–legal’ one in Weber's
sense (1922: 122ff.), based on a critical reflection of the institutionalized rules of political recruitment and de-
cision-making. Open and fair elections involving the widespread participation of the population at large have
become the major instrument in this regard. The decisive test of legitimacy of a democratic political culture
in this sense is the acceptance of a political decision with which a person or group does not agree. Weber's
charismatic type of legitimacy, based on the personal appeal of a political leader, is a special case, which,
by definition, is a relatively short-lived one. If the ‘routinization’ of charisma in terms of some more gener-
ally accepted principles fails, this type of legitimacy ends with the death of the political leader, at the latest.
Where conflicting principles of legitimacy, for example monarchic and democratic ones, exist side by side, the
stability of the system as a whole is undermined (Huntington, 1968). Such conflicts often lead to civil wars
or revolutions. Where no more durable and pervasive forms of legitimacy can be established, rulers usually
attempt to achieve compliance by coercion.

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In addition to the political–cultural foundation of the ‘polity', there exist more specific orientations that are di-
rected to the politics and the policies of the system in Almond and Powell's (1978) terms. ‘Politics’ refers
to the political processes at the input side of the political sub-system. This ‘process culture’ consists of the
knowledge, feelings and evaluations which members of the political system have toward the self as a political
actor and toward other political actors, in particular political parties and interest groups, but also more informal
social movements and ‘citizens’ initiatives'. ‘Policy culture’ is directed toward the output of the system, its in-
ternal policies (extractive, regulative and distributive), but also its external (military, diplomatic and economic)
ones. All these have to be specified more closely depending on the actual cases analyzed.
This ‘systemic’ outline thus leads to a more complex conceptualization of political culture. In contrast to some
of the early protagonists of this approach, it is not only concerned with aspects of democratic stability in a
‘civic culture', but points to possible tensions and sources of ‘system breakdown’ as well. Each sub-system
possesses, to a certain extent, its own mechanisms and ‘logic', and is ‘self-referential’ or auto-poietic (Luh-
mann, 1984). If this internal logic becomes overriding (as, for example, with the pursuit of individual or par-
ticular group benefits in the economic system at the expense of certain collective goods), the overall system
may disintegrate.
It is also important to note that political culture should not be considered as being exclusively determined
by the community, the socio-cultural and the economic sub-systems, but that it is constantly maintained and
sometimes explicitly modified by the political system – its institutions, symbolic expressions and incumbents
itself. This could be observed in the different processes of state formation in Europe, for example, but also in
the attempts of ‘nation-building’ in post-colonial Africa and elsewhere. The very process of European integra-
tion similarly implies some of these ‘directed’ political–cultural changes. Interactions of this kind where insti-
tutional aspects can be considered as independent variables affecting the other sub-systems creating attitu-
dinal and behavioral changes ‘from above’ are also considered by more recent ‘neo-institutional’ approaches
(March and Olsen, 1989).
Linking Levels of Analysis

As has been mentioned before, political culture is a concept referring to the macro-level of society, which,
however, in the behavioralist Almond/Verba tradition is usually only assessed by survey research at the micro-
level. In this way, many important aspects may escape the attention of the observer. For example, expres-
sions of a sense of patriotism and the use of the flag and the national anthem, as has vividly been demon-
strated again after September 11, 2001, differ markedly between the United States and Germany. This can
only be fully understood if the representative national ‘macro'-histories and, in particular, the traumatic Ger-
man one are taken into account. Conversely, the use of such symbols and their relative levels of perception
and acceptance can only be assessed by quantifiable methods.
To bring these levels and their interactions into a coherent framework, the general model of explanations in
social science, as proposed by James Coleman (1990) and further developed by Hartmut Esser (1993), is
helpful (Figure 37.2).
Figure 37.2 Levels of analysis

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Source: Adapted from Coleman (1990) and Esser (1993).
This model links the initial social situation at the macro-level (upper left-hand side) – including its historical,
social structural, and so on conditions – to the micro-level of subjective perceptions, expectations, interests,
preferences, values and so on (lower left-hand side), and the resulting individual actions (lower right-hand
side). In order to become politically relevant, these actions must be aggregated in different forms at the
meso-level (right-hand side in the middle) to affect the actual political decision-making and its consequences
again at the macro-level (upper right-hand side). This, of course, must be seen in a dynamic sense with var-
ious feedback mechanisms which produce changes in the course of time, but also within the context of the
international and nowadays ‘global’ system with its continuous interactions.
With the help of this model, some of the major fallacies and deficiencies of past approaches can again be
made evident. Orthodox Marxists, for example, would draw their conclusions directly from the macro- (social
structural) level on the left-hand side to the macro- (political) level on the right-hand side without taking in-
to account the subjective perceptions and actual ‘consciousness’ of the most relevant social classes at the
micro-level and the problems of their aggregation and acting together at the meso-level. Similarly, a purely
semiotic analysis of some symbols and rituals at the macro-level is not able to assess their perception and
impact at the micro-level (where, for example, a certain cynicism concerning official rituals, as in some of the
former socialist countries, may prevail). A social–anthropological thick description in Geertz’ (1973) sense,
usually obtained by ‘participant observation’ in small communities or groups, is subject to similar limitations.
Even though the meaning of certain symbols and actions may be better understood (Verstehen in Weber's
sense), it remains difficult to generalize from the point of view of a particular observer and from a small group
or village to the overall society.
The restrictions of a pure ‘rational choice’ approach on the micro-level also become evident. Neither the social
and historical context (upper left-hand side) nor the problem of meaningfully aggregating individual prefer-
ences on a large scale at the meso-level (middle right) are adequately taken into account by simple utility
maximizing assumptions of homo oeconomicus or the strict observation of social roles and norms by homo
sociologicus. For this reason, Hartmut Esser has proposed to conceive of socially integrated and active hu-
man beings as ‘restricted, resourceful, evaluating, expecting, maximizing men’ (RREEMM) and, of course,
women. In this way, the restrictions and resources depending on the macro-level (upper left-hand side), but
also cultural factors and traditions (‘expecting and evaluating'), come into play.
Esser has further refined and supplemented this model with the concept of ‘framing'. This is derived from cog-
nitive psychology, where the observation of a certain object (e.g. a certain material symbol, such as a flag)
must fit into the ‘frame’ of a known or anticipated situation in order to be able to interpret it and to act accord-
ingly (Shore, 1996). The subsequent action then follows a certain routinized and often unconscious ‘script’
which has been ‘programmed’ by the socializing experiences of a particular group or society (e.g. when you
raise and place your right hand on your heart while listening to the national anthem during official ceremonies

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in the United States – a ‘frame’ and ‘script’ which are not practiced in this way in many other countries).
These frames are often specific to particular sub-milieus in a larger society where the structural components
of the community system and their specific identities again come into play. When these sub-milieus are also
territorially segregated to a certain extent (e.g. in certain constituencies, precincts, city quarters, etc.), the
long-term preferences for certain parties based on such cleavages can be better explained than by econom-
ic or other immediate utility considerations alone. In this sense, electoral geography, as originally developed
by André Siegfried (1913), can in certain situations provide a better explanation (and predictor) of election
results than the usual cross-national surveys where particular findings may not ‘fit’ and remain contradictory
(e.g. Catholic workers voting for a conservative party). In addition, some ‘modernizing', secularizing and oth-
er individualizing influences are also at work and, at least as party preferences and voter identification are
concerned, a certain ‘dealignment’ can be observed (Gabriel, Chapter 35, this Handbook). In this way, ten-
sions may arise between a person's ‘cultural’ group identity and her individual preferences. In supplementing
Esser's terminology, these conflicting tendencies can be captured by adding two more Is (for identifying and
individualizing) to his formula, making it ‘RREEIIMM’ (in German this even allows for a play on words, where
sich einen Reim auf etwas machen means to make sense of something, which in this context may be quite
appropriate, Berg-Schlosser, 2010).
Global/Regional Differentiation
After a certain lull in the 1980s, the political culture approach experienced a ‘renaissance’ in the 1990s, but
also received renewed criticism. This renaissance was influenced both by epistemological considerations and
concrete events. In a broader sense, the ‘cultural turn’ in the humanities brought with it a renewed emphasis
on the more ‘subjective’ sides of human existence, aspects of meaning and understanding, but also a more
‘relativist', less universal and more ‘post-modern’ rather than ‘scientistic’ epistemological orientation (Kellner,
1995). More specifically, in political science attempts to demonstrate the general post-materialist and, in this
sense, also ‘post-modern’ value change were made by authors such as Inglehart (1988) and the broader
cultural and deeper historical dimension of politics was (re-) emphasized in Eckstein's (1988) approach and
Putnam's (1993) influential study.
At about the same time, the events after 1989/90 in Central and Eastern Europe and the demise of the Soviet
Union opened up a rapidly widening field of democratization and political culture studies more or less in the
Almond/Verba tradition (Diamond, 1994; Rose et al., 1998). Similarly, in international politics, the perception
of an ongoing and intensifying ‘clash of civilizations', in Huntington's (1996) terminology, replacing the Cold
War of the former super-powers by intra-societal and international conflicts based on ethnic, religious and, in
general, ‘cultural’ identities, was intensively discussed and seemingly confirmed, in the minds of some schol-
ars, by the events of September 11, 2001, and after.
As a first step, it is worth taking a closer look at the broader cultural areas (Kulturkreise) or civilizations in
Huntington's sense, which are largely based on the predominant religions. Max Weber (1920 [1905]) in a
seminal but contested study, described a close linkage between Protestant religious beliefs and social and
economic attitudes and behavior. In his later works on Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism and ancient Ju-
daism he further elaborated this linkage, mostly with regard to the economic ethics of world religions and
their consequences for social and economic development (Weber, 1920). By necessity, however, his ‘qualita-
tive’ studies were based on the original religious documents and their interpretations by leading protagonists,
and available contemporary sources. These reflected prevailing perceptions of such cultures and their ‘men-
talities', but could not be assessed in a more differentiated and representative way. In this sense, they also
represented mostly elite cultures and their interpretations, and did not show the actual way of life of the pop-
ulations at large. Such broad (over-) generalizations can also be found in Huntington's book. Nevertheless,
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these religious and philosophical bases remain important for a deeper understanding of regional cultures.
With regard to our conceptual scheme, Weber's work was mostly concerned with the socio-cultural system
and the prevailing codes and its consequences for the attitudes in the economic sub-system. Here, we look
first at the broader political orientations in these cultural areas and the bases of legitimacy for the respective
regimes. At this point, these can, of course, only be some broad cursory remarks. As will become apparent
later, much more detailed country-by-country accounts of the respective political cultures are needed.
A first clue in this respect can be gained from Huntington's map ‘The World of Civilizations: Post-1990’ (Figure
37.3).
Figure 37.3 Huntington's ‘The world of civilizations: post-1990'
Map of civilizations, based on Huntington's Clash of Civilizations (1996: 26). The nine ‘civilizations’ identified
by Huntington are: Western, Latin American, Japanese, Sinic, Hindu, Orthodox ( ), African ( ), Buddhist
( ), Islamic ( ).
Note: Huntington considers Turkey and Iran to be special cases, indicated by different shades of .
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Civilizations_map.png, last accessed November 12, 2018.
In this map, the West consists of Northern and Western Europe, the United States and Canada, plus Australia
and New Zealand. No further distinction (in contrast to Weber) between (Roman) Catholic and Protestant ar-
eas is made. For Huntington, Western civilization is characterized by the ‘classic legacy’ of Greek and Roman
cultures, a separation of spiritual and secular authorities, social pluralism, the relatively early emergence of
representative political bodies and a high degree of individualism and personal rights. All this resulted in a
long-term process of ‘modernization', including industrialization and widespread literacy, the ‘enlightenment’
and, finally, democratization (for more detailed accounts see, e.g., Eisenstadt, 1987, vol.1).
By contrast, the Christian Orthodox cultural areas, after their split from Rome in the schism of 1054, remained
more ‘traditional’ and authoritarian under large bureaucratic empires. Church and state were not separated
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for a long time, and modernization after the reforms of Peter the Great in Russia in the early 18th century
remained largely confined to technological innovations, reforms of the army and the strengthening of the im-
perial power. Attempts at political liberalization remained weak and were faced with repression from above.
This did not change after the Soviet revolution of 1917, even though the influence of the church was dimin-
ished (Ilyin, 2011).
Further East, popular beliefs were strongly shaped by the teachings of Confucius (551–479 bc). He advocated
harmony between the self, the family and the order of the state. If this is achieved, a peaceful and meaningful
life in a harmonious and consensual society will follow. Holders of public offices should be examples of moral
quality. In the Chinese Empire, civil servants consequently had to undergo long periods of training and further
qualifications. In a positive sense, this could lead to a benevolent form of authoritarianism, as practiced later
to some extent by Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore (in this office from 1959 to 1990, later as Senior
Minister and ‘Mentor'). In a negative sense, the Chinese bureaucracy under the Empire was very hierarchical
and rigid and became inefficient in many ways. After the success of the 1949 revolution led by Mao Zedong,
a strictly authoritarian Communist regime was established. Nevertheless, some Confucian traditions are still
emphasized, which, as far as the moral quality of the leadership is concerned, can also be turned against
some of the incumbents. As the successful cases of Taiwan (after the constitutional reforms of 1992) and,
under somewhat different circumstances, South Korea (since the late 1980s) show, a liberal democracy is
not incompatible with such a tradition, as already advocated by Sun Yat-sen as first president of the newly
founded Republic of China in 1912 (He, 2016).
Japan is a special case in this region, shaped by Shinto (‘Way of the Gods') and Buddhist traditions. In the
long history of the Japanese Empire, these beliefs underpinned the legitimacy and divine origins of the emper-
ors. After the Meiji Restoration in 1868 this developed into a kind of ‘state shintoism’ mobilizing imperial and
nationalist loyalties and modernizing the state, the economy and the military. After the defeat in World War
II, a constitutional democracy was established under American auspices and the emperor (tenno) became
a mere figurehead, no longer to be considered an akitsumikami (a deity in human form). Yet, the Yasukuni
shrine, for example, commemorating those who died in service of Japan in wartime, including many convicted
war criminals after World War II, still serves as a nationalist symbol. More generally, up to the present day,
in Japanese society some of the more ‘allegiant’ (to use Inglehart's and Welzel's term, see below) traditional
values and consensual norms prevail (Murakami, 1987).
In other parts of East and Southeast Asia, strong Buddhist influences exist as well, going back to the teach-
ings of Gautama Buddha, a monk and sage who is believed to have lived in Northeast India between the 4th
and 6th centuries bc. This today includes countries such as Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Sri Lan-
ka, Mongolia and former Tibet. Buddhists, today in many variations, believe in a cycle of birth and rebirth in
different forms (samsara), which only can be ended by leading a ‘good’ meritorious life (karma) and the final
attainment of ‘nirvana'. In daily practice, this is reflected by adhering to major ethical principles (no killing, no
stealing, no lying, no intoxicants) and frequent meditation and prayers, leading to self-awareness and calm-
ness of mind. This pronounced ‘otherworldly’ orientation does not mean, however, that passive and fatalist
attitudes prevail. On the contrary, positive action is required to achieve karma (Powell, 1989).
In India, Hinduism has become the prevailing religion – or, more precisely, dharma as the general way of
life. This consists of a fusion of various Indian traditions with no clear founder or single religious script. Cen-
tral concepts include, as in Buddhism, samsara as the continuous cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth, and
karma, a person's actions in current life or in the past. Traditional Hindu society had been divided into four
major castes (varnas): the Brahmins (teachers and priests), the Kshatriyas (warriors and kings), the Vaishyas
(farmers and merchants) and the Shudras (servants and laborers), to which one belonged by birth, with very
limited chances of inter-marriage or social mobility. Politically the subcontinent was ruled for a long time by a
variety of regional kingdoms and empires, but it was also subject to several invasions and to outside domi-
nance by Mongol and Muslim rulers. After a period of colonization from the early 17th century by the British
East India Company, the subcontinent was finally unified and formally ruled by the British Crown after 1858.

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Over the course of time a new British-educated indigenous elite emerged, including personalities such as one
of the major leaders of the independence movement, Mahatma Gandhi, and the first Prime Minister after in-
dependence in 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru. Gandhi also initiated a cultural revolution, turning against the strict
religious and caste divisions, emphasizing the equal rights of the ‘untouchables’ and members of the ‘sched-
uled castes’ (dalits). He did not succeed, however, in preventing the secession of the Muslim-dominated parts
of East (later Bangladesh) and West Pakistan. Independent India was, from the very beginning, a federal sec-
ular state and a parliamentary democracy. The long dominant Congress Party of Nehru and his successors
was later replaced in government by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which emphasized Hinduist national-
ism. The secular constitution, however, has been maintained (Ashraf, 1995).
The political influences of Islam have become the most contested in the contemporary world. It is most promi-
nent in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region, but it also extends to parts of sub-Saharan Africa,
Central Asia and Southeast Asia, including Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia. In some of the remaining
monarchies, as in Jordan or Morocco, the ruling dynasties claim their legitimacy to be based on the fact that
they are descendants of Prophet Muhammad (sharifs). In most of the other countries, whether under civil
authoritarian or military rule, the influence of Islamic culture and beliefs is very strong. Basically, two major
strands today can be distinguished. One remains strongly traditional and fundamentalist, accepting only the
Qur'an (the holy book as revealed to the prophet) and the Shari'ah (the body of legal texts and interpretations
derived from it) as foundations of social and political life. The Wahhabist doctrine in Saudi Arabia and the
theocratic regime in Iran (velâyat-e faqih), but also parts of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the self-pro-
claimed ‘Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’ (ISIS), are examples of this orientation, while the Islamic republic of
Iran is committed to the Shiite doctrine of the velâyat-e faqih, that is to say, ‘governance of the jurists’ who are
able to interpret the law. The other strand is more reformist and regards basic Islamic values and practices as
compatible with many features of modern life and democratic rule. This came to the fore in the Arab Spring
in 2010–11 in Tunisia and later in other parts of the MENA region, but only in Tunisia has it so far had more
lasting consequences of greater democratization. Nevertheless, the democratic regimes in Senegal and In-
donesia are also examples of this kind (Fattah, 2006).
Turkey is a special case: the revolution against the Ottoman rulers led by Kemal Atatürk established a secular
republic in 1923, with, however, a mixed history of military and democratic rule after the first multi-party elec-
tions in 1950. The contrasts between the urban political elite and the rural, more traditional parts of the coun-
try remained strong. The Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Prime Minister Erdoğan, in power
since 2002, has put the secular foundations of the state into question. After another attempt at a military coup
in 2016 and the adoption of a new constitution, (now) President Erdoğan has turned the country in an author-
itarian direction.
In many parts of sub-Saharan Africa today, Christian religions, including many foreign or indigenous sects,
prevail. Traditionally, most African ethnic groups had some form of animist religion, believing in a creator
god and a transcendental world of ancestor spirits who still could influence their daily lives (Mbiti, 1969). In
Ethiopia, a Coptic Orthodox church has existed since the 4th century. Colonization by the European powers
after the Berlin conference in 1885 also led to intensive missionization by Catholic, Anglican and Protestant
churches. More recently, many evangelical and other sects came into being, some of them linked to North
American churches. In a country like Kenya, for example, more than 200 Christian denominations can be
found today. In a number of countries, as in Uganda or Nigeria, religious divisions also have led to political
conflicts. On the whole, the public influence of the various churches is relatively strong. Most early attempts
of establishing democratic rule after independence in the early 1960s failed, leading to ‘big men’ politics and
‘neo-patrimonial’ rule in authoritarian one-party states or military dictatorships. Only after the ‘second liber-
ation’ in the early 1990s and the end of the Cold War did some more durable democratic regimes emerge.
Nevertheless, strong clientelistic ties, often on an ethnic and regional basis, still prevail in many countries
(Bratton and van de Walle, 1997).
The Latin American region was colonized by Spain and Portugal in the 16th century, establishing the Catholic

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Church, with strong ties to the Vatican. Traces of indigenous religions (Aztec, Maya, etc.) can only be found in
some of the Andean states and Mexico. After independence from the colonial rulers in the early 19th century
as a result of the Napoleonic wars in Europe (and later in Brazil), mostly authoritarian regimes were estab-
lished, often led by military leaders (‘caudillos'). In the 20th century, many countries experienced a vacillating
history, often with renewed military interventions. Only in the late 1980s did more stable democratic regimes
emerge (O'Donnell et al., 1986). In the meantime, many syncretistic churches and evangelical sects have
also become active. These can be found mostly in areas affected strongly by the slave trade from Africa, as
in the Caribbean and Brazil. With regard to continuing strong social and economic inequalities, a ‘liberation
theology’ within the Catholic Church has gained some ground. This has also contributed to the emergence of
Christian Democratic parties, as in Chile and Venezuela (Sigmund, 1994). Overall, this mixture of influences
justifies speaking of a distinct civilization in this region, in Huntington's sense.
These brief characterizations of the major civilizations only describe some of the long-term historical influ-
ences and cultural value patterns. For a ‘political’ culture in the narrower sense of the term, the specific con-
temporary political context and institutional set-up of each country has to be taken into account. This begins
with the ‘community system’ of our conceptual scheme and the specific patterns of state formation underlying
it. Thus, the borders of each unit (and the possible conflicts that go with them) have to be determined. Then
the internal differentiation, again shaped by historical forces and events, has to be outlined, as, for example,
in Rokkan's ‘conceptual map of Europe’ (1975 and see above). In this way, a more detailed picture of each
country and its religious, ethnic, regional and other political–cultural variations can be obtained. These then
are also reflected in the respective electoral results and their changes over time.
Empirical Databases
With regard to all this complexity, in the past most studies of political culture have been concerned with in-
dividual cases in a more qualitative and historical sense. But since Almond and Verba's pioneering study
and the communication revolution in the digital age, a huge wealth of data has been accumulated, most of it
freely available on the internet. In the beginning, these were mostly concerned with economic or demograph-
ic developments, as pioneered by the United Nations and its sub-organizations or by the IMF and the World
Bank. In the meantime, a vast amount of cultural and political data has also been collected on a more con-
tinuous basis by a variety of efforts and organizations. This applies mostly to different measures and indices
of democracy at the macro-level, such as those by Polity and Freedom House or, more recently, ‘Varieties of
Democracy’ (V-Dem), but today these also include regular survey research on political values and attitudes in
a large number of countries at the micro-level. This began with the Eurobarometer in Western Europe in the
1970s, initiated by Ronald Inglehart in the European Community framework and followed since the 1990s in
all major regions of the world (Afrobarometer, Arab Barometer, Asian Barometer, Eurasian Barometer, Latino-
barometro), now organized jointly in the framework of Global Barometer Surveys (https://www.globalbarom-
eter.net/). The European Social Survey (ESS), covering a broad scope of issues and established in 2001, is
the most methodologically sophisticated so far.
Even ‘deeper', in a cultural sense, is the probing of the World Values Survey (WVS), which since the early
1980s has attempted to assess the major world cultures and their changes over time (http://www.worldval-
uessurvey.org/wvs.jsp). Again at the initiative of Inglehart, and originally testing his theory on post-materialism
and generational change, up to 2014, six waves of these surveys had been completed. By now, they have
covered almost 90 countries, but this coverage has been irregular since not all countries were included in
each wave and funding has to be sought for each wave on an individual country basis. Nevertheless, the ma-
jor findings are remarkable and have led to a refinement of modernization theory and assessment of cultural
patterns worldwide and their changes over the past few decades (see below).

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Historical Depth and Persistence of Cultures

Robert Putnam (1993) and his collaborators emphasize the deep historical dimension of political cultures con-
tributing to the renaissance of this approach mentioned above. They analyzed the civic traditions in the newly
created regions after the administrative reforms in Italy in the early 1970s, and the differential impact of these
reforms. They attributed the relative success of these reforms in the North, compared to the persistence of
more traditional structures and low institutional performance in the South, to the rich traditions of city-states
and republics in Northern Italy since the Middle Ages. There, a dense network of organizations of civil society
with high levels of social trust and political participation has emerged over the course of time. This ‘social
capital', as they call it, has been continuously reproducing itself and constitutes the basis for further economic
and political developments up to the present day.By contrast, social relations in Middle and Southern Italy, in
the areas of the former (much larger) Vatican state and the Kingdom of Sicily, have been characterized by a
political culture of suspicion, feudal and more recent clientelistic relationships including the Mafia, econom-
ic backwardness and political apathy or cynicism. Thus, this has remained in line with what Banfield (1958)
earlier called the ‘amoral familism’ of the South. Thus, here too, self-reproducing mechanisms and game the-
oretical equilibria are at work, this time as a circulus vitiosus rather than a circulus virtuosus as in the North.
Putnam's study has found much acclaim. Nevertheless, some weaker points relating to certain aspects of the
methodology (Morlino, 1995) and their overall approach (Jackman and Miller, 1996) have been pointed out
as well. By going back in history almost indefinitely such an explanation can easily be made unfalsifiable,
overlooking important changes that have taken place as well. A more elaborate specification of the overall
model, linking and testing the arguments at each level, could have provided a more differentiated and less
static picture.
Global Cultural Modernization

Modernization theories have been en vogue in the social sciences since the late 1950s and early 1960s. In
political science, Lerner's (1958) and Lipset's (1963) early studies have been most influential. While Lipset
based his assessment on broader socio-economic and more objectifiable indicators such as GNP per capita
and literacy, Lerner explicitly identified a socio-psychological component: the increasing ‘empathy’ of persons
in the transition from traditional to modern societies. In more recent times, Ronald Inglehart has become most
prominent (and persistent!) in following this approach on a broad cultural basis. He first detected and pro-
claimed the existence of ‘post-materialist’ attitudes and values in the ‘silent revolution’ (1977) of the younger
generation in the well-to-do Western countries. His concepts, methods and findings have been widely re-
viewed and criticized in the meantime (Jackman and Miller, 1996).
More recently, Inglehart (1997) further broadened his approach to document ‘modernization and post-mod-
ernization’ in 43 societies, now including a number of non-Western ones, mostly based on the first waves of
the World Values Survey (WVS) which were conducted in the early 1980s and 1990s. There, he expanded
his concept to tap a large variety of orientations, ranging from religious beliefs and economic and political atti-
tudes to sexual norms and changing gender roles. He argues that in the course of modernization, traditional,
including religious, values are replaced by ‘rational–legal’ ones in Weber's sense. But, as he puts it, ‘mod-
ernization is not the final stage of history’ (1997: 5). Increasingly in the younger generation in the advanced
countries, ‘post-modern’ values, including ‘post-materialist’ ones, but also ‘a growing mass desire for partic-
ipation and self-expression’ (ibid: 327) can be found. In this way, he concludes, ‘economic, cultural, and po-
litical change go together in coherent patterns, and they are changing the world in broadly predictable ways’
(ibid: 341). Such sweeping statements have again raised many criticisms, mainly concerning methodological
aspects.
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Even more ambitious is subsequent work with Pippa Norris highlighting increasing gender equality across
cultures (Inglehart and Norris, 2003), and with Christian Welzel showing the rise of democratic values and
self-assertive citizens around the globe (Inglehart and Welzel, 2005). The most recent works along these lines
are those by Welzel (2013) and Dalton and Welzel (2014), based on the sixth wave of the WVS and its prede-
cessors. There they distinguish between the ‘allegiant model’ of the Almond/Verba ‘civic culture’ concept, with
a general allegiance to the regime, pride in the political system and a modest level of political participation on
the one hand, and an ‘assertive model’ of critical citizens emphasizing emancipative values, which have be-
come ‘dissatisfied democrats’ in many instances, on the other. The distribution of countries around the world
based on these two dimensions is shown in Figure 37.4.
Figure 37.4 From allegiant to assertive citizens
Source: Dalton and Welzel (2014: 295), based on most recent WVS survey of each society.
These cases can also be grouped into broader cultural zones resembling Huntington's civilizations. The older
established democracies can be found in the upper right-hand quadrant, Latin American cases somewhere
in the center and East European cases on the left-hand side. The African and Asian cases are mostly on the
lower right-hand side.

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Remarkable changes over time are revealed in Figure 37.5, where respondents in the latest survey from each
society are broken down by age cohorts.
Figure 37.5 From allegiant to assertive citizens (trajectories)
Source: Dalton and Welzel (2014: 297), culture zone cohort trajectories.
Here the arrows follow the trace from the oldest cohort at the arrow tail to the youngest one at the arrow
head. This figure clearly indicates changes from allegiant to assertive cultures in almost all regions, with the
exception of Africa and the Indian subcontinent. In spite of some limitations of the data with changing sets
of nations in each WVS wave, this is an important finding, showing overall trends and prospects for further
democratization and more intensive political participation in major areas.
Cultural Conflicts on a Global Scale

Even more widely discussed than Inglehart's ‘universal’ and Putnam's ‘deep’ historically rooted concepts of
political culture has been Huntington's (1996) ‘Clash of Civilizations'. He distinguishes nine broad cultural
zones, which are characterized mainly by common fundamental religious traditions and a common identity,
which transcends existing political boundaries (see above). These identities, in his view, determine the most
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significant cleavages in international politics after the end of the Cold War. The Islamic region, in particular, is
seen to be characterized by ‘bloody borders’ and ‘fault line wars', as for example in Bosnia or Kosovo, Chech-
nya, Kashmir, the Philippines, Northern Nigeria, and so on. In addition, in the longer run, ‘core states’ in the
major regions – in particular China and, if a common center should emerge, in the Islamic world – would pose
a major challenge to the present dominance of the West. At the extreme, a scenario of ‘the West against the
rest’ may become possible. He concludes that ‘in … the global real clash between Civilization and barbarism
the world's great civilizations … will hang together or hang separately’ (1996: 321). He advocates, therefore,
that core states refrain from intervening in conflicts in other civilizations (his ‘abstention rule') and that core
states negotiate with each other to contain or to halt fault line wars (his ‘mediation rule') (1996: 316). This per-
ception stands thus in stark contrast to Inglehart's assessment of a universalizing ‘post-modern’ world culture,
but also to the emerging international regimes based on commonly accepted charters within the framework
of the United Nations, such as the International Criminal Court, and an increasingly universal perception (and
practice) of basic human rights, democracy and ‘good governance'.
Not surprisingly, this spectacular thesis has provoked much reaction and criticism. Among the favorable com-
ments were those by hardliners on either side of the cultural divide, such as among conservative and military
interests and security forces in the United States or in Mahatir's Malaysia, speaking in defense of non-de-
mocratic ‘Asian values'. Others pointed out some major weaknesses in his concept. Mark Juergensmeyer,
for example, also identified ‘religious nationalism’ as a major more recent phenomenon, but saw it largely
confined to smaller groups, including terrorist ones, in some cultures – as among Islamic fundamentalists or
Hindu nationalists. Rather than the ‘apocalyptic vision of a worldwide conflict between religious and secu-
lar nationalism', he sees ‘reason to be hopeful. It is equally as likely that religious nationalists are incapable
of uniting with another, and they will greatly desire an economic and political reconciliation with the secular
world’ (Juergensmeyer, 1993: 201).
Huntington's warnings, intensified after September 11, 2001, have stimulated a wide range of reactions both
in international politics and in political science. Among the most balanced and sober accounts in this respect
is Müller's (1998) ‘Das Zusammenleben der Kulturen’ (literally: the living together of cultures). Müller ques-
tions some of Huntington's major assumptions, such as the prevalence of cultural vis-à-vis state politics, the
more or less uniform identities of the respective civilizations, their capability to become major coherent actors
on the world scene, and the neglect of global economic factors – such as the importance of world trade and
energy supplies – and not merely ‘cultural’ ones, and so on.
This cannot be discussed further here. It is important, however, that Huntington's and similar concepts have
to be checked against the framework of our initial model. First of all, it is important to note that his concept of
‘civilization’ is not identical to political culture. The latter is defined by the established territorial boundaries of
the respective polity and shaped (in a dynamic feedback loop) by the existing type of political system. Only in
cases where, in Huntington's terminology, ‘core states’ coincide with the respective civilization, as in China,
Japan and, to a relatively large extent, India, may the two notions be treated as synonymous. In all others,
the diversity of states and regimes in each cultural zone may lead to significantly varying political cultures,
whether more authoritarian or more democratic. Second, ‘macro’ preconditions (on the upper left-hand side)
such as cultural and religious cleavages, but also economic discrepancies and so on, only play a role if they
are perceived as such and acted upon at the ‘micro'-level, and then may be aggregated at the meso-level on
the right-hand side in order to have political ‘macro'-effects (on the upper right-hand side, see Figure 37.2). If
and to what extent this really is the case at each stage can only be answered empirically, but some of these
(necessary) links seem to be rather weak in Huntington's scenarios.
Perspectives

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Taken altogether, there have been many advances in the study of political cultures around the world. The on-
going debates concerning deeper historical studies, global cultural and political trends and possible cultural
conflicts and even violent clashes also show the liveliness and relevance of this topic. Nevertheless, there are
still many blank spots in our cultural maps in many regions. Moreover, even where we have well documented
longer-term studies and detailed assessments, as in many of the older democracies, new developments bring
about important and sometimes quite sudden and unexpected changes. A number of these tendencies have
been lumped together under the broad rubric of ‘globalization’ (Milner, Chapter 73, this Handbook). These
include many recent technological developments, most importantly in the area of digitalization and the new
electronic media; an increased international division of labor; mass tourism; and new waves of international
migration. In this way, many new inter-cultural contacts occur, which provide chances of learning and better
mutual understanding, but which can also lead to new frictions, hateful populist reactions and xenophobia.
Therefore, ‘multi-culturalism', sometimes used in a polemical sense, is here to stay (see Amir-Moazami,
Chapter 89, this Handbook). This, however, also requires clear regulations for international travel, refugee or
asylum status, possible citizenship, and so on. On the whole, a greater ‘hybridization’ of cultures will occur
(Katzenstein, 2010). This does not mean that all national or sub-cultural identities will disappear. As has been
indicated above, multiple identities at different levels and in different situations are much more likely to be-
come the rule in an increasingly cosmopolitan world. This also means that inter-cultural dialogues, not just
among intellectuals or the international jet set, but in many daily life situations, will become much more fre-
quent. For this, a certain amount of openness and curiosity to learn more about other people's lives and
thinking, but also a measure of mutual tolerance of disagreements, is required. In any case, in contemporary
democracies, narrowly conceived ‘imagined’ identities based on perceived common origins and ethnos (An-
derson, 1983) will have to be overcome to make place for the demos of all citizens, if the plebs in the streets
is not to prevail.
In an increasingly global political science, open, eye-to-eye dialogues about basic concepts such as democ-
racy, fundamental human rights, the social and political role of women, forms of social or sexual discrimination
and many others, including our methodology, are required. In this way, ‘non-Western’ theories and philoso-
phies can be confronted with the current ones, as in comparative political theory (Mallavarapu, Chapter 1, this
Handbook), but also with the rich and ever expanding empirical data on social and political attitudes and po-
litical cultures worldwide (see, for example, Schubert and Weiß, 2016). Had he been alive today, Max Weber
certainly would have welcomed and embraced these possibilities.
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• political culture
• attitudes
• civic culture
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n40

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Political Socialization
Contributors: Maria Marczewska-Rytko

Chapter Title: "Political Socialization"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Political Socialization
Maria Marczewska-Rytko

Studies on political socialization developed in the 1960s thanks to American sociologists. The points of refer-
ence for studies on political socialization are psychological and sociological theories. Psychological theories
that provided special inspiration included the theory of social learning, psychoanalysis, the theory of social
development and human ecological theory. Sociological theories, such as systems theory, action theory and
the theory of social structure, also exerted a significant impact on the investigation into socialization process-
es.
Social learning theory is based on the assumption that human behavior is directly associated with an individ-
ual's process of experiencing and processing environmental elements because a person is born without the
knowledge of behavioral principles. S/he has to acquire this knowledge in the learning process, in which an
essential role is played by reinforcement. In classic learning theories, reinforcement is a trained, automatic
response to a stimulus. John Broadus Watson, the founder of behaviorism, emphasizes the fact that people
direct most of their behaviors at other people and meet different reactions. These reactions can be positive
or negative. Positive reactions occur when an individual observes the rules adopted in a community or meets
social expectations. Negative reactions will be a consequence of actions that violate the adopted rules. Thus,
when trying to avoid negative reactions, an individual learns to repeat the behaviors that are accepted in a
community. In this way, an individual internalizes expectations that stem from a given culture.
Modern learning theories treat reinforcement as a conscious decision by a person who takes the results of a
specific action into account. Social learning theory, founded by Albert Bandura, occupies an important posi-
tion in psychology. According to its tenets, one of the mechanisms of behavior acquisition is learning by ob-
servation and imitation of persons perceived as representing standard behaviors. Such persons are chosen
because of the functions they perform and are treated as social models. In other words, in the receiver's per-
ception, models have to be characterized by a high status or competencies. The process of learning through
social models consists in that the observer identifies with the model and imitates his/her behavior. In different
stages of their life, individuals are more or less receptive to modeling.
Psychoanalysis focuses on analyzing personality from the angle of tensions between an individual's drives/
motives and the rules of social culture with its system of norms and sanctions. The founder of psychoanalysis
theory is Sigmund Freud, who perceived personality as an outcome of a person's relationship with other peo-
ple who are emotionally important to him/her. Freud believed that human personality is determined by the Id
system – genetically acquired needs or drives – and the Superego system – socially and culturally shaped
ideas of what an individual should be. Tensions and conflicts occur between Id and Superego because Super-
ego restricts a person's natural desires, thereby producing the sense of guilt and shame. An individual de-
velops a special way of conduct, a compromise between natural drives and the requirements of culture and
society. The third system of personality is defined as Ego. In Freud's conception, socialization is a process of
achieving this compromise.
An important role in the development of psychoanalysis is played by Erik H. Erikson's theory of psychosocial
development. He distinguishes eight developmental stages in human life: from infancy through toddlerhood,
early childhood, preschool, early school (pre-adolescence), young adulthood, middle adulthood and old age
(late adulthood). In each of the stages, an individual faces arising conflicts. Resolving them is a condition for
advancing to the next stage. Conflicts that are not resolved will dysfunctionally influence a person. To sum
up, an individual's development is perceived as a mutual adjustment (reconciliation) of an individual and the
environment in the process of resolving successively emerging conflicts.

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The theory of cognitive development founded by Jean Piaget assumes that intelligence is an advanced form
of biological adaptation, which results in the structuring of cognitive processes. Piaget distinguishes several
stages of development: the stage of sensorimotor intelligence, which lasts until the 18th month of age; the
preoperational stage –from a year and half until seven years; concrete operations – from 7 to 15 years of
age; and the stage of formal operations (thinking), from 15 years up. Piaget's interests cover the processes of
active and multidimensional interactions between an individual and the environment. An individual's behavior
and his/her actions are functions of the organism; the environment can influence them only to a limited extent.
The ecological theory of human development (ecological psychology) assumes that human development oc-
curs through an individual's relations with the environment. An individual is influenced by the environment and
how s/he impacts on it. Urie Bronfenbrenner – the founder of the ecological theory of human development
– distinguishes four levels that constitute the environment: the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem and
macrosystem. The microsystem consists of the family, a peer group, a professional or religious group. The
mesosystem encompasses connections between individual elements that make up the microsystem and can
exert a positive influence on human development. The exosystem refers to various social settings or struc-
tures, whose accumulation can negatively impact human development. The macrosystem refers to such di-
mensions of an individual's functioning as politics, economy or culture. Bronfenbrenner also uses the term
‘niche’ (habitat, setting), denoting the place where close personal relationships are established.
Worth noting among the systems theories is the theory by Talcott Parsons, based on the category of system
that denotes functionally connected and specifically structured systems and features. Parsons distinguishes
three types of systems: the organism system, social system and personality system. For Parsons, the so-
cialization process is the process of acquiring and internalizing values and norms of the social environment.
The process continues until the acquired values and norms become the motivations for an individual's action
and form the system of his/her personality. In the socialization process, the state of balance is thus achieved
between the needs of organism, personality and social structure. During the process of socialization, each
human individual advances through a specific system of increasingly complex structures of social roles, in
which s/he functions at different stages of his/her life. In the course of the socialization process, an individual
acquires and gathers the means and abilities to function in the social environment. Niklas Luhmann further
developed systems theory. In his conceptualization, it assumes the form of a metatheory for constructing the-
ories of individual systems and the general system. Luhmann believes that the signifying characteristic of the
modern world is mainly the phenomenon of growing complexity and unpredictability (contingency). In a world
composed of increasingly large numbers of partial systems, many opportunities for action, expiring and con-
structing meanings appear. Luhmann emphasizes the role of mutually coupled and self-steering mechanisms.
His conviction is that society is unable to totally control the results of the process of socialization because
they are seen not so much in the social system as in an individual's mental system. Significantly enough, the
interconnection of these systems makes their constituents, like social communication or consciousness, go
beyond the boundaries of their own systems in the process of merging.
Theory of action is associated first of all with the research by Charles Horton Cooley and George Herbert
Mead. Cooley focuses on analyzing the relationship between the functioning of an individual in a group and
the functioning of a group in an individual. In a word, the two entities can be examined only in relation to one
another rather than in isolation from each other. It is therefore essential to inquire into the essence of inter-
action, to seek an answer to the question about how an individual becomes a human being and what this
process looks like. Cooley is convinced that this process takes place owing to communication with other peo-
ple, that is, owing to the use of gestures, postures, facial expressions, words, writing, telephone, telegraph,
and so on. He explains mental differences between individuals as caused by differences between communi-
cation systems in which they function. A substantial role is also played by institutions, social classes or public
opinion. According to G. H. Mead's theory, personality develops as the internalization of social contacts with
other people. At birth, there is no personality: it develops in the process of social experiencing and interaction.
Personality is thus a social structure. It is one's own social experience that determines to what extent person-
ality participates in communication. Mead stresses that an individual does not experience him/herself directly
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but rather indirectly, by adopting the points of view of other members of a social group. He is convinced that
children's role-playing games fulfill in their experience an important function of getting to know the social world
and shaping their personality owing to the experience of their own place in the whole of the social system. A
self-aware individual accepts the organized social attitudes of the group or community to which s/he belongs.
For example, in the sphere of politics, an individual identifies with a certain political grouping and adopts its
attitude toward the rest of a given community and toward problems arising in a specific political situation.
The theory of social structure exerts a great influence on the development of socialization processes. Émile
Durkheim focuses on relationships between an individual and society, and seeks a balance between the aspi-
rations of individual persons and the needs of society as a whole. An individual functions in a specific reality,
which is the existing reality. That is why an individual has to adjust to the way/ways of life recognized in soci-
ety. Otherwise s/he may encounter various reactions, such as legal sanctions or social exclusion. The starting
point for Jürgen Habermas is the development of the acting subject functioning in a definite social structure.
He interprets socialization as the unity of the process of socialization and individualization, as a result of which
an interaction occurs between an individual and the social environment. Habermas comprehensively explains
the social process in which an individual develops. Society is interpreted by Habermas from the perspective
of communication theory. Special importance is attributed to an individual's linguistic skills perceived in the
communication process. Autonomy and the ability to act focus on linguistic exchange between subjects. From
the standpoint of political socialization, of no small importance is Theodor Adorno's conception of authoritari-
an personality. Adorno and his associates seek the sources of the individual's mental and social mechanisms
in the early stages of his/her life. As a result, they created the so-called F scale to measure the level of au-
thoritarianism, and they distinguish the type of personality termed authoritarian.

The concept of socialization denoting the process of learning, that is, acquiring social competencies that en-
able one to become a member of a specific social or cultural group, has a long history. It appeared in the Ox-
ford English Dictionary in 1828 and was defined as ‘to render social, to make fit for living in society’ (Renshon,
1992). Socialization encompasses the process of the emergence and development of personality taking place
in interrelationship with the socially conveyed social and material environment. Essentially, we seek the an-
swer to the question of how a human being becomes a subject (actor) capable of acting socially. The essence
of the socialization process comes down to the emergence, shaping and development of human personality.
In the course of the socialization process, a human, with his/her biological and mental dispositions, becomes
a socially mature individual, equipped with abilities to act effectively (dynamically sustained throughout his/
her life) within the structures of a given society.
The term ‘political socialization’ denotes the process of individuals becoming accustomed to the framework
of political culture, which (framework) has been adopted as binding in the sphere of politics (Berg-Schlosser,
Chapter 37, this Handbook). The process of political socialization thus takes place as an aspect of specific
systems of norms and values. The political awareness and political behaviors of members of society is
shaped within this process. In this way, the patterns of political behavior and ways of action are transmitted in
the socialization process. Owing to socialization processes, an individual is introduced into a certain political
culture or rules of the game that are binding in the world of politics (Langton, 1969; Dennis, 1973; Greenstein,
1975; Patrick, 1977; Dekker, 2014).
Herbert H. Hyman uses the term ‘political socialization’ to refer to the process lasting throughout an individ-
ual's life (Hyman, 1959). During childhood, attitudes develop that influence political behaviors in mature age.
He emphasizes: ‘humans must learn their political behavior early and well and persist in it’ (Hyman, 1959:
17). As a result of the process of political socialization, an individual becomes a political person (Dawson
and Prewitt, 1969; Ichilov, 1990; Hess and Easton, 1962; Easton and Dennis, 1969). For R. S. Sigel, political
socialization means ‘the learning process by which the political norms and behaviors acceptable to an ongo-
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ing political system are transmitted from generation to generation’ (1965: 1). Edward S. Greenberg defines
political socialization as ‘the process by which the individual acquires attitudes, beliefs, and values relating
to the political system of which he is a member and to his own role as citizen, within that political system’
(Greenberg, 2017: 3). Individual political systems thus try to transmit to young people the systems of norms,
values and convictions that are congruent with the persistence of a political system. For Almond and Powell
(1978), political socialization is a process, as a result of which political cultures persist and evolve. During the
process, individuals adopt cultural problems and develop their orientations toward political phenomena. The
two scholars emphasize the importance of political socialization for the functioning of political systems. Fred I.
Greenstein offers a narrower and a broader conception of political socialization. According to the first, political
socialization is ‘the deliberate inculcation of political information, values, and practices by instrumental agents
who have been formally charged with this responsibility’ (Greenstein, 1968: 551). According to the second,
political socialization
would encompass all political learning, formal and informal, deliberate and unplanned, at every stage
of the life cycle, including not only explicitly political learning but also nominally nonpolitical learning
that affects political behavior, such as the learning of politically relevant social attitudes and the ac-
quisition of politically relevant personality characteristics. (Greenstein, 1968: 551).
Two approaches have been developed in the studies on political socialization. According to the first one, the
point of reference of socialization processes is an individual. According to the second position, the political
system is the point of reference. With the individual-oriented approach, knowledge and values or convictions
characteristic of an ordinary citizen are of significance. Emphasis is put here on the system of the connec-
tion between socialization processes in primary groups, first of all in the family, and on the functioning social
structures. Political behaviors characteristic of different cultures were associated with the patterns of parental
authority or binding norms and values in the upbringing process. Such approaches can be found inter alia in
Margaret Mead's conceptions (1978). With the orientation toward the political system, scholars focus their at-
tention primarily on the issues of the stability of political systems treated as those responsible for the course of
the process of political socialization. The counterculture movements of the 1960s exerted a crucial influence
on the development of inquiries into political socialization. Owing to them, the principal research assumptions
were revised. Scholars focused their interest on the questions of social change, opposition to the authorities
and interactions between different subjects of socialization processes.
The process of internalization of social reality consists in both knowing the external world and sharing it with
others. Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann (1996) state that we have to do with the comprehensive intro-
duction of an individual into the objective social. An individual becomes human by entering relationships with
the natural environment and with the social and cultural environment owing to significant others who exert
an influence on that individual. Referring to G. H. Mead's findings, the two scholars recognize that personal-
ity development is directly bound up with the development of the organism and social processes accessible
through significant others. All social universes undergo changes because they are the result of human activity.
Reality is socially defined in unambiguous terms because it is defined by both individuals and social groups.
Therefore, Berger and Luckmann (1966) emphasize that an individual is not born a member of a community/
society, but s/he is born with predispositions to socialization. Consequently, the internalization process denot-
ing both the understanding of other people and perception of the world as a meaningful and social reality is
of significance.
According to the definition given by Piotr Sztompka (2002), socialization denotes a process owing to which
an individual becomes accustomed to the way of life of his group and society at large. This happens through
learning the rules and ideas contained in culture. The social origin of the behavior of human individuals is
determined by at least two arguments. One of them applies to the situation when specific systems of norms,
values, rules and ideas are self-evident in some societies but absent from others, with entirely different pat-
terns functioning instead. The other argument refers to the cases of children brought up in an animal environ-
ment and to the resultant consequences. They show that the human way of life develops as a result of the

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child acquiring the culture of the community in which s/he is brought up. Biology, Sztompka (2002) empha-
sizes, provides specific predispositions, but whether they will fully develop is associated with the influence of
society. That is why it can be concluded that, owing to socialization processes, an individual becomes a full-
fledged member of social communities: s/he acquires competencies and skills indispensable for functioning
in a specific group; s/he adopts the ideas and conceptions characteristic of a given culture and learns specific
social roles s/he intends to perform.
Margaret Mead (1978) makes identification the main point of reference for the socialization process. This pro-
vides the answer to the question of which past, present or future a young person can identify with. Mead
stresses that possibilities of choosing an identification became available when competing lifestyles arising
from religion and political ideologies were experienced. She distinguishes three types of cultures: postfigura-
tive, cofigurative and prefigurative.
A characteristic feature of postfigurative cultures is that children learn first of all from their parents. Changes
are so slow here that the past of the adults is in essence the future of the young. In other words, young
people follow the path paved by the older generations. The feeling of invariable continuity is transmitted in
the process of socialization. From this comes the feeling of the young child's identity and the conviction that
only one destiny is available. An example is the caste system in India, in which representatives of individual
castes define their identity and their capabilities or lack of them by identifying with a caste. A similar situation
occurs in the case of different patterns of upbringing depending on gender.
In cofigurative cultures, both children and adults learn from their peers. The prevailing pattern for members of
societies is therefore the way their peers behave. Cofigurative cultures function based on such experiences
of young people that have no equivalent in the experience of their parents or grandparents. What is more,
grandparents are often not present in the physical sense because in the process of mobility, young people
move to other parts of their country, emigrate abroad, start a family, leave their parents in old people's or nurs-
ing homes. In this way, representatives of the older generation cease to exert an influence on the experience
of the growing-up children. In this type of culture, there is the belief that the years of children's learning are
only a partial preparation for functioning in different social groups outside of the family. The prevailing feeling
is that of living in a constantly changing world. This is associated with consent to the existence of an intergen-
erational rift and the expectation that the subsequent generations will function in a new technological world.
In prefigurative cultures, the adults also learn from their children. Young people functioning in different parts
of the world are facing situations that the older generations have not encountered. This largely stems from
the fact that the previous generations did not know, experience or take advantage of such rapid changes on a
global scale, such as the extension of energy sources or availability of new means of communication. Impor-
tantly, these changes happened over the span of the functioning of one generation. Mead (1978) observes
that in many parts of the world, the older generations are still functioning in accordance with the postfigurative
type of culture: children adopt their parents’ conviction that there are absolute, indisputable values and they
seek to redefine these values in the course of their lives.
Piotr Sztompka (2002) uses the term ‘reverse socialization'. In the traditional model, the older generation ex-
erts an influence on the younger generation, whereas in the model of reverse socialization, elders learn from
young people. In his view, two main factors influence the process of reverse socialization: social and cultural
changes taking place in the age of globalization and the impact of the mass media.
According to Almond and Powell (1978), the concept of a political system encompasses both government
institutions and legislative bodies; courts; state administration agencies; all structures in their political dimen-
sion; traditional structures comprising family relationships; caste groups; and organizations such as political
parties, interest groups or means of mass communication. A significant aspect from the standpoint of the
functioning of political systems is the legitimization of political power. Political power is legitimized when citi-
zens observe the rules adopted in a system not because they fear sanctions but because they believe in the

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legitimacy of authority. A significant point of reference for political socialization is political culture. The concept
of political culture encompasses a set of attitudes of community members and assessments of the role of an
individual in a given system. Therefore, Almond and Verba (1965), referring to the concept of political culture,
point to the political system internalized by particular members of a community in the form of emotions and
assessments. Specific political attitudes of adult behaviors can be related to the experience acquired by a
child in the process of political socialization. This process of internalization encompasses cognitive, emotional
and evaluative attitudes.
In a democratic system, a citizen is expected to participate in political life, to be well informed and to be guided
by reason rather than by emotions in the process of political choices (Almond and Verba, 1965). Therefore,
for a democratic community, the most desirable model of political socialization is one in which an individual
acquires the knowledge about how to perform various roles to overcome dissonance between them. Impor-
tantly, Almond and Verba lay strong emphasis on the character of the social environment, the binding patterns
of social interactions, historical political memory and various experiences pertaining to the political structure
and the ways of its functioning.
In Easton's (1957) considerations, political socialization is linked to the mechanisms of shaping support for a
specific political system. It is the culmination of creating and granting legitimacy to the political system. Eas-
ton stresses that demands put forward toward a given political system are not sufficient to keep it operating.
Specific attitudes and measures supporting the political system are indispensable. Easton distinguishes two
categories of this support. The first entails direct support for actors involved in decision-making processes and
is manifested inter alia in voting or participation in political campaigns. The second category is connected with
indirect or passive support and it assumes the form of, inter alia, paying taxes, doing military service or abid-
ing by the legal regulations in force. In order to persuade members of society to support the political system, a
system of strengthening ties between members of the system, by means of positive incentives (rewards) and
negative ones (sanctions), is used. As new members of society grow up, others transmit diverse social goals
and norms through the system of incentives. In this way, individual members of society learn different social
roles. This is especially important for what the society perceives as desirable in social life. What is essential
for political systems to function properly is that their members have a certain set of shared expectations re-
garding the criteria for political assessments. Easton emphasizes that learning does not end at some special
moment in life. It is important that we have a system of rewards and punishments in order to adopt proper
political attitudes and appropriate behaviors. An essential role in this process is played by myths, doctrines,
philosophies and ideologies conveying a specific interpretation of social and political goals and norms.
Socialization is a result of learning consciously through upbringing and unconsciously by imitation. In the lit-
erature, there is a distinction between primary and secondary socialization. Primary socialization is defined
as the first socialization the child encounters, and through which s/he becomes a member of society. At this
stage, purely cognitive learning takes place in the conditions of emotional identification with significant oth-
ers. In the process of primary socialization the child adopts the roles and attitudes of those significant others,
internalizes them and identifies with them. According to Berger and Luckmann, the molding of the child's iden-
tity means being assigned to a specific place in the world. The two scholars also emphasize that the child
actually has no choice: s/he is placed in a compulsory situation, and the world internalized in the process of
primary socialization is, therefore, far more rooted in human consciousness than the worlds that are internal-
ized in the processes of secondary socialization. Of significance for the process of primary socialization is
what culture the child grows in, what system of norms and values is inculcated into him/her, and what roles s/
he is prepared for. Berger and Luckmann believe that although the crowning point of the process of primary
socialization is the consolidation of the concept of generalized other in a person's consciousness, the social-
ization process does not end at this point because socialization is never complete and finished. Secondary
socialization is the process of internalization of different institutional worlds and of learning roles connected
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with participating in these worlds. Importantly enough, there may be rivalry between representatives of vari-
ous institutions that define the reality. This is effected through specialized agencies.
In the process of socialization, influence on an individual is exerted by the parents and the child's closest envi-
ronment, teaching the individual mainly basic behaviors in a small social group, which is the family. Secondary
socialization – essential from the social and cultural standpoint – begins when the subject broadens the scope
of his/her social and cultural relations, when s/he has already undergone primary socialization. School, peer
groups, the Church, the workplace and the media are some of those subjects/agents that exert an impact
in the socialization process. The secondary socialization process often involves the comparison and revision
of earlier views, ideas or values. During the socialization process an individual acquires the competencies
that are fundamental to social interactions, including language and symbols, norms and behavioral patterns,
values and the ability to use objects. Socialization processes take place mainly in institutions that have de-
veloped over the years and guarantee the fulfillment of functions they are required to perform. Research into
socialization distinguishes two groups of institutions (agencies): those in which socialization has been socially
planned and organized, and those in which socialization occurs along with the execution of other tasks.
Almond and Powell divided socialization into manifest or direct and latent or indirect, as well as into consistent
and inconsistent aspects. Manifest socialization consists in information transmission and suggesting the val-
ues and assessments of political phenomena. Civics courses in schools can serve as an example here. La-
tent socialization consists in transmitting non-political patterns, which essentially modify attitudes toward the
elements of a political system. Consistent socialization takes place when all elements influencing an individ-
ual are consistent and are not in conflict with one another. We are dealing with inconsistent socialization when
these elements are in conflict with one another, and when the systems of transmitted norms and values are
inconsistent.
Family is treated as the basic structure of socialization. Here the child is introduced to social life and attitudes
toward authority are shaped in the family. The decisions taken in the family are authoritative to the child. The
inclusion of the child in the decision-making process may develop his/her ability to function in a social group
and the feeling of his/her own competencies, and as a result, exert an influence on his/her activity in the
political sphere. Studies show that the general family attitude toward the political system is also significant.
For example, in the United States, research into party membership transmitted in the family shows that chil-
dren tend to share their parents’ preferences regarding the choice between Republicans and Democrats (Key,
1961). Studies by LeVine (1960) reveal the relationship between personality patterns that are a consequence
of the way of bringing up children and political behaviors as exemplified by two preliterate African tribes – the
Gusi and the Nuer. In the former, children are entirely subordinated to adults, while in the latter there is high
egalitarianism and openness in the child–adult relationships. The upbringing in the Gusi tribe translates into
a high level of submissiveness to the British colonial authorities. Another example is the results of studies by
Robert D. Hess and David Easton (1960) on the identification by the child of the figure of the leader – in this
case the US president – with the figure of the father. The scholars point to the evolution of family as an in-
stitution. The traditional family, usually multigenerational, provided role models: the father as the breadwinner
for the family, the mother as a housewife. In the process of evolution, various factors exerted an influence
on the development of alternative patterns of this agency. We can refer here to the functioning of incomplete
families, common-law marriage, patchwork families, occupational activity of women and changes in the roles
traditionally performed by men and women.
By comparison with family, school is a system of formalized roles. In accordance with Parsons’ conception,
the socialization process is treated here as the internalization of roles, involving the constant assessment of
students’ achievements. The assessment process leads to internal divisions among students. They learn how
a status is achieved and how it is defended. The task of the school is to prepare students to function within
the hierarchical social system. Teachers are expected to make the right assessment of individual achieve-
ments. The category of role, created by Parsons, is of crucial importance here. Relationships between teach-
ers and students are not merely a pedagogical relationship, but a normalized activity between specific roles.

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School provides general and particular knowledge on many spheres of life, including the functioning of polit-
ical systems. Owing to this, it can strengthen the awareness of specific values and facts (including historical
facts) and loyalty to a specific political system, and impart basic symbols of emotional response to the sys-
tem. Among socialization agencies, school is largely controlled by the political system, subjecting children to
socialization in accordance with the mainstream of political life.
Peer groups play a substantial role in shaping the system of values and political orientations, especially in the
situation when the role of the family is weakening. The role of peer groups, both formal and informal, enables
the development of attitudes of hostility and aggression, ability to collaborate within different social entities
or participation in the decision-making process (Kruger, 1993). Emphasis is also laid on peer collaborative
learning. A special role is played in friendly peer groups by giving an individual information about him/herself
and other people, providing emotional support in difficult life situations or forming a pattern of future social
relations. Two types of relations between people are distinguished here: vertical and horizontal. The former
refers to relations between the child and someone who has greater knowledge and authority than the child.
The latter type involves having contact with persons who have similar knowledge and authority as the child.
This type of relationship is generally characteristic of contacts with peers, the partners essentially having a
similar status. The studies demonstrate that children spend more time with other children in their first years
of life. The research also shows that children feel closely attached to persons who are important in their life:
members of the close family and persons regarded as friends.
Mass media play an increasingly important role in socialization processes. This results mainly from the devel-
opment of new means of mass communication. The media not only inform about political events, but interpret
them as well. Certain events may be publicized while others may in turn be ignored. A controlled system
of mass media constitutes an important force in shaping political convictions. As early as the 1960s, Fagen
(1966) stressed that media are often a dominant instrument of the socialization of members of particular so-
cieties. Since that time the modern means of communication have developed.
In the context of the above mentioned socialization agencies, the question arises whether a failure in the
process of socialization is possible. Berger and Luckmann use the concepts of successful and unsuccessful
socialization. Successful socialization takes place when objective and subjective reality produce a high level
of responsibility. Vice versa, when there is no correspondence between objective and subjective reality, then
we speak of unsuccessful socialization. In practice, both these forms of socialization are rather unlikely: the
first because of the diversity of human features and complexity of social structures, the second because of
various forms of backwardness. Problems also arise when, during the process of primary socialization, the
child receives a message that comprises mutually exclusive worlds. Similar problems occur in a situation of
incompatibility between primary and secondary socialization.
Research on the processes of political socialization is undertaken by researchers from various parts of the
world, although that conducted by Western scholars prevails. Research conducted by researchers from India
focuses primarily on the social specificity of this state and its cultural conditions, especially those character-
istic of the religion of Hinduism. The situation is similar in African and Latin American countries. Researchers
emphasize the conditions associated with the construction of permanent democratic structures.
Major Advances
Many empirical studies have been undertaken that aimed to verify formulated scientific hypotheses and the-
ories and to gain insight into the process of political socialization. Several trends of inquiries connected with
the answer to the question of how an individual's political beliefs and attitudes are connected with his/her life
can be distinguished in the literature (Skarżyńska, 2005).
According to the assumptions of the first trend, scientists underline the importance of an individual's early ex-
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periences from his/her childhood. Here, studies on the subject include those on the formation of ethnic and
racial identity; on attitudes toward foreigners or, in broader terms, toward strangers; on supporting various
political systems; on identification with a definite political party or on the expressed support for a given type of
political system. In this research current, it is assumed that identification with one's own race or ethnic group
and the consequent attitude toward foreigners develops between the ages of 7 and 13. Studies have revealed
that Afro-American children generally show a preference for the white race as the one which enjoys higher
status in the social structure (Annis and Corenblum, 1987). It follows from these investigations that children
from minority groups prefer majority groups over their own because they want the power and material re-
sources characteristic of higher status groups (Spencer, 1984; Cross, 1991). The family and environment in
which a child is raised influence such behaviors. In reference to multicultural societies, it is emphasized that
an individual does not have to identify either with his/her minority group or with the dominant group (Bernal
and Knight, 1993). Scholars point to the fact that an individual may simultaneously identify with both groups.
Ethnic identification developed in childhood influences political behaviors during adulthood. This is especially
the case as far as identification with a particular political party is concerned (Campbell et al., 1960). Studies
on the political socialization of three successive generations at various stages of their lives showed that the
transmission of party identification differs in particular families. Transmitting one's own preferences to children
has greater chances of success in those families that are politically more involved and talk about politics, and
where their attitudes are generally stable in this regard. It was shown that, regardless of cultural background,
a greater correlation between parents’ and children's political attitudes occurred in a situation when parents
enjoyed the love and respect of their children and when they exercised mild control and repression in the ed-
ucational process (Skarżyńska, 2005). Conversely, as the result of strict upbringing without love, studies point
to a positive attitude toward authorities, the use of force or reluctance regarding diversity (Greenstein, 1975).
Attitude toward political leaders seems to be connected with the position of a family in the social and econom-
ic structure (Greenstein, 1975; Greenberg, 2017). The investigations highlight the importance in the process
of political socialization of such elements as the position of the father in a family, inclusion of children in the
process of making decisions and parents’ education. These variables largely shape the political attitudes of
children. For example, Barbara Frątczak-Rudnicka (1990) studied the political attitudes of adolescents and
their parents during the growing political and social conflict in Poland in 1981, before martial law was imposed.
The studies showed that congruity between the political attitudes of teenagers and their parents was not very
high at that time. Teenagers critically assessed the political system more often than their parents.
Despite family influence, the political attitudes of children are shaped by the above mentioned agencies:
school, peer groups, media. Detailed studies show a variety of effects by those factors. For example, in
Poland, social confidence in young people is determined in a different way. In towns it is a derivative of such
factors as freedom of discussion in schools, importance attached to joint actions, the level of educational as-
pirations, mother's education and reading of the press, whereas in the countryside significant factors consist,
essentially, in freedom of discussion in school and in parents’ discussions on politics with children (Dolata and
Frączek, 2002). However, the comparative studies showed that teenage boys are generally more interested
in discussions on political subjects and have greater knowledge on these subjects than teenage girls, who
identify with democratic values to a greater extent (Torney et al., 1975).
With regard to the stability of political attitudes and behaviors learned in childhood, three approaches prevail:
studies on the consequences of the change of social environment; cross-sectional surveys; and surveys en-
compassing resistance against the change of one's expressed attitude (Sears and Brown, 2013; Sears and
Levy, 2003). The studies conducted as part of these three research approaches confirm the stability of po-
litical attitudes developed in childhood. Among researchers of this approach there is general agreement that
political beliefs and attitudes are formed in childhood and are resistant to external influences in an individual's
later years. For example, Sears (1975) emphasizes that a child is open to the influence of other people, and
finds it easy to learn and repeat the learned opinions. The concept of symbolic politics, proposed by Sears,
is aimed at analyzing the process of development of political attitudes. Sears concludes that children learn
specific concepts by means of positive or negative associations. Affective stimuli are of utmost importance
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during the process of acquiring symbolic politics. It is important, inter alia, what message is imparted by peo-
ple significant for the child. The frequency and regularity of repetition of definite political attitudes and political
behaviors appears to be an important factor that strengthens their stability.
According to the assumptions of the second current, political beliefs and attitudes are not permanently formed
during childhood, but are developed during an individual's whole life and undergo changes in its various
stages (Skarżyńska, 2005). We may find here a reference to Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive and moral de-
velopment. Political attitudes and beliefs in this interpretation are the consequence of the development of an
individual's cognitive process and may change under the influence of internal or external stimuli. The theory
highlights, among others, the correlations between the level of cognitive and moral development and the way
of thinking about justice. As the studies demonstrate, changes in the professional or economic situation of an
individual's family may impact his/her attitude to specific political problems or to the assessment of a given
politician (Fiorina, 1981). Earlier studies showed a correlation between the age of white US citizens and a
racist attitude. Today, such correlations are not observable (Schuman et al., 1998). In contrast, the variable
that shows stability is the low level of participation among the youngest voters. This tendency is characteristic
of various parts of the world. Apparently, the change of convictions and attitudes in the subsequent stages of
life is related to the change of life situation; inter alia, to migration, change of school or work and participation
in social movements (Sigel, 1965; Sears and Brown, 2013; Sears and Levy, 2003).
According to the assumptions of the third current, scientists emphasize that political convictions and attitudes
are sometimes determined by the times in which an individual lives and by experiences in which s/he par-
ticipates (Skarżyńska, 2005). Therefore, it is important whether an individual lives in times of stability in the
social or political system, or whether s/he lives in a period of changes and crises. For example, successive
generations in the United States were analyzed: people born before 1920 and those who took part in elections
for the first time in the 1920s; people born after World War II who participated in activities of counterculture
movements of the 1960s; and the generation of their children. According to those studies, the first genera-
tion was the most conservative, while the subsequent generations were more democratic. Particular attention
should be paid to the generation of rebellion of the 1960s, because it is characterized by an invariably liberal
attitude. With regard to the developed Western countries, the studies show a decrease in commitment to polit-
ical matters and lower participation in elections by younger age groups (Pellegrini and Hilton, 2012). Scholars
also highlight a decrease in social capital in successive generations. They emphasize the importance in this
process of such events as the war in Vietnam, the Watergate scandal and the Bill Clinton sex scandal, which
shape attitudes of distrust toward politics and politicians (Tolley, 1973).
Additionally, emphasis should be laid on the emergence of new social, political or economic processes, which
relate to the entire globe on an unprecedented scale. The studies conducted in this dimension concern the
issues of values perceived by young people as important indicators of their identity, development of patriotic
attitudes and the readiness of young people to engage in civic activity (Amnå et al., 2009). According to the
Center for Public Opinion Research, in Poland in 2015, the highest percentage of respondents aged 18 to 24
described their level of interest in politics as ‘medium', consisting in ‘following only main events’ (Kazanecki,
2015). Nearly half of the respondents declared ‘negligible’ or ‘no’ interest in political matters. Politics is a quite
important sphere of life only to a small percentage of young Poles (Czakon, 2016). Polish young people's
indifferent attitude to politics is also expressed in the level of participation in parliamentary elections. In the
Sejm and Senate elections in 1997, 2001, 2005 and 2007, those in the age groups 18–25 and 26–35 were
characterized by the lowest election attendance (Czakon, 2016). The lack of concrete political views among
the majority of young people is also noticeable. This situation may be interpreted at least in two ways: as an
expression of the lack of political competencies connected with not knowing the referents of such concepts
as left/right wing and center, or as a manifestation of an aversion to the world of politics (Czakon, 2016).
Perspectives

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The literature on the subject stresses that earlier studies on political socialization often used improper data
or research methods (Neundorf and Smets, 2017). The future appears to belong to multistage panel studies,
which allow the scientists to study the stability or variability of political preferences in the same persons over
a longer period of time. What appears to be significant in this context are internet panel studies. There are
still too few studies on the relationship between genetics and environmental determinants and their interac-
tion during the entire lifetime. Emphasis is also laid on the necessity to take account of the macroeconomic
system and social factors in investigations into intergenerational changes in political socialization.
One of the main challenges to political socialization are processes of immigration and globalization. Individual
socialization agencies require further in-depth studies, including, first of all, the most important ones: the fam-
ily, school, peer group and mass media. Modern technologies have a great impact on the process of political
socialization (Owen, 2008; Kudrnáĉ, 2015). We may speak about a revolution in this sphere. Mutual com-
munication between people, especially young ones, is now carried out to a greater extent through modern
technological means than through face to face contact. Text messaging, which often replaces telephone calls,
make it possible to send many messages. New communication technologies allow people, especially young
ones, to form their own groups that meet and act in the virtual world. Social media are used to generate many
virtual organizations. Young people develop their political identity online. They use social media such as Face-
book and video streaming media such as YouTube to generate and disseminate messages through networks
of friends. For that reason, studies on the influence of new media on the process of political socialization will
be of significant importance.
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• political socialization
• personality
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n41

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Social Movements
Contributors: Donatella della Porta

Chapter Title: "Social Movements"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Social Movements
Donatella della Porta
Social Movement Studies: A Short History of the Subject

Social movement studies have grown especially since the 1970s, taking distance from previous research on
collective behavior, on the one hand, and the labor movement, on the other. As for the former, especially in
the United States, unconventional forms of political participation had been distinguished from ‘normal poli-
tics'. Within so-called mass politics, protest had been seen as an abnormal phenomenon: non-strategic, emo-
tion-driven, often irrational. Similar to crowds, social movements were considered as populated by frustrat-
ed individuals, characterized by weak personalities and anomic behavior. With different accents, functional-
ist theorists singled out social movements as a symptom of systemic disequilibria and scholars of collective
behavior as carriers of emergent norms. Especially in Europe, social movement scholars differentiated their
subject of studies from the labor movement, often addressed through Marxist approaches to new conflicts.
While Marxist analyses had traditionally assessed the centrality of capital–labor conflicts, the transformations
that followed World War II gave more weight not only to social characteristics, such as gender or generation,
that did not overlap with class, but also to post-materialist concerns.
Once a marginal area of concern in the social sciences, since the 1970s social movement studies has devel-
oped into one of the main fields of sociology and political science, also acquiring a significant space in dis-
ciplines such as anthropology, geography, history, psychology and philosophy, among others. As the field of
study consolidated, a toolkit of concepts and middle-range theories was established as particularly useful to
address the types of social movements that developed outside of the traditional social and political cleavages.
While focusing on environmental, women's or peace movements, social movement studies more rarely ad-
dressed labor or peasants movements, and ethnic or religious movements. Especially concerned with social
movements within established democracies, they devoted little attention to forms of resistance in authoritarian
regimes, anticolonial movements in the periphery or poor people movements at the core. And, mainly inter-
ested in progressive social movements, they only occasionally addressed reactionary or conservative social
movements.
The consolidation of social movement studies as an established field was helped by the growth of specialized
journals (such as Research in Social Movements: Conflicts and Change, Social Movement Studies, Mobiliza-
tion: An International Quarterly, Contention, Partecipazione e conflitto and Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewe-
gungen), book series, sections in main professional associations, research departments and PhD programs.
A large number of introductory textbooks, handbooks and even encyclopedias on social movements have
been published (Snow et al., 2004; della Porta and Diani, 2006; Tilly and Tarrow, 2007; Cefaï, 2007; Cross-
ley, 2002; Goodwin and Jasper, 2009; Snow, della Porta, Klandermans and McAdam, 2013; della Porta and
Diani, 2016, Fillieule and Accornero, 2016; Snow, Soule, Kriesi and McCammon, 2018), as well as method-
ological texts (the most recent is della Porta, 2014a). While contributing to the accumulation of knowledge,
the institutionalization of social movement studies as a field also produced the risk of closure to new areas of
research and innovative interpretations.
Countering this risk, as each new wave of protests contributed to increasing attention to social movements,
with new generations of scholars joining the field, attempts to innovate the established toolkit multiplied, bridg-
ing the study of social movements with that of other forms of contentious politics, considering the broad are-
nas in which movements are embedded, bringing back attention to the social bases of broad societal conflicts
and taking into account dynamics triggered by eventful protests. There is also a growing literature on social
movements in the global South (e.g. on Latin America, Rossi and von Bülow, 2015; on the MENA region,
Beinin and Vairel, 2019). While concepts developed in social movement studies have been mainly applied to
progressive movements, they proved helpful also for understanding radical right-wing movements (see Caiani
et al., 2012).
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What follows will present, first, the consolidated conceptual toolkit in social movement studies, and second,
the innovative turns just mentioned.
Basic Theories and Concepts in Social Movement Studies

Social movements are (1) mostly informal networks of interaction, based on (2) shared beliefs and solidarity,
mobilized around (3) contentious themes through (4) the frequent use of various forms of protest (della Porta
and Diani, 2006). They are made of networks of informal relations between a plurality of individuals and
groups, which may be more or less structured. If political parties and interest groups have relatively well-de-
fined organizational boundaries, often signaled by statutes and card-carrying members, social movements
are instead made of scattered and weakly connected networks of individuals and groupings. They are not
organizations but nets of relations between diverse actors, which often also include organizations with formal
structures. Networks of relations constitute a social movement when they converge around a system of beliefs
that nourishes reciprocal solidarity and a sense of collective identification. Social movements elaborate alter-
native norms and visions often promoting social change. Emerging norms are at the basis of conflicts around
which actors mobilize. Finally, social movements are characterized by their adoption of disruptive repertoires
of political participation relying, in order to exert pressure on decision-making, especially on repertoires of
protest, defined as a non-conventional form of action that interrupts daily routine in order to attract the atten-
tion of the public and influence elites.
In the 1970s, social movement studies grew upon two considerations, basically summarized by the concepts
of new social movements, particularly widespread in Europe, and resource mobilization, coined in the United
States. In Europe, the students', women's and environmental movements were considered as examples of
new social movements that were to substitute the institutionalized labor movement. Attention to emerging col-
lective identities then supplanted the concern with social classes. In particular, since the 1970s, new social
movements were defined as actors of the new conflict at the core of post-industrial or programmed societies.
Scholars of new movements, such as Alain Touraine (1977), highlighted the declining relevance of the con-
flict between capital and labor and the parallel growing importance of conflicts around knowledge. According
to Alberto Melucci (1996), in complex societies, which require increasing integration and extend their control
over even the motivations for action, new social movements oppose the state and the market's penetration
into everyday social life. Therefore, activists reclaim individual identity and the right to choose one's private
life against the manipulation of the system.
At the same time, in the United States, studies on the civil rights and student movements highlighted that their
activities, rather than being irrational or anomic, were guided by strategic consideration and shared norms.
The main explanatory dimensions were not grievances, but rather resources mobilizable by social movement
organizations. Research on social movement organizations carried out by scholars such as John McCarthy
and Mayer Zald (1987) underlined in particular the role of organizational entrepreneurs in the mobilization of
resources within complex organizational fields. Considering social movements as a normal part of the political
process and social movement organizations as strategic actors, linked to the resource mobilization approach,
the political process approach analyzed the sets of political institutions and alliances that might facilitate the
mobilization of resources necessary for collective action. While conflicts are considered as always present,
collective action emerges only when material and symbolic resources allow to transform discontent into ac-
tion. The type of available resources explains the strategic choices of movements and the consequences of
collective action for the social and political system, as solidarity links can sometimes compensate for the ab-
sence of material resources.
Social movement studies between the 1970s and the following decade focused mainly on macro-level political
opportunities for protest, organizational forms and strategies and the building of collective identities. Since
the 1990s, this structural bias has been challenged by a renewed attention to various cultural aspects as well
as to the causal mechanisms that intervene between structure and action in a field redefined as contentious
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politics and covering social movements as well as revolutions, democratization and other contentious phe-
nomena. In this development, social movement studies contributed to several subfields in political science
(della Porta and Diani, 2016).
Unconventional Political Participation

First of all, social movement studies have enriched research on political participation, broadening attention to
the rapidly growing repertoire of non-conventional forms (such as petitions, sit-ins, boycotts, the occupation
of buildings, blocking traffic), and the different styles of participation in different countries, social groups and
generations. As Samuel Barnes, Max Kaase and others (1979) observed in the 1970s, ever wider groups of
citizens were ready to resort to forms of action characterized by their non-conventionality in order to oppose
laws and public decisions seen as unjust or illegitimate. Typologies developed in this period were based on
the individual propensity to use conventional or unconventional forms of action, or a combination of the two. In
particular, as confirmed by later research (e.g. Norris, 2002; Dalton, 2004), the increase in non-conventional
participation was not to be considered as an indicator of the decline of the legitimacy of liberal democracies,
but rather as an expression of a lasting enlargement of the strategies available to citizens, deriving from the
growth in political competence, in particular among young people. Later comparative research has revealed
that while levels of traditional types of political participation have remained stable or (in some forms) declined
in the 1990s and the new millennium, levels of non-institutional participation have greatly increased while dif-
ferences in levels of participation linked to gender, age and educational level have lessened, leading some to
speak of a ‘participatory revolution'.
Historical Evolution of Protest Repertoire

Moving from the micro to the macro level, social movement studies have contributed important knowledge on
the historical evolution in repertoires of protest. According to the influential work of Charles Tilly (1978), the
formation of the nation-state, the development of capitalism and the emergence of modern means of commu-
nication brought about the shift to a modern repertoire of collective action, formed by the set of means a group
has at its disposal for making collective claims. Previously, protests were parochial in scope, addressing lo-
cal actors or the local representatives of national actors, and relied on patronage, appealing to local power
holders to convey grievances or settle disputes. In the 19th century, the emerging repertoire of protest was
instead national and autonomous, utilizing forms such as strikes, electoral rallies, public meetings, petitions,
marches, insurrections and the invasion of legislative bodies. The new repertoire responded to a situation in
which politics had become increasingly national, the role of communities had diminished and organized asso-
ciations had spread instead.
Organizational Networks
Differing from ‘mass society’ theories, which had linked unconventional political behaviour to the uprooting
of individuals from primary groups and the social disaggregation stemming from modernization, the resource
mobilization approach explains mobilization through the moral gratification intrinsic to the pursuit of a col-
lective good and the existence of solidarity links. The intensity of relations within broad formal and informal
networks in which social movement activists are embedded impacts upon the construction of collective identi-
ties. Through organizational networks, activists develop an alternative vision of the world, acquire information
and skills necessary for collective action and develop norms of reciprocity. The density of the networks helps
to explain different capacities for participation in various environments and among different social groups as
their mobilization is influenced by their level of catnet-ness, a synthesis of characteristics linked to social cat-
egories and the density of social networks (Tilly, 1978).
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The development from a category (an aggregation of individuals who share specific characteristics) to a social
group (defined as a community capable of collective action) requires a combination of categorical traits and
networks of relations that link the subjects that share those traits. So, for the labor movement, the presence of
both large numbers of workers that carried out similar tasks and socially homogeneous networks with intense
social relations favored the choice to cooperate. Collective action then fueled the awareness of holding com-
mon interests – what Karl Marx had defined as class consciousness – and the socialist ideology provided for
a broad world-view. Besides the labor movement, modernization has strengthened organizational capacities
for collective action as technological developments (especially those related to the expansion of means of
communication) have increased the quantity of resources available. Furthermore, economic progress had a
positive effect on the associative capacities of individuals by augmenting the quantity of resources available
for collective action, thanks to increasing education levels but also growth in spare time. As these conditions
tended to disappear, social movements needed to find different resources for their mobilization as well as new
solidarities and means of communication.
Collective Identities
Social movement studies have also contributed to the analysis of collective identification as an important basis
for political action. In general, politics refers to solidarity systems, in which the very definition of interests is
rooted, as interests are recognizable only with reference to a certain value system. Identification with larger
groups – the awareness of belonging to a collective ‘we’ – is what triggers a sense of belonging to sympathet-
ic collectives inside which individuals consider one another as equals. The construction of a shared identity
is a precondition for collective action, but also a product thereof, as participation in protests transforms indi-
vidual identities through processes of collective identification (Karolewski, Chapter 31, this Handbook). While
protest aims at influencing public decisions it has also internal effects by creating solidarity between partici-
pants, making them feel part of a collective effort (della Porta, 2017).
Collective action requires that participants elaborate a definition of themselves, of other social actors and of
the content of the relations that connect them. Through framing activities (Snow, 2013), a shared ‘us’ with
whom to sympathize is singled out, as is a ‘them’ to whom the blame for negative conditions is attributed.
Collective identification thus requires a positive definition of who is part of a certain group and a negative
definition of who is excluded. The identities of emerging collective actors are to be recognized by external
actors, so that recognition becomes part and parcel of identification itself. Collective action itself contributes
to the building and consolidation of collective identity through the definition of boundaries between the actors
involved in a conflict.
Comparing Political Opportunities

Focusing especially on liberal democracies, social movement studies have addressed the relations between
institutional political actors and protest contributing to the broad field of comparative politics. The widely used
concept of political opportunity structure singles out some main contextual characteristics that influence social
movements. As challengers in a given political system, social movements interact with the political incum-
bents, which have a consolidated position. Political opportunities affect both the form taken by that collective
action and its probability of success. In particular, in his study of protest cycles in Italy, Sidney Tarrow (1998
[1994]) suggested that the degree of openness or closedness of formal political access, the degree of sta-
bility or instability of political alignments, the availability and strategic postures of potential allies and political
conflicts between and within elites are the main dimensions of political opportunities. Given increasing inter-
est in social movements among political scientists, European scholars in particular (della Porta, 1995, 2013a)

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have used the concept of political opportunities in cross-country comparative analyses of the development of
protests. A main contribution from this research is that different types of democracies, based on different insti-
tutional assets and cultural traditions, affect social movements, their extent and the forms and degree of their
success. In general, an institutional system is more open (and less repressive) the more political decisions are
dispersed (through functional differentiation of power, territorial decentralization and direct democracy). For-
mal institutions do interact with informal strategies to deal with opponents, within either inclusive or exclusive
historical traditions that tend to reproduce themselves. Beyond institutional opportunities, political allies such
as trade unions, religious institutions and political parties are also relevant for social movements. Dimensions
that are susceptible to change in the short term include aspects such as electoral instability and elite divisions.
Research has indicated that the more open political opportunities are, the more protests spread, but mainly in
a peaceful form. Moreover, the greater the number of actors who share political power (the greater, therefore,
the checks and balances within the system) and the more inclusive the strategies to deal with opponents, the
greater the chance that social movements will gain access to the decision makers. A weak executive may
ease access for outsiders to the decision-making process, but will have more difficulties in implementing its
own decisions.
Impacting Policy
A growing number of analyses have recently addressed the effects of social movements on the policy
process. In one of the first reflections on the topic, William Gamson (1990 [1975]) identified among the factors
contributing to success a minimalist strategy (‘thinking small'), direct action and a centralized organization.
Other scholars disagreed, however, pointing at the advantage of broad ideologies and utopian thinking, dis-
ruptive forms of protest and horizontal and loose networks (Piven and Cloward, 1977). In general, no particu-
lar strategy can be assessed without taking into account the available resources and opportunities, as social
movements are, as mentioned, part of alliances including political parties and, sometimes, even public agen-
cies.
Research has indicated that, under some circumstances, social movements may have relevant effects on dif-
ferent stages of public decision-making processes. Generally, social movements emerge to express dissatis-
faction with an existing policy in a given area. Specific policy claims are relevant for the very self-definition of a
social movement, symbolizing the movement's identity. While non-negotiable demands are particularly impor-
tant in the construction of collective identities, social movements also articulate broad requests for reforms.
They have been considered as particularly important for the development of new ideas and norms, which
emerge within critical communities and are then spread via mass mobilization, helping to thematize new is-
sues in the public debate. Social movement outcomes can be evaluated by looking at the various phases of
the decision-making process: the emergence of new issues; the proposal and implementation of new legisla-
tion; outcomes of public policies in alleviating the conditions of those mobilized by collective action. Levels of
responsiveness to collective demands within the political system include the availability of the authorities to
listen to the protestors, their willingness to put an issue on the agenda and the adoption and implementation
of specific policies. While research on social movements initially concentrated on the production of legislation,
it later also addressed the implementation of decisions as well as cultural transformations.
Not limiting their interventions to single policies, social movements challenge the ways in which political in-
stitutions are organized, demanding decentralization of political power, consultation of interested citizens on
particular decisions and appeals procedures against decisions by the public administration. Interacting with
the public administrations, they ask to testify before representative institutions and the judiciary, to be listened
to as counter experts, to receive legal recognition and material support. Social movements certainly increase
the possibilities for access to the political system, through ad hoc channels relating to specific issues or in-
stitutions that are open to all non-institutional actors. In this way, social movements have changed political
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culture, with its norms that define the issues and means of action that are politically legitimate. They have
increased the acceptance of once non-conventional – or even illegal – repertoires of collective action. They
have contributed to the creation of new policy arenas on issues of concern for social movement activists (e.g.
environmental or gender rights agencies). At different territorial levels, public bureaucracies established un-
der the pressure of movement mobilizations at times became potential allies. Social movement activists also
maintain direct contacts with decision makers – participating in epistemic communities, made up of repre-
sentatives of governments, parties and interest groups. At the transnational level, advocacy networks – com-
posed of activists, bureaucrats belonging to international organizations and politicians from many countries –
have won significant gains in a number of areas, such as protection of the environment or human rights vio-
lations (Khagram et al., 2002). Most importantly, participatory and deliberative institutional innovations have
developed over the past three decades. Open to the participation of normal citizens in public arenas of de-
bate, they also aim at developing high-quality discursive arenas.
Local Protest
Social movement studies have addressed local politics especially through the analysis of urban movements
as well as protests against locally unwanted land uses (LULUs), such as the construction of large infrastruc-
ture in both urban and semi-rural contexts. Empirical research has challenged the narrative of local conflicts
as motivated by a ‘not in my backyard’ (NIMBY) syndrome, associated with refusal to pay the necessary costs
to attain public goods as well as with conservative behavior. Rather, it has singled out a complex reality, with
protest campaigns characterized by a diverse capacity or will to present their particular claims within a more
comprehensive framework (della Porta and Piazza, 2008; McAdam and Boudet, 2012). Local protests are of-
ten led by citizens’ committees, as organized but weakly structured groups of citizens that unite on a territorial
basis and use forms of protest to oppose interventions that they claim would damage the quality of life in their
territory. In the discourse of those who protest, the defense of local natural resources is often embedded in
more general environmental claims that, however, rather than being ‘post-materialist', often instead involve
underprivileged groups in degraded areas. Local conflicts mobilize against urban ‘growth machines', defined
by formal and informal networks between public and private actors oriented toward increasing investment for
economic growth. Under the frame of the Right to the City, urban social movements oppose the reduction of
welfare resources destined for the most vulnerable social groups and propose a different model of develop-
ment, bridging the opposition to specific land use with frames of social justice. Moreover, they criticize abuses
of power and lack of transparency in public decision-making, as well as the collusive alliance between gov-
ernment and entrepreneurial interests, claiming the right to participate in decision-making.
Democratic Deepening
Long considered rather marginal, if not dangerous for democratic development, social movements have been
recently recognized as important players in democratization processes. While not all social movements are
democratic, research has pointed to the leading role that some of them have occupied in the historical de-
velopment of citizens’ rights by pushing for wider suffrage, the recognition of associational rights and social
rights. Moreover, progressive movements have often been pivotal in triggering waves of democratization, de-
manding increased equality and protection for minorities. In Latin America, as well as in Eastern Europe and
more recently in Africa and Asia, social movements asked for (different forms of) democratization, at times
succeeding in triggering the breakdown of authoritarian regimes. While research on democratic transition has
pointed at the importance of elite pacts for transition and at the demobilization of civil society during consol-
idation, the presence of a tradition of mobilization, as well as movements that are independent from political
parties, can facilitate the maintenance of high levels of protest during transition and consolidation (della Porta,

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2014b, 2017).
Furthermore, democratic consolidation opens opportunities for social movements that in their turn contribute
to democratic deepening (della Porta, 2013b). At the cognitive level, social movements have developed a
fundamental critique of conventional politics, stating the value of participation beyond elections. Especially
since the 1960s, progressive social movements have supported the direct participation of citizens in public
decision-making, criticizing the delegation of decisions to representatives who can be controlled only at the
moment of election. Moreover, they have called for more transparency and accountability in public decision-
making. In their alternative conceptions of democracy, the people themselves must be recognized, and their
direct responsibility for intervening in the political decision-making process. More recently, the normative de-
bate on deliberative democracy has found resonance in some social movement organizations that have de-
veloped norms and practices of consensual decision-making and constructed high-quality discursive arenas,
responding to the need to improve the quality of communication. Social movements have in fact created alter-
native public spheres, free from state intervention. In the global justice movement as well as in anti-austerity
protests, organizational formats such as social forums and protest camps provided spaces for experiment-
ing with participatory and deliberative models of democracy both in their internal decision-making and in their
interactions with political institutions (della Porta, 2009, 2015). Internally, they have attempted to develop an
organizational structure based on participation (rather than delegation), consensus building (rather than ma-
jority votes) and horizontal networks (rather than centralized hierarchies). While the search for high-quality
internal democracy is always ongoing, progressive social movements have helped to open new channels of
access to the political system, contributing to the identification, if not the solution, of a number of democratic
problems.
Transnational Politics
Social movement studies have contributed to research on international relations through the study of transna-
tionalization of contentious politics. Taking into account the role of non-state actors, some scholars have
pointed out the effects of transnational protest campaigns upon developing international normative regimes.
Research on environmental protection, human rights, peace and indigenous peoples pointed to the emer-
gence of international norms that challenge the vision of international politics as an anarchic system of states.
Studies of transnational social movement organizations targeting international organizations pointed at the
politicization of international relations. Following an upward scale shift of power but also contributing to it,
since the 1980s, transnational actors have grown enormously in terms of number, membership, material re-
sources, public resonance and institutional access (della Porta and Tarrow, 2005; Tarrow, 2005). Protest cam-
paigns address different geographical levels in search of allies and channels of access to decision makers.
Research on transnational processes and social movements distinguished two main paths of transnational-
ization: social movements with domestic political concerns (especially in authoritarian regimes) searching for
external, international allies; and social movements addressing their own governments in order to influence
international political decisions. Difficulties in protesting beyond national borders were stressed by research
on protest events, which tended to target the domestic level even when addressing global problems. How-
ever, in campaigns for human rights, national actors suffering from repression in authoritarian regimes found
allies abroad in epistemic communities, involving international organizations, national governments, experts
and transnational social movements. The evolution of international organizations has also been pointed at as
transnational social movements adapt to their specific set of opportunities and constraints, but also challenge
their policy choices as well as their lack of democratic accountability.
Exchanges of knowledge as well as potential reciprocal legitimization have been considered by research on
the interactions between social movements and international organizations that pointed at the capacity of
transnational social movements to sensitize public opinion to global problems. With the development of cam-
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paigns addressing various and diverse international organizations, research revealed the different opportuni-
ties that different international assets offered to different social movements (della Porta and Tarrow, 2005). In
this way, opportunities for things such as a consensual culture and a reciprocal search for recognition were
observed, for example, in the General Assembly of the United Nations, but not for the (much more closed)
international financial institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary
Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the European Central Bank, which became the targets of massive protests.
As international organizations are very different in terms of channels of access, social movements that target
them have in fact looked for specific leverage, such as in the unanimity rules of the WTO that make alliances
with some states particularly relevant, or the links with international experts and the formal channels of con-
sultation available at the International Labour Organization (ILO). International organizations are also often
diverse in their internal structure. For instance, in the European Union, the Council, Commission, Parliament
and Courts, but also the European Central Bank, are all targeted by social movements, but protest strategies
vary with these bodies’ characteristics. Different movements can have a more difficult or an easier life in terms
of gaining access to specific (sympathetic) Directorates General in the EC, or opposing powerful ones (della
Porta and Caiani, 2009).
Different opportunities therefore trigger different strategies: from the lobbying highlighted in previous research
to the open protests in the street that characterized the alter-globalist movement. Going beyond the specific
experiences of the parallel summits organized by the UN on environmental or women's issues, transnational
social movements organized counter-summits and social forums. Frustration over the results of more mod-
erate forms of interaction brought about the development of broader coalitions, including religious groups,
unions and social movement organizations, using petitions, marches and even direct action. After the WTO
meeting at Seattle in 1999, interactions between protestors and the police often escalated during the con-
testation of international summits (della Porta, 2009). Even though transnational protests may remain a rare
occurrence, the few transnational protests that have taken place (in the form of global days of action, counter-
summits or social forums) have been highly visible and influential.
Finally, social movements have contributed to the emergence of a global narrative – which developed together
with intense interactions during the mentioned transnational protest events – and indeed a growing acknowl-
edgment of the roles and responsibilities of international organizations. Normatively oriented literature has
pointed at the emergence of a global civil society. Research highlighted in fact the cognitive effects of global-
ization, for example, in the intensification of relations beyond borders in terms of the cross-national diffusion
of movement frames and strategies for public order control. Social movement activists started to present their
actions as part of a global justice movement, calling for global justice and global democracy. Although still
deep-rooted in national political systems and movement families, cosmopolitan activists tend to bridge the
local with the global and vice versa (della Porta, 2009; Tarrow, 2005). In doing this, they are contributing to
the development of a transnational political system, as well as to transnational identities.

The expansion of social movement studies as a field has contributed to acquiring relevant knowledge about
the functioning of political systems along the lines indicated in the previous section. While concepts such as
resource mobilization, political opportunities, protest repertoires and frames became part of an established
toolkit, they tended to produce selective attention to some particular empirical objects and theoretical per-
spectives. In the most recent debates, some new approaches have emerged as a partial correction of such
risks.
A first innovative turn is related to the conceptualization of contentious politics, defined as episodic, public,
collective interaction among claims makers and their targets (when at least one government is a claimant, an
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object of claims, or a party to the claim and the claims would, if realized, affect the interests of at least one of
the claimants). In particular, Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow and Charles Tilly (2001) have promoted a broad
research agenda that addressed similar mechanisms at play in social movements, revolutions, democratiza-
tion processes and ethnic conflicts. While social movements are an important phenomenon, they interact with
other types of social phenomena – some of them of a revolutionary type, as in the Arab Spring in 2010/11.
Social movements need to struggle for democratization and the deepening of democracies. Ethno-nationalist
conflict are re-emerging, old cleavages have been reactivated. These developments prompt the need to go
beyond the established framework of social movement studies and look to other fields in order to get new
ideas. Advocating a dynamic use of concepts, the scholars involved in this approach have tried to single out
general mechanisms of contention.
There is a second type of development that is important in connecting social movement studies with other
fields of studies. As mentioned, social movements interact with other actors. Concepts such as fields and
arenas have recently been proposed to analyze the interactions of different actors, institutional or not. Within
social fields, various actors cooperate, compete, negotiate and fight with each other (Fligstein and McAdam,
2012). In each field, relationships are characterized by unequal power with struggles for the transformation or
preservation of the field. Similarly, reflections on arenas point at the multiplicity of strategic dilemmas experi-
enced by various players in their continuous interactions (Duyvendak and Jasper, 2015).
Third, attention on critical junctures emerged, in particular on the way in which some specific waves of protest
succeeded in producing important changes. Recent times have been defined as momentous: ‘great trans-
formation', ‘great recession’ and ‘great regression’ have frequently been used as shorthand to characterize
the period following the financial breakdown of 2008. Moments of rupture are recognized as most important
in defining new paths. Bridged with the concept of crisis, these terms have been used to highlight sudden
changes, in particular those related to the neoliberal turn in capitalism and its crisis. Reference to such mo-
ments can indeed be found in different approaches addressing them at the macro-, meso- and micro-levels.
In neo-institutional approaches, critical junctures are defined as periods of ‘crisis or strain that existing policies
and institutions are ill-suited to resolve’ – and therefore different from normal politics, when ‘institutional conti-
nuity or incremental change can be taken for granted’ (Roberts, 2015: 65). While neo-institutional approaches
have looked at extraordinary times from a macro perspective, the Chicago School had long ago addressed
changes from a micro perspective, looking at the sudden breaking of established paths, the reproduction of
ruptures and their stabilization. Collective behavior was the concept used to define forms of social behavior
in which ‘usual conventions cease to guide social action and people collectively transcend, bypass or subvert
established institutional patterns and structures’ (Turner and Killian, 1987: 3).
While research on protests has focused on long waves (Markoff, 2016) as well as on short(er) cycles (Tarrow,
1998) as analytic concepts, reflection on the relevance of some specific protest moments as catalyzers of
change speaks to the capacity of social movements to contribute to emerging norms by breaking routine and
introducing new ethical concerns. As Mark Beissinger noted in analyzing extraordinary times in the devel-
opment of nationalism, protest events are in fact ‘contentious and potentially subversive practices that chal-
lenge normalized practices, modes of causation, or systems of authority’ (Beissinger, 2002: 14). Although still
largely an exception in social movement studies, protests as momentous events have been reflected upon in
particular by research looking at contentious politics as triggering an intensification of the perception of time
(della Porta, 2017).
Another recent trend has been oriented by a return to the analysis of the ‘why’ of social movements, that is,
the way in which they are connected to societal conflicts and political cleavages. After a long period, research
has, therefore, addressed again the class bases of protest and the ways in which capitalist transformations
impact on collective action. After scholars lamented social movement studies’ lack of concern with capitalism,
the bridging of social movement studies with a political economy approach has developed by singling out
Marxist contributions to social movements and social movement analysis (Barker et al., 2013). Recognizing
the role of agency, some debates developed on the characteristics of those actors that challenge capitalism

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in its various forms. In particular, Karl Polanyi (1957 [1944]) described those forces that resisted economic
liberalism as counter-movements. Faced with economic crises, such as the Great Depression between the
two World Wars, it was mobilization from below that pushed for a move toward a reversal of the economic
paradigm, from liberalism to interventionist Keynesianism. According to the scholars of the so-called world
system approach, it was indeed the task of anti-systemic movements to resist greedy capitalism, opposing
the logic of the system. The concept of anti-systemic movements builds upon an analytic perspective of ‘the
world-system of historical capitalism’ that gave rise to them, as ‘class and status groups were the two key
concepts that justified these movements’ (Arrighi et al., 1989: 1). Building upon these concepts, recent re-
search has looked at the structural basis of anti-austerity protests (della Porta, 2015; della Porta et al., 2017).
Finally, while recognizing the importance of protests, research is developing also on other areas of movement
activities. First of all, research on meetings in movements allows reflection on the role of prefiguration, dis-
courses and power in politics (della Porta and Rucht, 2013). Moreover, as social movement activists develop
new ideas, the production of knowledge by social movements is a most important topic for research, as the
Great Recession has been a sort of laboratory for movements as service providers. As the importance of
social movements emerged also within authoritarian regimes, attention developed to the invisible forms of re-
sistance by people who are deprived of their rights (Bayat, 2013). This happens in dictatorships and hybrid
regimes, but also in struggles for the rights of migrants, refugees and other marginalized groups, for instance
precarious workers, that cannot use traditional forms of protest because their civic and political rights are not
recognized. The institutional outcomes of the recent waves of anti-austerity protests triggered theoretical and
empirical attention to the role of civil society actors in institutional processes, especially through the construc-
tion of movement parties and referendums from below.
In particular, in times of crisis, social movements have acquired constitutional power. The sociology of consti-
tutions has pointed to the growing importance of constitutional processes as well as to changes in the con-
ceptions and practices of constitution-making. In moments of democratic malaise, the direct involvement of
citizens in the writing and re-writing of constitutions is a way to restore collective identities and solidarities.
Reflecting the shift in constitutional thinking from a legalistic vision of constitutionalism as a technical process
to that of a participatory one oriented to create a founding moment, progressive social movements have in
fact been seen as triggering constitutional processes, in which citizens’ participation in deliberative arenas is
considered necessary in order to construct normative agreements. In Iceland as in Ireland, citizens’ initiatives
prompted some first experiments in constitution-making through the building of citizens’ assemblies, which
have endowed themselves with instruments for interactions with the outside. Plural information, civilized inter-
actions, mutual respect, publicity and inclusive participation characterized the constitutional arenas in which
citizens took part. In this way, social movements acquired constituent power by calling for the constitutional
protection of public goods against privatization, but also for the recognition of the value of the participation of
citizens in public life.
Similarly, referendums and other mechanisms of direct democracy have increasingly been called for in times
of democratic malaise as a response to the increasing mistrust in representative institutions. While the uses of
referendums have been most varied – as has been their democratic quality – progressive social movements
have at times perceived the potential advantages (in terms of legitimacy, but also of efficiency) of handing
the right to decide directly to the citizens. On issues as contested as the conception of public services or na-
tional independence, instruments of direct democracy can contribute not only to legitimating public decisions
through participation, but also to increasing public participation and enriching public life. The participation of
social movement organizations and campaigns in the referendum process can contribute to a substantial in-
crease in not only the number of voters but also the plurality of the arguments, by multiplying the public arenas
in which referendum issues are discussed. In participating in these processes, social movements increase
the capacity for referendums to effectively extend the constitutional safeguards against the excessive power
of the elected representatives, balancing delegation with participation. Protest activities organized by broad
networks of social movement activists help the formation of citizens’ wills, contribute to improving the quality
of public life and increase citizens’ ability to make considered judgments (della Porta et al., 2017). Referen-
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dums from below – involving a larger degree of extra-institutional mobilization, either through citizens’ initiated
referendums or by the wide-scale appropriation of state endorsed ones – are in fact particularly conducive to
broaden participation and deliberative qualities. Besides their final outcomes, social movements’ engagement
in referendums can empower progressive ideas by making topics more relevant to the public and improving
citizens’ awareness.
Finally, in moments of crisis, movement parties have emerged and achieved broad support in a very short
time-span. As late neoliberalism triggered a crisis of political legitimacy through public institutions’ evident lack
of capacity (or willingness) to insure citizenships’ rights, the ensuing electoral earthquakes opened spaces for
new parties on the left as well as the right. On the left, progressive social movements have in fact triggered
the development of political parties that not only represented their claims, but were also influenced by their
conceptions and practices of democracy. As center-left parties moved toward the center, accepting the main
tenets of neoliberal trust in free markets and abandoning social protection, and as calls for social justice and
against inequalities spread among citizens through massive protest campaigns, new parties emerged on the
left. Besides thawing once frozen political cleavages, the growing discontent with the dominant parties is ex-
pressed in the electoral arenas not only (or mainly) by abstention, but rather by the emergence of movement
parties.
While increasing scepticism toward representative democracy also triggers right-wing populism, movement
parties on the left attempt to bring into the representative institutions participatory and deliberative ideals nur-
tured by progressive social movements. As protest campaigns generate a contentious political culture and
the strong critique of the political class brings about intense politicization, party alternatives develop, espe-
cially in the declining phases of the movements. The progressive movement parties have been fuelled by a
mix of institutional closure to movements’ demands and the opening of electoral opportunities given electoral
de-alignment and increasing volatility. In the cases of Podemos in Spain or MAS in Bolivia, given the crisis of
trust in the centre-left parties, movement activists and sympathizers, even if critical of representative forms of
democracy, took the chance to occupy a political and electoral space that had been left empty, and success-
fully built support by putting forward the anti-austerity claims developed during the protest cycle. Mechanisms
of organizational appropriation allowed for the exploitation of these institutional channels, while first electoral
victories galvanized the movement activists that were in search of new repertoires of action. In fact, their elec-
toral successes were facilitated by a reverse reputational effect, as the attacks by political and mass media
actors, which were considered as part of the neoliberal elites, contributed to focus attention and sympathies
on the new movement parties (della Porta et al., 2017). In all cases, while adapting to representative political
institutions, progressive movement parties supported a participatory vision at the organizational level, main-
tained disruptive and unconventional repertoires of action and reflected movements’ frames and claims.
Perspectives
As in many other fields in the social sciences, research on social movements has been very much influenced
by two types of developments: one is development in the social sciences, in which research on social move-
ments has been embedded; the other is development of the object of studies, namely the social movements
themselves. Social movement studies institutionalized around some main concepts like the political opportu-
nities that social movements need at different geographical levels, the capacity of social movements to mobi-
lize organizational resources and the framing processes used in assessing what it is possible to do and how it
is possible to resist or produce changes. These have been important concepts in addressing what were for a
long time the main empirical types of movement research mainly focused upon, from the environmental to the
women's movement, mainly within consolidated democracies. Therefore, to a certain extent, social movement
studies considered social movements as children of expanding democracies and increasing social welfare
within nation-states that were of course interacting with each other, but could still autonomously implement
citizenship rights – civil rights, political rights, social rights.

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The type of knowledge that came out of this tradition has been very interesting, contributing to research on
social movements but also to several other fields of political science and political sociology that were up to
that point very much focused on institutions. Social movement studies have been able to investigate and pro-
vide evidence on the importance of a vibrant civil society for the development of democracies, but also on
the relevance of conflicts. They have pointed at the need to make representatives in democratic institutions
accountable, but also to develop alternative public spheres in which citizens can take the lead on developing
new ideas and political innovations. At the empirical level, knowledge was achieved through methodological
pluralism, which is very widespread in the field, and which has in fact been particularly important in an area
where data are not readily available but must to a large extent be collected by the researchers themselves.
Methods such as protest event analysis, or surveys during demonstrations, have been truly innovative at-
tempts to increase knowledge about social movements. Moreover, life history studies, participant observation
or participatory action research have contributed to our understanding of social movements through middle-
range theories, and historically bounded and contextually grounded theories.
In sum, social movement studies contributed a useful toolkit of concepts that have been exported to different
geographical areas and different disciplines, becoming influential also in disciplines such as political geogra-
phy, psychology, various types of historical studies, and even in economics, philosophy, democratic theory,
urban studies and gender studies. By working around similar concepts, this has produced cumulative knowl-
edge.
Yet the tradition of social movement studies has been largely restricted to the analysis of advanced democra-
cies with developed forms of welfare states. Related theorizations have been mainly oriented toward explana-
tion of the impact of social and political structures on collective action. Some of the most influential scholars in
social movements studies developed in fact even a sort of self-criticism about the structuralist bias of the most
widespread approaches, focusing either on the macro-conditions for the development of social movements,
or on the micro-motivations of social movement activism. With a focus on explaining when and how social
movements expand as well as when and how people participate in different forms of protest, social movement
studies were also very much influenced by the development in the social sciences, which was oriented toward
attempts to test hypotheses by identifying crucial independent variables to explain the outcomes. As social
movement studies expanded, the risk emerged that the institutionalization of the field could lead to analytic
and empirical closure. We may need to go beyond the traditional toolkit of concepts, theories and method-
ologies in order to understand ongoing deep and rapid changes. While previous research was looking to the
environment for resources and opportunities that social movements could exploit, in times of crisis attention
moves toward understanding how protest itself can trigger and empower collective actions. As old patterns
of behavior are challenged, and existing structures are less able to guide and constrain social movements,
attention to emergent types of processes is developing – that is, attention to how social movements can be-
come producers of their own resources, of their own empowerment. In order to understand these transfor-
mations, social movement studies need to expand their theoretical perspective and go beyond consolidated
democracies, being open to cross-fertilization with research traditions that scholars and activists have devel-
oped in contexts other than the European or American ones.
Empirical Databases1
Main cross-national and general population surveys with information on protest and social movements:
1. European Social Survey (ESS): 8 waves between 2002 and 2016; countries included
changed over time (https://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/data/country_index.html), with
information on:
• Non-electoral political participation (dummies): Worked in political party or action
group//Worked in another organisation or association//Worn or displayed cam-

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paign badge/sticker//Signed petition//Taken part in lawful public demonstra-

tion//Boycotted certain products last 12 months.
• Posted or shared anything about politics online in last 12 months (only ESS8
2016).
• Participated in illegal protest activities in last 12 months (only ESS1 2002).
• Member of trade union or similar organization.
2. European Values Study (EVS): 5 waves (https://europeanvaluesstudy.eu/).
• Political actions: Sign a petition//join in boycotts//take part in lawful demonstra-
tions//join unofficial strikes//occupy buildings or factories//damage things, break
windows, street violence (only in EVS 1981)//personal violence (only in EVS
1981).
• Membership: Belong to social welfare service//religious organization//cultural ac-
tivities//labor unions//political parties//local political actions//human rights//con-
servation, the environment (only in EVS 1990)//animal rights (only in EVS
1990)//professional associations//youth work//sports or recreation (not in EVS
1981)//women's group (not in EVS 1981)//peace movement (not in EVS
1981)//organization concerned with health (not in EVS 1981).
3. World Values Survey (WVS) http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentation-
WVL.jsp: change of measurement (might do; have done & how often).
• Signing a petition//Joining in boycotts//Attending peaceful demonstrations//Join-
ing strikes (not in WVS5)//occupying buildings or factories (in WVS1-2-3)//other
(WVS4-5)//any other act of protest (only in WV6).
4. International Social Survey program (ISSP), in 2004 and 2014. Citizenship modules;
countries included specified here as well: https://www.gesis.org/issp/modules/issp-mod-
ules-by-topic/citizenship/2014/
• Political actions: sign a petition, boycott certain products, take part in a demon-
stration, attend political meeting or rally, donate money or raise funds, contact
media, express views on the internet
• Trade union membership
5. Other large cross-national databases and projects with information on organizational
membership and non-electoral participation include, e.g. LIVEWHAT:
http://www.unige.ch/livewhat/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Integrated-Report.pdf
6. Going beyond Western countries, another very useful data source with rich information is
the Latinobarometer: http://www.latinobarometro.org/latContents.jsp. The scope and type
of questions, however, change from wave to wave.
Non-survey databases on social movement activities include:
• 7. Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes Data Project (NAVCO): https://www.du.edu/ko-
rbel/sie/research/chenow_navco_data.html
• 8. Global Nonviolent Action Database: https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/nonviolent-ac-
tion-defined
• 9. Media and Peacebuilding Project: https://mediapeaceproject.smpa.gwu.edu/
• 10. Ron Francisco's comparative data on Protest Event Analysis across European countries:
http://web.ku.edu/~ronfrand/data/
• 11. Dynamics of Collective Action (by McAdam, McCarthy, Olzak and Soule): https://web.stan-
ford.edu/group/collectiveaction/cgi-bin/drupal/
• 12. POLCON: https://www.eui.eu/Projects/POLCON by Kriesi et al.
• 13. MPEDS, by Pam Oliver et al: https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~oliver/protest-research/mpeds/
• 14. Regarding newswires, the most important and reliable cross-national and longitudinal source
on not only but also protest events is the Integrated Crisis Early Warning Systems (ICEWS):
https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/icews. More info: http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/prod-
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ucts/W-ICEWS/iData.html
• 15. An alternative, quite popular among social movement scholars, is GDELT http://gdeltproject.org/
data.html#rawdatafiles. More info here: http://data.gdeltproject.org/documentation/
ISA.2013.GDELT.pdf
• 16. On-site protest surveys in CCC/protest survey: http://www.protestsurvey.eu/in-
dex.php?page=project
• 17. Regarding labor struggles, the OECD has data on ‘union density’ and ‘union membership':
https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=TUD
• 18. ILO data on collective bargaining are available at: http://www.ilo.org/global/topics/collective-bar-
gaining-labour-relations/WCMS_408983/lang–en/index.htm; additional data are provided in databas-
es of EUROFUND & ICTWSS (Hibbs)
• 19. The SM outcomes database by Jennifer Earl et al. is available at: http://yapdatabase-yppnet-
work.net/
• 20. The Transnational SM Organizations dataset by J. Smith https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/
ICPSR/studies/33863 and the SM Organizations Meta Data by J. Earl (that merges and expands
the Dynamics of Collective Action + PONS datasets): https://jearl.faculty.arizona.edu/content/social-
movement-organizations-meta-data
Note
1 I am thankful to Martin Portos for the information reported in this section.
References
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• social movements
• social studies
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n42

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Social Structure
Contributors: Manuel Antonio Garretón & Nicolás Selamé

Chapter Title: "Social Structure"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Social Structure
Manuel Antonio Garretón Nicolás Selamé
Introduction
The concept of social structure has been one of the most important in the social sciences. Because of its rel-
evance, its meaning has been the subject of debate between diverse disciplines. While political science tends
to consider social structure as it affects political dynamics, in sociology it has been a central object of study
since the beginning of the discipline. This has led to several points of convergence and dialogue between
both fields, since the comprehension of social structures can partially help to understand political phenomena,
but can also lead to mistakes due to the reduction of political conflicts to the influence of social structure, or
their ‘sociologization’ (Sartori, 1969). Nevertheless, in its conceptualization of social structures, sociology has
always considered implications of political phenomena in one way or another, without necessarily reducing
the focus simply to the consequences of social structures. This chapter discusses problems of social struc-
ture, from the perspective of sociology, and their consequences for politics.
Social Structure: The Sociological Approach

The concept of social structure in sociology varies as widely as social theories in general. It has been of
concern since the beginnings of the discipline, even though it has not always been used in the same way.
Taking the most general approach, according to Giner et al. (2006: 311), it can be said that social structure
in sociology refers to ‘the most permanent, the basic, the non-apparent and maybe hidden, the framework
or maybe the logical shape of something'. After this first vague delineation, the authors point to at least five
different concerns in sociology's structural problematization: (1) the structure–agency relation; (2) the static
and dynamic aspects of structures; (3) the distinction between analytical and concrete structures; (4) the de-
scriptive–explanatory conception of structure; and (5) the structure–culture relation (ibid: 311).
The first dimension of the problem concerns the micro–macro dichotomy, where it must be discerned whether
a phenomenon depends on particular elements (the agents) or on long-lasting context characteristics (the
structure). This tends to be the most important subject when talking about structure in sociology. The second
dilemma refers to the conception of structure as an immutable, steady component, or as a dynamic factor of
social changes (the motor of history of Marxism1 is an extreme example). Third, it must be discerned whether
a structure has distinguishable characteristics that allow its isolation from others in a concrete empirical way
or whether it is a purely analytical category that cannot be separated from other elements (e.g. economic and
political structures that can be differentiated from others only analytically but in fact interact in many ways).
The fourth point refers to Levi-Strauss’ concept of structure as a theoretical framework to understand the el-
ements of society that determine the actions of subjects, but the objective existence of which cannot be as-
sured. The fifth dimension deals with the contrasts and interactions of the concept of structure in relation to
that of culture. The assimilation of both is present mainly in the Parsonian tradition, where it is assumed that
culture assigns roles to actors and therefore determines structures. In the perspective that opposes struc-
ture and culture, the first is related to objective aspects (from demographic characteristics to social groups
as classes or nations), while culture is understood as a ‘subjective’ dimension of social life. In some schools,
the debate around these concepts is open – as in Marxism, where some oppose culture and structure while
others consider culture as one of the structures of society.
These are the problems most frequently dealt with in the treatment of social structure in sociology. This does
not mean that they are always considered in each theory, but rather that they are the most problematic issues
of the concept. In most of the theories we discuss, these problematic dimensions of social structure can be
traced.

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Social Structure and Classical Sociology

One initial conception of the problem of structure in Durkheim's ideas emerges in the basic rules which he ex-
plains as part of his sociological method. When he defines ‘social facts', he refers to them as something that
affects a subject ‘with a compelling and coercive power by virtue of which, whether he wishes it or not, they
impose themselves upon him’ (Durkheim, 1982: 51). It can be noticed in this brief statement that in Durkheim's
sociology the subjects, their will or the agency that can emerge from them are not relevant – neither for the
discipline nor for the course of society. What can help to understand society and its changes are the collective
phenomena that transcend individuals and ‘impose themselves'.
The main social structure change to which Durkheim attends refers to the tendency of specialization
in the functions of the subject in modern societies, which creates new relations between individuals
(Durkheim,1965). In other words, he looks to a new type of society where the main processes of change are
explained by that tendency of division of labor and the course this structure takes. The transition from tra-
ditional to modern societies that he describes is also an interesting example of the problem mentioned pre-
viously concerning the opposition of culture and social structure. In traditional societies, culture is the main
cohesive element, while in modern societies the structural division of labor becomes most relevant for social
cohesion. This is also a topic much studied by Karl Marx.
In the works of Marx, social structure is more consistently dealt with and his notions are sharper than
Durkheim's. For our purposes, the Marxist approach to social structure can be summarized in two premises:
first, a critique of the liberal concept of human beings according to which politics is the representation of ideas
not linked to economic interests, opposing to this the concept of class-structured interests (Marx, 2018); sec-
ond, a concept of conflictual social progress determined by the dynamics of the social relations of production,
which represents social structure (Marx, 2017). For Marx, politics is a matter of classes confronted by their
opposing interests, which they develop because of their positions in the process of production (Marx, 1998).
In this way, the economic sphere in which the process of production takes place works as the social struc-
ture that configures subjects, determining their position in politics and the overall political life, which he calls
‘superstructure'. The transcendent aspects of a subject's existence are in this way all linked to this structural
determinant: they condition his interest, the part he takes in the class conflicts, and the future of society. The
State and politics are, then, ‘super-structural’ phenomena, or what we call today a dependent variable.
In Marx, as in Durkheim, social reality is explained to a large extent by structural phenomena, or macro events
determining micro ones. Also, there is an opposition between structure and culture: culture is a reflection of
the structural relations of production, says Marx, and the liberalization of society is derived from a new social
solidarity, as postulated by Durkheim. Although both authors take a different route in explaining how struc-
tures operate and sustain society, there is a shared acceptance of an imposed and even fatal nature of a part
of social life for the subjects. Later theories took up this issue.
The acceptance of this concept of social structure remained more or less unchanged in the course of the dis-
cipline: the idea that some elements of social phenomena transcend the capability of subjects to change their
reality, and that this structural nature is linked in a dichotomous relation with the cultural production of society.
That concept suffered an important turn with the advent of structural–functional theory in the works of Talcott
Parsons. This change is related to the question about what produces social structure, and how that process
takes place. It led, to a large extent, to an identification of culture and structure.
For Parsons, society is the interaction of individuals that seek maximum gratification in the context of both a
cultural and a material world. However, he does not take the individuals or their interactions as the starting
point. Instead, he defines ‘status roles'; social positions that subjects occupy in order to play functions in the
system, and which they internalize through the cultural guidelines that the society provides. Status roles for
Parsons constitute social structures that are imposed on subjects through cultural guidelines, which deter-
mine their possibility of agency, their ambitions and rules for interaction. However, what is new in contrast
to the previous structure theories mentioned is that here, structure results as a function of a cultural system.
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Status roles are an imposition on subjects in their socialization, but they do not exist before the social system;
rather, they are a product of it, modeled by its functional needs. The needs of the social system in terms of
reproduction, then, give place to the cultural determination of people's behavior that generates Parson's so-
cial structure as a set of ‘status roles’ (Parsons, 1999).
Although Parsons’ disciple Robert Merton introduced notions of conflict to the structural functionalist concep-
tion of society, this previous turn in the understanding of the generation of social structures remained present
in his works. An important part of Merton's work is focused on the dysfunctions that exist within the social
system. In this way, structural functionalism loses part of its unilinear understanding of social phenomena
according to which social systems effectively generate and reproduce complete harmony among their com-
ponents. One of his most famous topics is social anomie, which treats the problems derived from the limits
that social structures can impose on the achievement of the cultural guidelines accepted by subjects (Merton,
1968: 209–74). However, the major aspects of the structural functionalist tradition to which Merton belongs
are those postulated by Parsons. In this sense Merton, Parsons and the functionalist school overall were in-
terpreted by their opponents as a ‘consensus’ social theory, under which structural change is difficult to ex-
plain and to expect. This void in the comprehensive potential of functionalism is what conflict theories of the
20th century, usually under Marxian influence, opposed and tried to supply. The works of Dahrendorf were
emblematic among these (see Dahrendorf, 1959).
It can be seen that all the concepts of structure reviewed up to this point depend on the general theory of
the authors mentioned. This complicates the dialogue between them, since it is a complete paradigm that is
at stake. At the same time, it makes it difficult to open the debate to other disciplines and problems different
from those addressed in sociology.
Towards an Open Concept of Social Structure

Up to this point, social structure has been treated as an inherent problem for sociological theories. However,
the argument developed so far lacks a concept of social structure around which a dialogue with political sci-
ence can be created. According to Ritzer, this concept was revived during the 1970s as a reaction on the
part of some sociologists to the culturalist turn in the discipline, highlighting the works of Peter Blau, which
vindicate the study of social structure as the main purpose of sociology (Ritzer, 1993: 440). The particular
relevance here lies in the explicit treatment of the concept of social structure as ‘the discernible patterns of
social life, the observable regularities, the detected configurations’ and, more precisely, as ‘the distributions of
population according to diverse parameters in different social positions that influence the relations of roles of
the people and social interaction’ (Blau, 1975a: 3). This idea of social structure, and the postulation of it as the
principal topic of sociology, conflicts with the Parsonian and systemic approaches, since their main interest
resides in cultural or idiosyncratic determinants of social phenomena (Blau, 1975b).
The idea of social structure refers to what is beyond the will of subjects and imposes on them – consciously or
unconsciously, in different ways – objective conditions that determine their possible actions as guidelines as
well as limits. This is the notion that Blau emphasizes in his definition of social structure. Its advantage is that
it is not bound to any long-range theory,2 but precisely that is what implies difficulties in talking of ‘a’ social
structure and defining a particular role for it in the unfolding of social reality. Instead, ‘the structural problem’
emerges as a dimension in all social phenomena which must be elucidated in every study. This seems to be
a better concept for a dialogue between the concepts of structure in sociology and political science, because
it helps to shield against the risk of domination of political problems by sociological explanations, which is
Sartori's worry (Sartori, 1969).
In this dialogue between sociology's elaborations of structure and political science, it is useful to conceive
the problem as ‘the structural’ (instead of ‘the structure'). This allows to consider the structural dimension in
the study of any problem, but without a delimitated concept of structure, which also probably would involve
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a complete social theory and the obligation to deal with most of it premises. In fact, returning to Blau, he
refers to socioeconomic stratification, gender and race as structural determinants, but also gives definitions
that make it possible to consider other structural variables in ways that specific social formations may require.
This allows the development of several linkages that sociological theories tend to establish between social
structures and political dimensions, like the ones that we will consider later.
Even if in current studies sociologists still tend to assume the idea of structural conditioning of social phe-
nomena, there are, however, doubts about the possibility of isolating these structures, their nature and their
consequences, due to the changes they have experienced. This means that in a social group affected by
the same structures (class is the most typical example), several other variables, usually cultural ones, differ-
entiate the community supposed to have similar characteristics, reducing the intensity of collective life and
consequently changing collective action (Touraine, 1998). As the cause of this turn in the dynamics of social
structure, we can point to the advent of post-industrial societies, with a more intense individual, cultural life,
generating more distance between the individual subject and the collective (Garretón, 2015). One of the most
powerful descriptions of this phenomenon refers to hybrid cultures and the instability that they exhibit in the
globalized world (García Canclini, 2005). Although it can be said that cultures have always been ‘hybrid', the
instability and diversification that they actually show is one of the ways to explain the fragmentation that social
structures today manifest, expressed in the diverse courses that groups under their influence can take.
The idea developed here about social structure based on Blau's concept seems to fit better with the emergent
questions cited above, and to be more useful than those set out in classical theories. In this sense it opens
the possibility that there is no universal and complete determinism of the structure over action, that there are
different definitions of social structures according to each society and that other aspects of society must be
empirically analyzed. This shows how social structure affects politics in very different ways, as we will see
later. Finally, it takes into account what are presumably the same problems of social complexity that today's
studies consider when talking of ‘postmaterialist values’ (Inglehart, 1985),3 globalization (Calderón, 2004),
new social movements (Wickham-Crowley and Eckstein, 2017) and crises of representation (Garretón et al.,
2003), among other current topics.
Agents, Subjects and Action

The main question that the concept of social structure must answer is about the relation between structure
and actors or subjects, that is, how its explanations leave space for agency and subjects. Here lies the crucial
importance of the concept for politics. In sociology, a social–structural approach could be opposed to those
referring to individuals’ capacity of action. This has led to several debates as to when or how, in social phe-
nomena, it is individuals or structures that hold the key to an explanation. Summarizing this debate, Margaret
Archer points to typical solutions at which sociologists have arrived, highlighting what she calls a common
‘conflationist’ fallacy. She refers to theories that overestimate the importance of one dimension (the agent or
the structure) in the explanation of social events. There, she points to three paths of ‘conflation': ascendant,
when agency is understood as the unique source of explanation; descendant, when each explanation lies in
the structure; and central, when the specificity of structure and agency are ignored, and social events are
comprehended as a diffuse amalgam that simplifies the complexity of social reality which includes these two
different poles (Archer, 1995).
Instead, Archer proposes a ‘realistic’ theory that recognizes the specificity and relative autonomy of both the
structure and the subjects. This understanding assumes the existence of social structure as a concrete, rela-
tively autonomous entity that conditions the possibilities for subjects to act. However, she also recognizes the
autonomy of subjects, given a certain structural context, to act according to a large spectrum of possibilities
or certain degrees of freedom (Archer, 2003).
This implies rejection of Durkheim's postulates, according to which social facts must be studied as ‘objective',
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‘concrete’ phenomena that impose on subjects something from which they cannot escape (Durkheim, 1982).
According to Archer, this is a ‘descendant conflation’ (Archer, 2003). The same applies for Marx’ precepts that
locate in the social relations of production the configuration of the social being as well as the motor of social
transformations (or history). The Parsonian response to the problem is also dismissed by Archer, as it pro-
poses that systems are all guided by the same logic, no matter whether the individual system or the cultural
one.
‘Central conflation’ emerges mainly as the attempt of theories to overcome the polarized solutions that focus
on agents or structures. However, this also amounts, according to Archer, to a fallacy. A social theory should
recognize that social reality is composed of a variety of elements and the homologation of their nature, as with
central conflation, tends to obscure problems more than clarify them. Two examples of this are Bourdieu's
and Giddens’ proposals, two theories of action that became very relevant but are also criticized by Archer. In
the case of Pierre Bourdieu's theory, it is assumed that social structure carries a logic, a ‘doxa',4 that agents
(the author avoids the concept of ‘subject') internalize in the process of socialization through practical expe-
rience (Bourdieu, 1998). After this, the acts of agents are guided by this ‘doxa’ and, later, new structures will
be mainly elaborated by agents previously configured according to the ‘doxa’ of previous structures. If this
is so, the possibility of agents to act independently of structures (not just reproducing inherited dynamics) is
eliminated, and with it the difference between these entities. That is what Archer denounces as a fallacy of
central conflation.
The case is similar for Giddens. He declares his purpose to be that of overcoming the agency–structure du-
alism, mainly with a theory of structures that conceives them as constructed through human actions and re-
lations (Giddens, 1979). The problem continues to be the need to draw a limit on structure's constraints on
agency without ignoring it, and the possibilities that this has to affect the former, regarding a space of ‘free-
dom’ that structures leave for agents. When talking of structures, the mentioned ascendant conflation does
not apply, as this concept basically ignores the structural dimension.
The relevance of Archer's concept of structure and agency is emphasized here because of the connection
it can make between social theories and political dimensions – particularly theories of cleavage, as we will
see in the next section. The conflictive relation between structure and agency makes space for several ex-
planations of the political dynamics. In this way the role that structure plays in determining the configuration
of politics and the role of agents can be considered, as well as the inverse case, in which agents (voters,
social groups or political elites) are more relevant as an explanatory factor of the phenomena. These consid-
erations acquire more relevance when taking into account the problems of diversification and fragmentation
of social structure previously mentioned. In the context of fragmented social structure and hybrid cultures, the
one-causality explanations tend to be more improbable to describe social reality, and then Archer's proposals
emerge as a better alternative.
Accordingly, the middle-range sociological concept of the ‘socio-political matrix', used for analysis and com-
parison of the Latin American configuration of national states, illustrates how sociological studies can both
connect social theory and political studies. The concept is an attempt to describe the dynamics of articulation
generated in Latin American societies between the state, social groups and political parties with regard to
structural constraints such as the socio-cultural and economic basis of the society, all of these being mediated
by the political regime (Garretón et al., 2003). Starting from that concept, several studies have considered the
effects of globalization, hybrid cultures and fragmentary structure on politics (Garretón, 2002; García Canclini,
2005). As will be seen, this constraint on the type of link that society and politics sustain is also a conditioning
of social structure (or its fragmentation) over the nature of cleavage politics.
The perspective on social structure drawn here seems to be coherent with contemporary transformations in
society, recognizing the limits and guidelines it imposes for agents, and it sheds light on the roles that particu-
lar agency events play. It is also a historically grounded framework, open to the role and relevance that every
element acquires in different cases – in particular, the increasing complexity of society which today places in
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question sociological structure theories and also, as we will see, cleavage studies.
Social Structure and Politics

As we have said, the definition of social structure that we have adopted allows us to establish several linkages
between the sociological perspective and political dimensions of society. In this sense, one of the main con-
cepts that can establish the dialogue between sociology's structural elaborations and political science has
been the concept of cleavage.
Lipset and Rokkan (1967) set out the concept of cleavage politics in their work ‘Party Systems and Voter
Alignments'. Studying the democracies of Western Europe, the authors postulated as a hypothesis that party
systems had ‘frozen’ around a few major social–structural cleavages. These were generated by historical
events and processes that divided these societies. One example is the ‘class cleavage’ opposing capital and
labor, or the bourgeoisie and the working classes in Marx’ terms, as a result of the industrial revolution. These
became organized in employers’ associations and trade unions as well as in conservative and socialist/social
democratic parties. One expression of this is the classic left–right dimension in many contemporary party sys-
tems (Seiler, Chapter 33, this Handbook). In this first development of the concept, the link with social structure
ideas is obvious, since social determinants – class or geographical distribution of the population, for example
– are pointed to as key to understanding the behavior of the electorate.
In that first elaboration by Lipset and Rokkan, political alignments were conceived as an epiphenomenon of
conflictive structural processes, and the cleavage was the concept that explained the relation between both.
At the same time, as analyzed by Bartolini and Mair (1990), a cleavage was constituted by three components:
first, a social (structural) fissure; second, social institutions that expressed and mobilized that conflict; and
third, as a result of the previous two, party alignments. After a first moment of social unrest, political conflicts
tend to become ‘frozen’ and work around that social fissure and their social institutional expression.
However, the dynamic of this cleavage evolved into a more complex relation. Political parties were, after their
freezing around this issue, capable of reviving the conflict or, in more theoretical terms, susceptible to agency
over the cleavage and its development. This last point operated in later studies as the door to a diversification
of the cleavage concept.
In fact, the first elaborations of the cleavage concept proposed by Lipset and Rokkan (1967) have expe-
rienced many changes susceptible to comparison to the social structure debate. The authors first defined
particular social structures that explain political confrontations (class, center–periphery, rural–urban5 ) as
sources of socio-political conflicts. However, there are others that emerged in the later cleavage studies, such
as socioeconomic and professional differentiation, gender, ethnic diversity and age groups, which only a flex-
ible concept of social structure, and the considerations about its fragmentation, can cover.
The theoretical framework behind the cleavage concept has tended to disperse at the point at which the em-
pirical foundations have become the main topic of debate, acquiring a more flexible definition for the charac-
terization of each case studied (Lybeck, 1985). In later studies this framework proved to have shortcomings,
particularly in post-dictatorship contexts where the political (not ‘structural') cleavage of authoritarianism ver-
sus democracy birthed new party systems, as well as in its use for the Eastern European democracies after
the end of the Soviet Union (Enyedi, 2005).
But it was not only the incorporation of new cases that represented a challenge for cleavage studies. The
social changes that both Western and Eastern European countries experienced created a new political dy-
namic, which was condensed in the concept of ‘post-materialist values’ as a conflict that was no longer rooted
in a social structure (or was not so in the same way) as the classical cleavages (Inglehart, 1977, 1985).

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This led to debate, based on empirical evidence, around the pertinence of the concept of cleavages for the
study of political dynamics. In political science, this proposal had at first been an object of criticism, with rejec-
tion of the influence over politics that it attributed to social structure (Sartori, 1969). The empirical evidence,
however, took the discussion to another level. Basically, there were too many new and old cases that had
now experienced change, that offered little or no evidence of the close relation between social structure and
political conflicts as postulated in cleavage theory. The difficulties of standardizing a methodology to measure
cleavages across a diversity of cases and the historical nature of the theory made it difficult to remake the
theoretical framework in order to apply it to this new context. Instead, an internal decomposition of its minor
elements took place, alongside diversification in its application.
In this way, studies opened up the option of cleavages based more on recent social fissures and divisions
generated in society by the political parties (Przeworski and Sprague, 1986). This could be called a politics-
centered solution, as this gives a preponderant role to agency in the political sphere in order to explain the
course that the cleavage takes. In addition, there can be a ‘societal’ or a ‘vis-à-vis’ solution (Torcal and Main-
waring, 2003). The first remains loyal to the sociologically based theory postulated by Lipset and Rokkan and
continues to attribute the most important part of the explanation of political cleavage to the social conflicts
and their mobilization (Rose, 1968). The latter gives more autonomy to the political sphere than the traditional
Lipset and Rokkan analysis, but without rejecting the importance of social phenomena as conditioning the
agency of politics (Knutsen and Scarbrough, 1998, 2003; Bartolini and Mair, 1990).
There is, however, another dimension of this debate, which refers not to the role of each pole of the cleavage
(the social structure and the political sphere), but to the components that constitute it. The politics-centered
solution not only gives a special place to the political conflict in creating a social fissure, but can also lead to
an explanation of party competition that is not based on societal dynamics. Therefore, the cleavage studies
had to be opened to the analysis of cases where only evidence for ‘less than a cleavage’ can be found. That
means that not all the basic components needed to describe a cleavage may exist. The most typical cases
of this are the ‘position divide', where politics and political behavior are in conflict around a topic without a
basis in social institutions, and the ‘issue divide', where a social institution does not correspond to a structural
social fissure (Deegan-Krause, 2007). Given that opening to ‘less than a cleavage', the traditional concept
of cleavage, constituted by the components present in the works of Lipset and Rokkan, can be called a ‘full
cleavage’ (Deegan-Krause, 2007: 3).
In sum, studies tended to adhere more and more to the politics-centered explanation of cleavages. The evi-
dence showed the growing importance of the political sphere's autonomy in the most socially articulated cas-
es (Franklin, 1992). At the same time, there was evidence that, even when structural determinations of polit-
ical preferences were found, these were expressed more in the form of differences of opinions or ideas than
in compact isolated social groups, as with the classic cleavages (Kriesi, 1998).
This shift is not isolated from reflections that have been made in sociology referring to the emergence of am-
plified social reflectivity (Giddens, 1979), the consequent difficulties for a general narrative that articulates
politics as a form of social coexistence (Touraine, 1998) and its repercussions for national states (Garretón,
2015). Most of them are susceptible to be framed in the problem of hybridization (García Canclini, 2005). All
of this constitutes reflections about the complexity that social and political phenomena progressively acquire
and the difficulty of finding linear relations between these spheres, as classical cleavage theory did. As men-
tioned at the beginning of this chapter, for sociology, social structure can, in some cases, be hard to isolate
in time and space. The described context tends to enforce that fact. While there is an understanding of how
social structure is present and determines social dynamics, it is impossible to observe it acting by itself, not
interlaced with other structures or phenomena.
At the same time, there must be consideration of how the mentioned social transformations, which create new
problems for cleavage studies and social theory, not only weaken traditional structures but can also make
space for new ones. Globalization serves as a good example. While it intensifies the hybridization of cultures,

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weakening the expression of structural determinants in social collectives, it generates new ways of condition-
ing social phenomena because of the economic and political factors that become stronger in this process
(Calderón, 2004). The case of Brexit and the rise of right-wing populism has generated a debate around its
causes that gives great importance to this new type of constraint (Inglehart and Norris, 2016). The same de-
bate is also a good example of the crisis of representative democracies at the level of the nation State, due
to the several identities and demands that they have to process and their limited range of action to confront
global phenomena (Touraine, 1998; Rosanvallon, 2008).
However, this is not sufficient to say, as the supporters of the ‘end of cleavages’ thesis do (Franklin, 1992),
that social structure does not still have an influence on political phenomena. The diversification of social struc-
tures, which cannot be expressed in simple polarized groups, still affects political conflicts in more subtle ways
(Enyedi, 2008). If the changes in social structure explain most of the political shifts that lowered the intensity
of cleavages (Rose, 1968; Kelley et al., 1984), this is still a structural influence on the political sphere. Due to
the complexity that social structure progressively acquires, the problem lies, rather than giving up its relation
with politics, in opening the theory and searching for more diversified measurements.
The Challenge of New Dimensions

For cleavage studies, the social structure dimension has become a problem since this last one starts to di-
versify and complexify, hindering the track down of its influence over politics (Rose, 1968; Kelley et al., 1984).
Besides the problems that these changes in social structure have brought up, scholars have also seen an
enrichment of the cultural sphere of Western societies. That has given to culture preponderance in the ex-
planation of political conflicts and alignments, as happens with the already mentioned ‘postmaterialist values’
conflicts (Inglehart, 1985), all in detriment of the classic, structurally-rooted cleavage concept (Oddbjörn &
Scarbrough, 2003). But as we have seen, post-materialist values can have a structural explanation for their
emergence, and therefore at least the hypothesis of a structural determination that they take in a given con-
text must be admitted (Kriesi, 1998).
We must also consider new issues apart from the central fissures that characterized traditional cleavages.
The first topic that should be analyzed is the gender problem. This intersects the current cleavage problems
on all its levels, affecting at least half of the population (Risman, 2004). The structural character of gender
lies in its power to determine several aspects of life, from the way people access the job market (or not) to
the roles assumed in the division of household labor. There is evidence of the relevance of gender in politi-
cal alignments. During the 1980s, in Western democracies women tended to vote more conservatively, which
was mostly explained by the different relationships that women and men had with labor and religion (de Vaus
and McAllister, 1989). A few decades later, the transformation in gender roles and other changes inverted
the gender gap in voting, showing women to have a more leftist preference than men in Western democra-
cies (Inglehart and Norris, 2000). Given this evidence, and regarding the differences with the classic cleavage
studies, it can be said that gender as structure can determine political alignments in every context. Going fur-
ther, for the cases used as examples, it could be hypothesized that the changing relationship between women
and the construction of nation (Yuval-Davis, 1998) can explain this change from conservative to left-wing vot-
ing. If the hypothesis is correct, it shows how, even for such a powerful structure as gender, other structures
have to be highlighted to understand the configuration of a cleavage. It also indicates how a change in social
structure does not necessarily directly or only affect the dynamic of cleavage, but also affects the context in
which cleavages unfold. In this case, the way in which women relate the social sphere to politics by acquiring
a different social status is relevant to understand not only a later change in the cleavage, but also the change
in the type of political agencies of which they are capable.
However, as opposed to the case just explained, it must be remembered that opening a theoretical approach
that considers this linkage between social structure and political alignments does not always mean looking at
the constitution of a cleavage; it can also mean looking only at parts of it (Deegan-Krause, 2007), in which
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case the relation we are describing has much more explanatory power. In other words, discarding the cleav-
age hypothesis does not necessarily mean discarding structural determination altogether. This can help to
understand why it is that, while gender structures explain much of the participation in gender struggles, as can
be seen in the preponderantly female composition of feminist mobilizations or voting, they do not structure
the entire party system as the classical cleavages studied by Lipset and Rokkan did. This can also be said of
other dimensions, which have effects on what has been called a crisis of party representation.
A different case of structural determination that must be addressed concerns indigenous populations or ethnic
conditions. The first difference between this factor and gender lies in the differing weights that this condition
acquires in a particular society, while gender always has the same importance in social structure (Hayes et
al.,2000). The condition's potential as a determinant of political alignments depends on this weight in a given
society. An example of this can be seen by comparing the Ecuadorian and Bolivian cases. While in Ecuador
around 7% of the population belong to an indigenous culture, this number reaches 40% among the popu-
lation of Bolivia. The case of Bolivia is a powerful example of the potential for ethnic factors to generate a
strong cleavage in local and national politics (Guzmán and Rodríguez, 2018). Here the indigenous population
not only has unusual strength in explaining voting behavior and determining elections; it has also constituted
a long-lasting social movement, which has sustained the government of Evo Morales over three terms and
started several democratic reforms that reconfigured its relation with the State (Gamboa Rocabado, 2010).
In the context of crisis confronted by ‘full cleavage’ theories, it is necessary to ask why indigenous movements
are sufficiently strong to be configured as a cleavage of this type, as in the Bolivian case. The answer may
lie in the more traditional, less hybrid structures of that society, and especially in the indigenous communities
that serve as a basis for the movement. If it is assumed that the phenomena of globalization, for example,
tend to fragment social structure and weaken its link with politics (Garretón, 2015), it is possible to expect
greater strength of the ties that link this social basis with the political sphere. Besides, a more homogeneous
community, without the social dispersion generated by hybridization (García Canclini, 2005) and modernity's
fragmentation (Touraine, 1998), can give more strength to social conflicts due to the strong membership of
subjects in their social groups, and then give more substance to the cleavage.
The ethnic condition has also given place to an indigenous movement in Ecuador, but one with less strength
than in Bolivia. In terms of electoral power and reform programs, the ethnic cleavage tends to occupy a less
important place in Ecuador than in Bolivia (Lalander and Gustafsson, 2008). However, it is interesting to see
that while the relevance of both indigenous movements varies, they correspond in both cases to what has
been called a ‘full cleavage', in the sense that they are composed by a social fissure, generate a social closure
and express themselves in political choices. This sheds light on the complexity of social processes that must
be apprehended by political cleavage studies. They can identify the components of a determined cleavage –
or ‘something less than a cleavage’ (Deegan-Krause, 2007: 26) – but an overview of a given political context
must realize the several cleavages that can compose it. For example, although the indigenous cleavage can
be studied in Ecuador, it obviously does not explain the most important part of the political alignments in the
country.
Another interesting debate refers to the place of social structure in post-materialist political conflicts, which ex-
perienced a boom with the emergence of new social movements (Inglehart, 1990). The main theory concern-
ing this problem explains that, even when post-materialist problems are in fact structurally rooted, they are
disputed at discursive levels so abstract that only certain factions of class structures get involved in the con-
flicts (Habermas, 1981; Offe, 1985). Empirical studies have shown these tendencies in some cases, where a
‘new’ middle class shows more sympathy for new social movements articulated around post-materialist val-
ues (Kriesi, 1989). In this sense, ‘post-materialist conflict’ seems to need a ‘materialist’ or ‘structural’ base
if it is accepted (as some evidence shows) that they tend to emerge where a strong educated middle class
exists, especially if the traditional working class loses strength. For the same reason, the translation of this
problematique to Latin America and other developing countries is not automatic and the causes tend to vary
from those seen in the first world. In the Third World, post-materialist conflicts tend to mix with material and

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structural conflicts due to the hybridization of local cultures in the context of globalization, or due to the cultur-
al exclusion which also carries material implications (Wickham-Crowley and Eckstein, 2017).
Translating this to the cleavage politics problem, two relevant issues emerge. First is the question about the
possibilities of a cleavage configured around these topics to acquire strength and involve a social basis, when
the interest in conflicts of this kind depends on the educational level of the electorate. The risk of elitization
of politics is obvious, and the configuration of the cleavage probably will not imply a social fissure. Second is
the change in the social composition of the electorate for parties who appeal to this topic. In fact, for Kelley
et al. (1984) the decline of the working class forced left-wing parties to embrace post-materialist conflicts, re-
cruiting members and voters of different social extractions. Similar tendencies are studied by Knutsen (1990)
in the Norwegian case. Given the described characteristics of these conflicts and the elitization of politics that
they entail, it is not hard to imagine that here lies a clue to understand the right turn of working classes in
some countries, linked to conservative parties for ideological or clientelistic reasons, but distanced from the
left (Oesch, 2008).
A historical process, then, can be seen in the background of the dynamic highlighted by cleavage politics. It
is understood that although the essential aspect of a cleavage study lies in identification of the roles that the
three main components (i.e. a social–structural fissure, social institutions and party alignments) play, this also
needs to be complemented by other cultural or historical considerations that allow a better understanding of
the processes studied. In fact, this is what most studies do when trying to comprehend a concrete cleavage
dynamic: they review the previous cleavages that took place in the political system already mentioned, the
strategies of political elites (Enyedi, 2005) and/or structural changes experienced in the country (Kelley et al.,
1984).
This is why it can be said that while cleavage studies are necessary, they are not enough for the full under-
standing of a given political process. In this regard, Latin American societies, particularly in their 20th-century
political developments, must be mentioned. When contrasted with Western democracies they exhibit char-
acteristics that cannot be fully comprehended by cleavage studies. In particular, the role that the State had
in Latin America is different, but it also generated and modified social structures. This situation, which has
created a symbiosis between the State and diverse subjects, requires broader study, as proposed in the so-
cio-political matrix approach (Garretón et al., 2003). In fact, some processes of cleavage disarticulation in this
context can be well understood through this approach, which considers structural, cultural and political trans-
formations that determine the ways in which political alignments are generated (Garretón, 2014). Therefore,
there is a need to complement cleavage studies with ad hoc approaches for a better understanding of the
given phenomena.
Political Regimes, State, Globalization, Social Change

The described problem of social structure and the current discussion in sociology about its political implica-
tions exceeds the concept of cleavage with which political science has opened this dialogue. There are sev-
eral other concerns about politics that have called the attention of sociologists when studying social structure.
An example of this could be the relation in sociology between social structure and political regimes. This has
been postulated since Marx’ studies of feudal economic and political regimes and his comparison with ‘bour-
geois democracy’ (Marx, 1998), and is also present in Barrington Moore's studies on the relation between
political regimes and socioeconomic conditions (Moore, 1966). The long-lasting nature of this linkage in so-
ciology can be traced even in Latin America. The most influential works of the region's sociology during the
1970s, the dependency theories, studied how the economic configuration of the region gave place to certain
types of State, with the inclusion and exclusion of social actors in the rising democracies (Cardoso and Falet-
to, 1979). Therefore, it is seen as a constraint that social structures, in class and economic terms, impose on
the types of political regime. In fact, almost all the debates about the type of democracy during the 20th cen-
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tury in the region are crossed by the study of the type of economic regime, its duality (with a modern and an
almost feudal type of production based in the agrarian and mining export sectors) and the range of action for
change provided to the political regime based on those conditions (CEPAL, 1963). Those elaborations under-
stood economic development not as linear progress, but as a conflicted process in which actors were more
or less favored by the possible types of development depending on their social status in the structure, which
at the same time gave them different possibilities for political action and change. It was impossible, then, to
understand the type of democracies and states without understanding social structure. Related to this is the
problematization of populism as a way of incorporating new sectors of the population into modern society and
democracy (Di Tella, 1965; Germani, 1973).
Also, during the 1980s, discussion about democratic transitions considered the limits set out by the economic
sphere as a structural determination acting over the desirable new regime (O'Donnell, 1979). In that period,
even the tendencies that rejected Marxism and stopped arguing in favor of the predominance of the material
conditions ‘in the last instance’ continued to ask about the relation between social structure and possible po-
litical regimes (Garretón, 1989). These complexities can be considered not only due to the diverse conditions
that social structure tends to put in place over politics, but also for the discussion on the cleavage concept
which it creates. In fact, the transition of democracies in Latin America has in some cases generated cleav-
ages that articulate the problem of the type of political regime preferred after the end of dictatorship (Tironi
and Agüero, 1999; Valenzuela, 1999). For a sociology that problematizes the dependency on social structure
of the type of political regime, this is more than just a problem of political alignments, and opens a very rich
and complex field of study.
There are some examples of other political phenomena that cannot be understood without reference to social
structure. Among them can be mentioned globalization and the generation of new local, national or transna-
tional structures; the nature of the State as agent of development or as the space of domination or com-
promise between actors; social change as revolution or reforms; emancipation of the ‘oppression structures’
mainly, not exclusively, when it is considered as a criticism of patriarchal structures and the need to overcome
them (Yuval-Davis, 1998); and social movements emerging from a structure or as a political creation to over-
come the structure, or installation of democracy as breakdown of dictatorship. However, structure by itself is
unable to provide all the required explanations for these problems. In this sense, in the current social structure
debate, the empirical discussion has discovered more complexities for which the Blau concept is still useful,
but not enough for its comprehension.
Conclusion
The reviewed dilemmas that current social structure theories represent for political studies, point to the need
of an extended concept of social structure and social agency from which these studies can nourish. This,
without seeing their approaches restricted by the limits that long-range social theories can implicate. This is a
main issue to look for a dialogue between sociology and its notions about social structure, on one side, and
political science with its studies of political alignments, e.g., on the other.
It is necessary, while considering the contributions made by the long-range social theories, to look forward,
to rescue the possible forms that social structure can take along their precepts. In this way, one can evade a
definitive, rigid concept of social structure or social agency, but have general and diverse guidelines regarding
the possible explicative power of that concept in the study of a particular phenomenon. Although the criticism
can be raised that this threatens the consistency of the theoretical approach, what is won is the possibility of
dialogue with political science without adhering to the definitions of that discipline.
In this sense, more than choosing a definitive concept of social structure or a definitive social theory that
includes that concept, what is proposed here is to exploit the variations that this problem has experienced
in social theory as a toolbox. In that way, the conflictive notion of Marxist social structure can aid an under-
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standing of some historical moments of rising social tension and consequent politicization, and the opposing
‘consensus theory’ of Parsons could allow an understanding of the adequacy or ‘discipline’ of certain social
actors under a political regime.
What seems to be the consensus around the problem of social structure is the idea of long-lasting elements,
in relation to subjective wills that are imposed in a given society. This could be interpreted as material con-
ditions as well as political institutions, cultural values or several other elements. With the flexible and open
concept of structure in favor of which we have argued, a hypothetical social structure can have economic,
social, cultural and political dimensions,6 or can refer only to one of these dimensions. In social dynamics,
this structure penetrates and interrelates, while conserving degrees of autonomy depending on the case. The
theoretical articulation between them under what has been called the ‘socio-political matrix’ (Garretón et al.,
2003) can serve as a flexible concept of structure that rescues the diverse sociological contributions made
around that concept, as well as face the different, complex problems that emerge today in political sociology.
This way of dealing with theory supports not only dialogue with political science, but also the study of contra-
dictory, more heterodox and multi-conditioned phenomena in politics through the view of sociology. Currently,
as seen in this chapter, globalization processes limits the agencies of State as well as it diversifies the dif-
ferent identities that lies under them, through the acceleration of cultural hybridization. This implies on one
side the narrowing of national states action margin, and the widening of the type of demands made by the
population on the other. To these effects of globalization, it must be summed the progressive complexity that
class structures acquires, as it gives place to multipolar conflicts. In this context, the study of national politics
turns too complex for a systematical theoretical approach as the classical cleavage theories looked for. Mid-
dle-range theory and flexible concepts are not a definitive answer, but are at least a better way of asking the
questions.
Last but not least, this seems to be the only way of rescuing a sociological approach to the current debate
around cleavage politics. The first cleavage studies of Lipset and Rokkan relied on a determined, but not
explicit, understanding of the relation between social structure and agency. In this regard, it was assumed
that social structure had a great influence on political agency, expressed also in social life (through social
closure and institutions kept active by structurally determined subjects) and in political expressions through
party alignments. As explained above, this mechanism was later weakened. The big question, therefore, was
and still is: If there exists a structural determination of political alignment, how does it work, and how do the
changes in the way it influences political phenomena affect what was called cleavage politics? Obviously, this
question gets more complex as social structures fragment and as the identities that it used to produce dis-
perse in the context of globalization and the boom of new means of communication.
The complexity acquired by social structures in most of the cases studied points to the weakening of previous
strong cleavages. Better living standards and higher educational levels tend to decrease the direct determi-
nation of social structure over subjective aspects and, consequently, agency. However, in this respect some
considerations in favor of structural factors must be made. First, the structural character of educational levels
and well-being implies structural differentiation and the presence these factors can still have in parts of the
population. Second, the structural character's being part of post-materialist values through levels of education
and professions associated with them implies their presence as well. What has changed, then, is the strength
that structure had, in the first cleavage studies, to manifest direct influence on political agency. The hypoth-
esis of influence in given cases must not be discarded, however, but rather modified. Finally, the opening of
new structural aspects not previously considered has turned out to be necessary in this context.
With reference to agency, the discussion of cleavages gave emphasis to the role of elites in cleavage for-
mation and maintenance. This implies a return to the political science approach in the same way that the
sociological concept was involved in Lipset and Rokkan's works, where the dynamics of political parties and
actors can be as powerful as social processes in determined contexts. That is why a concept of social agency
according to current cleavage studies must be as open to the study of social movements as it is to the capac-
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ity of political elites. In this respect, the possibility must also be considered that, in the political dimension of
cleavages and the dynamics that only involve their political elite's agents, low democracy logics are generat-
ed (Gills and Rocamora, 1992), and, therefore, a lower strength of the socio-political articulation. The problem
here is to study how social conflicts relate to politics that cannot always process them (Ruiz, 2015). This could
also explain the de-politicization that some Latin American democracies experienced during the reconstruc-
tion of socio-political links after authoritarian rule – a reconstruction in which political elites usually played a
major role (Garretón et al., 2003).
There are more explanations for political conflicts than are expressed in the traditional cleavage scheme. This
cleavage perspective, however, has important comparative potential and therefore can be employed for this
purpose while being supplemented with other approaches for a deeper understanding of given cases. The
diverse hypotheses discussed here regarding changes in social and political dynamics oblige us to consider
new factors, not previously taken into account, that operate in and over cleavage politics. And this, among
other shifts, leads cleavage theories to articulate their scheme of political conflicts with post-materialist and
new issues (Offe, 1985). Therefore, the question emerges whether it is necessary for cleavage studies to be
open to this problem to apprehend the nature of today's politics, as an expression of new social articulations
that can give place to political alignments. If this option is chosen, then it is imperative to return to sociology
for cleavage studies.
In sum, the main conclusion of this chapter is that it is important to open the theoretical framework on social
structure, agency and actors and cleavage politics to different historically situated hypotheses in every case,
in opposition to the idea of the disappearing influence of social structure, or closure of the debate on some
fixed political concepts.
Notes
1 However, it must be said that in Marx’ works structure is at the same time the steady component that limits
the possible agencies and events in a given context, and the engine of the social processes of change.
2 In the words of Merton, Blau's concept of social structure tends to be more like a ‘middle range theory’ (Mer-
ton, 1968), useful to study cases but without the background of a comprehensive social explanation.
3 The concept of post-materialist values or post-materialist conflicts points to the idea of values or conflicts not
centered on material conditions of life or determined by them. However, the notion of non materialist based
conflicts was already present almost a century ago in the work of Gramsci, among others, where conflicts not
only based on the material world or immediately economic are mentioned (Gramsci, 1992). The ‘post’ prefix
in the concept can imply an evolutionist perspective that is hard to share. Nevertheless, it will be used here
because it has been part of the commonly used language of the reviewed debate, and its discussion would
exceed the objective and extension of this chapter.
4 For a better comprehension of Bourdieu's ideas here, it can help to point out that when talking of the ‘doxa’
structuring social camps, the author has affirmed that he was looking for a different concept than ‘ideology’
(Bourdieu and Eagleton, 1991).
5 Although Lipset and Rokkan propose a fourth cleavage, the one between Church and State, it is doubtful
whether this can be considered as a social structural determinant as defined here.
6 That is the case, for example, for traditional economies where economic relations depend on cultural con-
straints that determine very specific roles in economic institutions (Habermas, 1975).

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• social structures
• sociology
• politics
• theories
• role and status
• social system
• discipline
• social change
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n43

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Political Accountability
Contributors: Yannis Papadopoulos

Chapter Title: "Political Accountability"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Political Accountability
Yannis Papadopoulos
Introduction: Accountability as a Normative Desideratum and as a Relational

Concept
Accountability penetrates many social spheres: children are accountable to their parents, spouses to each
other, managers to shareholders, private employees to their bosses, public bureaucrats to their organisational
superiors, suppliers to customers, students to teachers and researchers to funding bodies. This chapter will
concentrate more narrowly on the accountability of the official public policy-makers, in other words ‘the whole
personnel employed by the modern state’ (Schedler, 1999: 22) that wields power by producing collectively
binding decisions. It will disregard (with a few exceptions) accountability issues involving other types of actors
that participate – and are sometimes highly influential – in the policy process, such as academic experts. This
chapter also focuses on accountability in democratic systems, although rule-makers in autocratic regimes
may not be completely unaccountable as they may need to seek formal or informal approval from the rul-
ing party, powerful interest groups and other actors. The chapter will mainly highlight the political procedures
related to accountability and will only tangentially devote attention to other forms of accountability to which
rule-makers are subject, such as legal accountability to courts or financial accountability to auditing bodies.
Few people would dare to stand against accountability. Accountability is a core positive value in public de-
bates, and some even consider it ‘the über-concept of the twenty first century’ (Flinders, 2014: 661), or as a
‘chameleon-like’ term (Mulgan, 2000: 555) that is now equated with all kinds of aspects of ‘good governance'.
Let us first note that accountability is not necessarily related to democracy: democratic accountability is a
subset of all possible accountability relations. This is evident in the following definition from two scholars from
the field of international relations, in which standards of democratic accountability cannot easily apply:
Accountability … implies that some actors have the right to hold other actors to a set of standards, to
judge whether they have fulfilled their responsibilities in the light of these standards, and to impose
sanctions if they determine that these responsibilities have not been met. (Grant and Keohane, 2005:
29)
Accountability is a multidimensional concept: Those who study it need to flesh out who is accountable to
whom, for what,1 how (through what kind of processes and with what kind of standards),2 and possibly with
what kinds of consequences. For analytical purposes it is helpful to view accountability as a social mechanism
of relational and communicative nature that connects individual or collective policy actors to accountability
‘forums’ in deliberative (sometimes also bargaining) processes, usually under the threat of sanctions by the
forums in case of the policy actors’ estimated misconduct or poor performance. Accountability is, therefore,
closely related to power: being able to hold someone accountable indicates a privileged position (Waldron,
2014: 3), and the same applies if one can escape accountability. Further, even if the monitoring of actors by
forums may be concomitant to their action and if policy-makers anticipate the accountability phase, account-
ability fundamentally takes place ex post.
Thus, accountability is defined as a relationship between an actor and a forum, in which (1) the actor has an
obligation to explain and justify his or her conduct to the forum by providing information about procedures,
performance or outcomes (answerability); (2) a debate may ensue and the forum can pose questions, con-
test and pass judgement (the relationship may be more or less dialogical and confrontational); and (3) at the
end of this (stylised) ‘time-line’ (Lindberg, 2013: 212) the actor may face positive or negative consequences,
depending on the forum's evaluation (enforceability) (Bovens et al., 2014: 9). It is stating the obvious that
‘real-world’ accountability does not always function as formally prescribed ‘on paper', which applies to all se-
quences of the accountability process. One should distinguish between de jure (in books) and de facto (in
action) accountability, and forums endowed with formal oversight tasks may just be ‘paper tigers', while fo-
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rums that only informally perform an accountability role may prove not to be toothless. The effectiveness of
accountability depends on the power balance between the involved actors. The properties and resources of
forums can be decisive: on the one hand, a forum endowed with moral authority may induce compliance,
even without coercion. On the other, actors may face collective action problems when establishing forums,
and apart from formal competence and sanctioning power, forums may require expertise to process informa-
tion and may also be bounded by the ‘bottleneck of attention'.
There are basically two sources legitimizing a forum to exercise prerogatives with respect to political account-
ability. The first source is when the forum is a ‘principal’ that has previously delegated (some of its) prerog-
atives to an agent. Being in such a delegation relationship, the agent becomes accountable to the principal,
and accountability is then based on ‘ownership’ (Bovens et al., 2014: 5). Typical examples are the account-
ability of elected officials to their constituencies, of members of the bureaucracy to their political superiors, of
the leadership of interest group representatives to the rank and file, and so on. The second source is affect-
edness: those who convincingly argue that they are (deliberately or not) affected by the outcomes of policy
outputs can claim – and even more if they have not participated in the policy process and are subject to ex-
ternalities – that they have a legitimate right to hold output producers to account.3 As noted before, apart
from these forms of political accountability that are respectively based on authority and stakeholder legitima-
cy (Bovens et al., 2014: 3), public decision-makers may be held to account by (in principle) independent and
impartial third parties, such as courts.
Representative Government: The Crucial Function of Competitive Elections

In representative democracies the existence of competitive elections is the core mechanism that should en-
sure the accountability of the incumbents and, therefore, their responsiveness to the citizenry. They are at
the same time a mechanism of authorisation to represent based on electoral pledges – ex ante ‘promissory’
representation (Mansbridge, 2003) – and a mechanism of ex post accountability that casts its shadow over
decision-makers. The fear of the verdict of the ‘tribunal of public opinion’ (according to Jeremy Bentham's
famous metaphor) acts as a counterforce to the power of the rulers, and the risk of exposure of misconduct
to that fictional tribunal is a disciplining device. The anticipation of future competitive elections induces rep-
resentatives to behave responsively if they want to avoid being ‘thrown out’ as ‘rascals’ (Manin, 1997). In
democracies agents are only temporarily and conditionally authorised to act in the name of their principals.
Ex post accountability follows ex ante authorisation and acts as a safeguard for decision-makers’ responsive-
ness to the preferences of voters (although it is not always conceptually clear whether the preferences that
matter are those of particular electoral constituencies, the majority, the median voter or the citizenry at large):
During electoral campaigns, candidates make various promises and, in electing a candidate, con-
stituents authorize the candidate to carry out these promises in his or her capacity as an elected
official. If representatives violate their promises, acting contrary to what they have been authorized
to do, then constituents can hold them accountable by voting them out of office in the next election.
(Volmert, 2012: 299)
The normative attractiveness of this standard model of accountability relies on its assumption of a direct line
upward from citizens to the government and downward from the government to society (Hupe and Edwards,
2012: 182). It is a circular model – from voters to representatives and vice versa – and assumes that repre-
sentation is ‘thermostatic': governments and citizens, respectively, adjust their policy choices and their policy
preferences. For accountability to ensure responsiveness, decision-makers need to anticipate the risk of elec-
toral sanction and integrate it in their calculations (an operation that those with negative views of party politics
call ‘electoralism’ and associate with short-sightedness). It is the threat of being dismissed from office that
forces the incumbents to be responsive to citizens’ preferences, especially if they believe that the outcome of
the forthcoming election is uncertain. What is more, the political communication literature that highlights the

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increasing mediatisation of politics suggests that parties and politicians are nowadays under strong pressure
to continuously justify their conduct to the public.
Nevertheless, the role of elections as an accountability mechanism should not be idealised. Unlike policy
referenda, electoral choice is a very crude indicator of voters’ policy preferences. Moreover, for electoral ac-
countability to operate effectively, a condition is that voting is retrospective. Citizens need to be primarily moti-
vated in their voting choice by their desire either to reward or punish the incumbent government. This may be
a bold assumption: ‘How are voters, whose utility is derived from outcomes, to decide among parties that offer
policies?', questions Przeworski (1998: 143; italics in the original). Against too narrow a conception of voters’
instrumental rationality, one should also consider that ‘loyalists’ with a strong attachment to the incumbent
party will be less likely to sanction it, even if they are dissatisfied. Accountability may also be undermined if
voting is primarily prospective – that is, if voters do not make their choices based on their evaluation of the
past record of the power holders, but are forward-looking and trust above all candidates’ promises about the
future. The mixture of voting motives may have as a consequence that a negatively evaluated government
(retrospective vote) stays in power if voters find that the available alternatives (prospective vote) are worse.
Furthermore, the nature and dynamics of the party system mediate the role of elections as an accountabil-
ity mechanism because multiparty systems tend to lead to coalition governments that reduce the clarity of
responsibility. The formation of such governments is the outcome of party negotiations that escape voters’
control.
Beyond Electoral Accountability: Refining the Principal–Agent Model of Dele-

gation and Control
Accountability is not limited to the relation between elected officials and voters. Parliamentary systems are
characterised by the existence of a chain of delegation: voters delegate their power to MPs; the parliament
delegates some of its powers to the executive, which delegates some of its prerogatives to the bureaucracy,
which has its own internal chain of command. This chain of principal–agent relations is paralleled by a chain of
accountability that operates in the reverse direction: street-level bureaucrats are accountable to more senior
civil servants and the latter to their political superiors; these officials are accountable to the prime minister,
who is accountable to the political majority that supports the government; and the latter is accountable to the
citizenry (Strom et al., 2006). Of course, the existence de jure of a formal chain does not guarantee that all
elements of the chain operate as expected, as this depends on the resources possessed by the fora and the
credibility of their sanctioning capacities. For example, it has been widely argued that a consequence of the
increased complexity of policy matters, as well as of the internationalisation of policy-making, is that parlia-
mentary assemblies as institutions become less effective – not only in producing legislation, but also in hold-
ing the executive accountable. Some parliaments have more recently reacted to their loss of power and have
chosen to ‘fight back’ against ‘deparliamentarisation’ (Raunio and Hix, 2000), but the capacity and willingness
of parliaments to scrutinise their executives’ activities remain uneven, and this counter-trend generates its
own accountability problems because parliamentary influence over governmental positions is primarily exer-
cised informally (Auel and Benz, 2005). Another limitation results from the fact that the principal–agent model
assumes that principals are able to express clear preferences and, therefore, formulate explicit mandates to
their agents. The correct operation of the accountability chain also presupposes that agents’ conduct can eas-
ily be decoded by principals who are able to evaluate it unambiguously, whereas ambiguity obfuscates such
relations in real life.
The vertical chain of accountability may be supplemented by horizontal accountability mechanisms (O'Don-
nell, 1998), frequently to non-majoritarian institutions in order to safeguard the rule of law and to protect mi-
norities and individuals from abuses of power and violations of their rights. ‘Horizontal’ refers to formal ac-
countability relations between institutional actors with roughly equivalent power. In bicameral systems with
two chambers endowed with similar competencies, for instance, each chamber is in a sense accountable
to the other, as it needs to convince the other about the pertinence of its decisions in order to prevent a
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veto. Even if some horizontal accountability mechanisms may involve legal actors – such as accountability to
courts – they frequently have a political impact, such as whenever courts act as ‘veto players’ by striking down
pieces of legislation. The so-called judicialisation of politics means that judges become de facto co-legislators
because the scrutiny right of courts forces the legislator to anticipate their verdict. Although courts are usually
considered as ‘negative’ legislators, thanks to their veto power, it appears that they are more than that be-
cause they make recommendations (which are often given due consideration by the official legislators) as to
how the incriminated laws should be revised. In other words, like the shadow of future elections that induces
the incumbents to be responsive to the voters’ preferences, the consequence of the shadow of court rulings
is that the (alleged) preferences of the judiciary are endogenised by elected officials. As this may conflict with
the preferences of democratic principals, elected officials may be caught in accountability dilemmas.
These developments have given rise to controversies regarding the quality of democracy: they are welcome
by those defending a liberal–constitutionalist conception of democracy who criticise ‘defective democracies’
for not providing sufficient countervailing powers to unrestrained majority rule (Merkel and Croissant, 2004),
while others are worried about the fact that the formal separation of power is undermined, and about the dan-
ger of ‘juristocracy’ (Hirschl, 2007). To what extent should unelected accountability forums be able – in the
name of impartiality and the public interest – to hold elected politicians to account? This is an open question.
Fire Alarms and Monitory Democracy

Diagonal accountability relations should be given consideration, too. They refer to situations in which an actor
is formally accountable to a forum that has no formal sanctioning capacity, but that may report to another
entity that is hierarchically superior to the actor and does have coercive power. This endows the first forum
with a de facto power to redress misbehaviour, as in the case of the ombudsman institution. In that respect
accountability is mediated (Warren, 2014: 49) and the forums characterised by resource interdependence.
This is also visible in the fact that, although forums may perform their control function directly by actively and
systematically overseeing the activity of their targets, this requires investing considerable efforts, so that it
might be less costly for forums to delegate their tasks. Holding an actor accountable incurs monitoring costs
and coordination (even though not necessarily deliberate cooperation) between forums can reduce them. To
use a classic distinction, ‘police patrol’ arrangements reduce the risk of moral hazard and opportunistic be-
haviour because systematic controls are feared, but it may be cost-saving for forums to rely on external ‘fire
alarms’ (e.g. the media, NGOs or experts that have, for their own reasons, an interest in disclosing and blam-
ing misconduct).4 Therefore, control also becomes delegated, though de facto and not through a deliberate
act of delegation. Relying on ‘fire alarms’ instead of using ‘police patrols’ to ensure accountability requires
that the forum places trust on external actors, therefore shifting scrutiny tasks may also entail perils, as does
delegation in general.
Reliance on fire alarms means that ‘social’ accountability to informal forums may be a ‘second-best’ or ‘sur-
rogate’ form of accountability in the absence of formal accountability forums and procedures. Perhaps the
most important informal accountability forum nowadays is the media system, which acts in the name of public
opinion. Forums such as the media are devoid of formal sanctioning power, but ‘watchdog journalism’ may
be a safeguard against misconduct because the media act as intermediaries that alert actors with sanction-
ing power: some bark and others bite. In other words, forums with strong sanctioning capacities, but limited
time resources (such as legislative oversight committees), can benefit from forums without sanctioning ca-
pacities yet with strong informational capabilities (such as investigative media). Reliance on fire alarms for
accountability illustrates the advent of ‘monitory’ democracy, in which the action of political officials is under
the continuous scrutiny of monitory organisations and networks (Keane, 2009), and of ‘audience’ democracy
(Manin, 1997), in which going public and alerting public opinion becomes a key feature of politics.
This is no doubt a positive development for the vigour of democracy, although one may also deplore excesses
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that contribute to the erosion of public support for politicians. This happens, for example, when ruthless media
outlets, driven by their own commercial logic, privilege negative reporting on blunders and scandals and
search for scapegoats, with the risk that this behaviour unfairly destroys the reputation of honest politicians
(Papadopoulos, 2013: 49–64). More generally, the media may be biased in their role as accountability forums
because their attention is primarily drawn to those issues that are sufficiently salient to be newsworthy.
Further, a parallel can be drawn to some extent with the debate on ‘surrogate representation’ (Mansbridge,
2003), in which NGOs act as ‘surrogates’ for the populations whose wellbeing is of concern to them. In the
case of surrogate representation, Saward emphasises the need for ‘chosenness', which means the obligation
to ‘successfully claim requisite degrees of representativeness’ (2011: 93), or, in other words, the acceptance
by the supposedly represented constituencies (90) of aspirations to ‘authenticity’ as credible. In the case of
surrogate accountability forums, they act in the name of other legitimate forums, such as public opinion, so
there should be some (at least tacit) general consent on such a role devolved to surrogates. The problem is,
however, that it is difficult for unorganized segments of the population to raise their voice against that of pow-
erful surrogates such as the media. Moreover, surrogate forums also act in the name of intangible principles
(e.g. the respect of human rights) and communities (e.g. future generations), and this prevents the authentic-
ity test. As such forums are not formally mandated to play their monitory role, they have no proper ‘licence to
control’ from democratic principles; thus, their legitimacy to hold accountable is a matter of contention.
Finally, the inherent accountability of monitory bodies, as in the case of NGOs, should be debated as well.
Although their role as accountability forums has become more prominent, they are themselves not account-
able to the general public and it is uncertain to whom they should be accountable: through the affectedness
principle to those whose interests they pretend to defend, or rather through the ownership principle and then
primarily to their members or to their major funders?
The Prevalence of Complex and ‘Messy’ Forms of Governance and Account-

ability
The presence in contemporary political–administrative systems of horizontal and diagonal accountability rela-
tions along with vertical relations signals that accountability, even though considered as a correlate of delega-
tion relations, is not confined to them. Therefore, the stylised principal–agent model is insufficiently equipped
to capture the dynamics of real-existing governance processes and, more specifically, the universe of signif-
icant accountability relations. The picture becomes even more complex if we consider the advent of ‘multi-
level’ governance: decision-makers belong to different jurisdictional levels. Take the case of governance and
accountability in the European Union system: democratically elected governments of EU member states are
certainly accountable to their domestic constituencies, but they may also be held to account by supranational
forums (for example, the Commission or the Court of Justice) and they need to explain and justify their be-
haviour to their European counterparts. These forums do not necessarily share the same preferences, which
causes accountability dilemmas: governments have to cope with ‘multiple accountability disorders’ (MAD)
(Koppell, 2005). Moreover, some forums’ lack of sufficient democratic credentials may be of concern for nor-
mative reasons.
More generally, contemporary systems of government are often characterised by high levels of complexity
and even ‘messiness'. The process of governing is often interactive, entailing collaboration among various in-
terdependent state and non-public agents. Political decisions are formulated or implemented though bargain-
ing or deliberation in polymorphous networks, usually involving politicians, administrators, interest represen-
tatives, stakeholders and experts. In policy networks multiple principals with distinct preferences cohabit with
multiple agents, while the latter are embedded in intricate accountability webs with many forums endowed
with unequal resources and power. This complex ecology leads ‘to a more diversified and pluralistic set of
accountability relationships’ (Bovens, 2007: 110), which especially affects informal (not legally codified) rela-
tions. Inside policy networks, ‘interdependence’ (Scott, 2000: 50–2) accountability tends to gain in relevance,
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sustained by the sharing of common norms and expectations (Romzek et al., 2012). Participants engaged
in iterative cooperative relations need to trust each other that the commitments they make are credible and,
subject to the disciplining power of ‘naming and shaming’ and the fear of loss of reputation, they accordingly
adjust their behaviour to the expectations of their peers (Papadopoulos, 2010). Therefore, although informal
and horizontal accountability relations are very different from formal political accountability ties, they are not
less significant as regulators of one's behaviour.
However, again, the requirements of peer accountability may not coincide with those of accountability to de-
mocratic principals or to affected populations, whose preferences and expectations may diverge from those
of the network members. This scenario differs from a situation where fire alarms alert forums. In that case the
scrutinising actors were interdependent and pooled resources to achieve accountability. In the case discussed
now, there is a patchwork of overlapping and uncoordinated forums with different preferences, expectations
and standards. One may expect that accountability dilemmas will be solved to the profit of the most powerful
forum(s) or that the inflation of accountability demands will undermine effective accountability.
Even if accountability to democratic principals remains a salient issue for participants in governance networks,
network characteristics may prevent outsiders from appropriately evaluating what happens therein. Monitors
have difficulty in penetrating such governance arenas situated at the ‘backstage', and this is a limitation that
is not given due consideration by those emphasising the advent of ‘monitory’ democracy. To be more specific,
visibility is a precondition for accountability because it reduces informational asymmetries: if the accountabil-
ity forums are confronted with hidden information, they will not be able to critically scrutinise the operation of
governance processes. This does not mean that such processes are purposively concealed from the public,
but that the structural conditions for visibility to outsiders may not exist. Network-like modes of governance
are frequently informal and weakly codified and, perhaps more importantly, it is hard to judge in networks who
is responsible for what, and how much (Considine and Afzal, 2011: 376), something that is referred to in the
literature as the ‘problem of many hands’ (Thompson, 1980) or the ‘paradox of shared responsibility’ (Bovens,
1998: 45–52). The more policy networks are uncoupled from the arena of democratic politics, the higher the
risk of difficulties or even errors in assigning blame. On the one hand, when responsibility is diluted, actors
can more easily offload accountability and engage in ‘blame-shift games’ in order to avoid criticism or sanc-
tion for poor performance (Hood, 2010). On the other hand, especially because of media attention, elected
officials are highly visible targets for sanctions without necessarily being the key players in policy networks,
in which their influence is challenged by interest group representatives, members of the bureaucracy and
experts. In any case, the effectiveness of the democratic feedback loop decreases. Those who are formally
accountable to the citizenry de facto delegate some of their power to actors who are not publicly visible and
whose activities are not mediatised. Hence, the incumbents are held to account for outputs whose formulation
or implementation escapes their control, at least partly, and those aspiring to office make pledges that will be
difficult to fulfil because policy outputs also mirror the preferences of other influential actors who participate in
the negotiation processes that take place in policy networks.
Administrative Reforms and New Accountability Regimes

Political scientists are not usually very concerned about the components of the accountability chain beyond
voters and elected officials. Administration scientists, by contrast, acknowledge that organisational complexity
increased through the delegation of rule-making tasks to non-majoritarian institutions and expert bodies at
arm's length, and more generally with several layers of administrative reform under the banner of new public
management and its epigones, such as ‘joined-up government'.
There have been many debates as to whether the enhanced independence of public agencies entails their
lack of accountability, or whether they are not uncontrolled since they remain accountable. Being typical ex-
amples of ‘output-oriented’ organisations, agencies need to justify their choices and convince various audi-
ences about their contribution, so it would definitely be wrong to equate their independence with a lack of ac-
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countability: reporting and auditing are important aspects of agencies’ agenda. Moreover, there seems to be
an ‘autonomisation paradox': autonomy is frequently accompanied by more stringent results-based controls,
so that agencies perceive themselves as being more controlled than before, especially if they deal with salient
topics such as food safety or the regulation of finance (Verhoest et al., 2010: 263). Even if the management of
agencies is no longer directly accountable to the ministry, agencies have account-giving obligations to other
forums. Although the accountability regime of each agency differs, agencies are part of an accountability web
in which they are held to account by different forums on different matters. Most notably, they are subject to
managerial surveillance by agency boards, to financial surveillance by auditing institutions and to legal sur-
veillance by courts. In the European Union, national agencies become part of a multi-level system through
their participation in European networks. In a sense they become parts of two administrations – the national
and the European – which adds yet another layer to their accountability obligations, with the Commission fre-
quently playing the role of the forum. One should add to these formal aspects a de facto obligation to justify
policy to stakeholders (firms from the regulated sector, consumer associations) or to the media in the case
of salient issues. As we know, such forums have no direct sanctioning power, but their support is necessary
for agency legitimacy. Overall, as agencies do not seem to be unaccountable, the question is rather if their
accountability regime is coordinated and does not induce accountability dilemmas, and to what extent and in
what forms their accountability to democratic principals and to the public at large is safeguarded.
Coming now to discussion of the impact on accountability of reforms of the traditional administration, we
should first mention that many among them are also driven by an accountability agenda because they aim
at greater responsiveness to the needs of service users. A prominent example of new mechanisms of ac-
countability related to administrative reform is the diffusion of the ombudsman institution, which has increased
opportunities for citizens to oblige public organisations to justify their behaviour in decisions that directly affect
them. With managerial reform, the senior staff of public organisations came to enjoy more discretion but also
lost anonymity in a context of mediatisation, and their increased accountability became closely related to the
evaluation of their performance: ‘Supported by quantitative techniques of evaluation, managerial accountabil-
ity focuses on cost-effectiveness, output efficiency, results, and customer satisfaction, rather than institutional
processes and formal procedures’ (Considine and Afzal, 2011: 376). Politicians in turn acquire better tools
to make administrators accountable, while being able to blame managerial failure for their own errors. Ac-
countability also supposedly moves ‘downwards’ and becomes ‘proximate’ (Warren, 2014: 49), with ‘users’ or
‘clients’ of public services becoming forums whose feedback should be valued. However, for such feedback
to be effective, it often requires organisation and, unlike citizens’ votes, stakeholders’ ‘voice’ is not equally
distributed. Moreover, when such feedback exists, its interpretation often lies in the hands of politicians and
management who can use it as an instrument for their own strategic purposes. It should also be kept in mind
that the layering reform process has not contributed to clarity regarding accountability because successive
reforms have often been associated with different, if not contradictory, accountability requirements.
Finally, administrative reforms have often led to the replacement of direct administration by contractual rela-
tionships with more or less independent suppliers of services. The accountability obligations of hybrid bodies
endowed with public service tasks, such as partnerships involving for-profit or non-profit organisations, are in-
evitably multiform, conflicting and fuzzy, combining – for example – public with market, vertical with horizontal
and formal with non-mandatory elements. In such cases, another issue is that it becomes difficult to resolve
conflicts through hierarchical channels. What used to be internal bureaucratic disputes become ‘externalised',
leading to litigation. This is yet another driving factor of the empowerment of courts as accountability forums.
The Accountability Gaps in Governance Beyond the Nation-State

Governance beyond the nation-state is often considered as the realm of intergovernmental organisations and
negotiations. Such a negotiated decision-making process provides a window of opportunity to national execu-
tives to emancipate themselves from domestic constraints. For example, they can convince domestic forums
– which are often poorly informed about intergovernmental negotiations conducted behind closed doors – that
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they had no other choice but to accept unpopular measures, shifting blame to unaccountable spheres be-
yond the national level and thereby weakening domestic governmental accountability. However, the issue of
accountability obviously transcends national political systems, especially as the more prominent role of mul-
ti-level, supranational and even global (including private) forms of governance is insufficiently captured by
traditional intergovernmental models, which fail to consider the complexity of the ecology of actors involved in
governance processes.
Beyond the state, the most sophisticated institutional creation is that of the European Union, which has be-
come a supranational political force in its own right. Therefore, it cannot be reduced to its intergovernmental
component, and this component – rule-making by democratically elected national governments – is not suffi-
cient to secure democratic accountability: each national government is only accountable to its domestic con-
stituency, not to the citizenries of other countries affected by negotiations. This problem becomes acute in the
case of asymmetric forms of intergovernmentalism, such as those that prevailed in the European Union for
the management of the eurozone crisis. One needs, however, to go beyond the criticism that the European
Union is plagued by a ‘democratic deficit'. Accountability must be disentangled according to the various loci
of power of the EU decisional system because it is necessary to move ‘from assertions to assessments’ on
the subject (Bovens et al., 2010: 174). Not only should the accountability regime of the core institutions, such
as Commission, Council and Parliament, be considered; so should the regimes of more recent creations. Ex-
amples include the European Council of heads of state and government; a technocratic institution such as
the European Central Bank, which substantially expanded its policy mandate during the crisis; or an infor-
mal governance body of the European Monetary Union such as the Eurogroup. One should add the policy
role of less visible bodies: ‘backstagers', such as the numerous comitology committees (composed of nation-
al experts and in charge of the implementation of European legislation), or ‘outposts', such as the European
agencies (Bovens et al., 2010). In a multi-layered governance system such as that in the EU, complexity
‘breeds opaqueness, indeterminacy, and creates incentives for executive improvisation, negotiation, and en-
trepreneurship’ (Bovens et al., 2010: 196). Hence, effective control procedures are a basic requirement, with
the risk that they need to be themselves complex, informal, and perhaps also opaque. Bovens et al. (2010:
192) correctly suggest that ‘it takes a network to catch a network, but from an accountability perspective the
simultaneous dispersal of both actors and forums into networks creates a whole set of new challenges'.
With the growing role of rule-making bodies that have a global reach, the issue of accountability has pene-
trated this level, too (Koenig-Archibugi, 2010).5 Most international organisations are hybrids, incorporating a
global body acting autonomously and a negotiation system comprising representatives from national govern-
ments. Rules of international organisations are officially negotiated by governments, but frequently prepared
by top-ranking administrators that are part of transnational sectoral networks (Slaughter, 2004), for example,
in trade policy (in the WTO) or in financial policy (in the IMF). The accountability chain in the IMF is ‘tortu-
ous’ (Sperling, 2009: 42) – from administrative staff, to the executive board, to the board of governors, to the
government of member states represented by a governor, and finally to national voters. In addition, members
of the IMF executive council are not bound to follow the instructions of their state of origin, they cannot be
removed before their term has expired, they are not subject to formal reviews or evaluation and their actions
are not made public (Woods, 2006: 192). Moreover, upward accountability grounded on ownership may col-
lide with outward accountability because of affectedness:
The IMF might be considered accountable to those whose money it is lending to take only reason-
able risks, which leads to a policy of requiring structural adjustments. But it is also called to account
for the effects of those structural adjustments within the countries accepting the conditions of IMF
loans. (Grant and Keohane, 2005: 33)
Further, governance at the international level takes place not only in international organisations and functional
regimes such as the UN and WTO, but also, notably, in the field of regulation in less formalised and spe-
cialised instances such as the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) or the International Organi-
zation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO). These organisations ‘tend to operate with a minimum of physical
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and legal infrastructure; most lack a foundational treaty and operate only along a few agreed upon objec-
tives or bylaws’ (Slaughter, 2004: 48). They do not have the capacity to issue binding decisions, but their soft
norms of conduct are highly influential on collectively binding decisions issued by governments, which raises
the issue of their accountability.
Typically, the media and international NGOs scrutinise the deeds of transnational governance bodies and per-
form a monitory function based (for the media) on the claim that they represent public opinion and (for NGOs)
on claims to represent the public interest (embodied in environmental protection for instance) or diffuse in-
terests (such as those of consumers and even of ‘speechless’ communities, such as animal species or the
future generations). There is no doubt that such forums have become a countervailing power to transnational
rule-making bodies. It can even be argued that, for a lack of democratic institutions at the global level that
renders the domestic analogy irrelevant, accountability to surrogates tends to be considered the functional
equivalent of the disciplining power of elections upon decision-makers at a national level. Such an analogy is,
however, limited: surveillance by actors of the so-called global civil society remains ‘a rather soft mechanism
of holding international network governance to account’ (Steffek, 2008: 15). What is more, NGOs do not es-
cape problems of opacity, elitism, lack of representativeness and of accountability (Steffek and Hahn, 2010).
NGOs often speak in the name of groups not represented in the organisation, but organisational leaderships
do not have to seek approval from them for acting as surrogates, nor do they have to provide justification to
them for their action. In addition, the internal accountability of NGOs to their members may be weak. Hence,
in ‘monitory’ democracy, the monitors may themselves not be sufficiently accountable.
At the global level, important trends towards the privatisation of regulation are also detected, which lead to
major deficits in political accountability. One first observes various forms of unequally codified public–private
partnerships (PPPs), which are also en vogue at the national level. A prominent example is the World Com-
mission on Dams, which incorporated national governments – the World Bank, NGOs and construction firms
to make the construction of large dams compatible with sustainability requirements. Although it may not be
legitimate to generalise, case studies reveal that ‘mechanisms through which affected actors can control the
decision making in the supreme governance bodies of PPPs are largely absent’ (Beisheim et al., 2010: 377).
To the development of PPPs should be added the thorough delegation of global governance functions to pri-
vate regulatory regimes, which exist in fields as diverse as the regulation of the internet and intellectual prop-
erty, international minerals, insurance, maritime transport industries and industrial production standard-set-
ting. For example, together with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the International Stan-
dardization Organization (ISO) accounts for about 85 per cent of all international product standards. Market
globalisation gave a prominent role to ISO, and many of its standards become binding through official en-
dorsement. Although membership is by country, ISO funding is private, states cannot be members and the
organisation can best be described as a network of hundreds of technical committees and thousands of ex-
perts, whose institutional backbone is formed by private sector standards bodies at the national level (Büthe
and Mattli, 2010). Clearly, the shift of de facto authority to private hands should not be attributed to a deliber-
ate attempt to hollow out democratic procedures. Nevertheless, it contributes to the technocratisation of poli-
cy-making, which is a major issue at the global level. Similarly, there is at this level a stark contrast between
the proliferation of (indeed frequently quite effective) accountability mechanisms and the non-democratic ac-
countability standards upon which most of them draw (Goodhart, 2014: 292–5).
Recent Advances in Accountability Research

Before concluding this chapter, I would like to highlight some major recent advances in accountability research
that contribute to our empirical knowledge or are likely to enrich the normative debate. Regarding novel em-
pirical findings, it is worth considering the contribution of research on the accountability of national and Euro-
pean regulatory agencies and its relation to more general considerations on political accountability. Although
the research object is a segment of the public administration, it would make sense to test if empirical findings
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on agency behaviour can be extended to the behaviour of the state bureaucracy in general, and beyond that
to the behaviour of elected officials as well (even though accountability forums differ). Much of accountabil-
ity thinking is dominated by the principal–agent model, according to which the delegation chain should be
paralleled by an accountability chain in order to avoid agency ‘drift’ if the preferences of agents differ from
those of principals. In such a view, agents are inclined to opportunistic behaviour and would therefore have
good reason to seek to evade accountability whenever possible. However, recent research contradicts such
an assumption. The management of agencies not only does not evade accountability, but also is proactive in
seeking it. Why is this so? First, a consequential logic is at work: agencies contemplate costs and benefits;
anticipate that a benevolent attitude from the accountability forum, if it adopts the posture of an ally, will be a
resource; and therefore come to estimate that being voluntarily accountable helps them accumulate a capital
of trust on behalf of forums that immunises them from threats. Second, a normative logic of ‘appropriateness’
(March and Olsen, 2008) is also at work, which is obscured by the principal–agent approach: agencies simply
regard voluntary accountability as an appropriate practice (Koop, 2014). Whatever logic is at work, it appears
in the light of such findings that accountability relations between an actor and a forum should not be seen
as merely adversarial and constraining for the actor who has to account. One could further hypothesise that
willingness to account depends upon beliefs of the forum possessing expertise and not being toothless (con-
sequential logic), but also on the perceived legitimacy of the forum (normative logic).
We also know that the establishment of accountability forums requires effort. Their constitution may be imped-
ed by collective action problems due to the heterogeneity of those with an interest in creating them. We have
also seen that the advent of ‘monitory’ democracy finds its limits in the fact that many rule-making activities
are – purposively or not – insulated from the highly mediatised sphere of politics. Hence, a lack of account-
ability may not be due to agency drift, but to forum paralysis or forum drift (Schillemans and Busuioc, 2015):
accountability forums may not be able or willing to perform their functions. Forums may lack information or,
conversely, may be flooded with too much information that they do not have the time or the cognitive ability
to process, making the evaluation process extremely costly. Forums may also be reluctant to perform their
monitoring role because they prefer to concentrate their attention on those issues that are salient to them,
behaving thus as ‘rational ignorants'.
Another recent body of research that also concentrates on the accountability of administrative agencies ex-
plores how individual (senior) members of agency bureaucracy perceive their own personal accountability.
Again, political science would benefit from insights borrowed from research on organisational behaviour, and
the study of subjective views on accountability deserves to be extended to other categories of the state per-
sonnel, such as elected officials. ‘Felt’ accountability is derived from experimental psychology and other dis-
ciplines such as human resources management. It has been defined as ‘[t]he implicit or explicit expectation
that one's decisions or actions will be subject to evaluation by some salient audience(s) with the belief that
there exists the potential for one to receive either rewards or sanctions based on this expected evaluation’
(Hochwarter et al., 2007: 227). A recent seven-nation study to which the author of this chapter has contributed
(Schillemans et al., s.d.) reveals that the agency management feel strong accountability pressure from parent
departments that are not always considered as highly legitimate, and even less deemed to possess adequate
expertise. An interpretation is that accountability is felt in that case more as a source of irritation and less as a
moral duty. It would be interesting to know how accountability would be considered if the forums were deemed
to possess high expertise: would accountability merely be feared, or would it also be accepted because it is
legitimate?
Finally, given that the need for accountability is frequently associated with the issue of delegation, account-
ability is a blind spot when delegation is absent. What about the accountability of ordinary citizens? As their
power to decide is not delegated, there is no normative need for accountability because of ownership (they
‘own’ their decision rights), but the same cannot be said for accountability because of affectedness. Should
voters be accountable, and to whom, when they elect their representatives? Perhaps more importantly, given
the recent increasing use of instruments of direct participation such as referendums, should citizens be held
accountable for their policy choices (Warren, 2014: 45–6)? Even in the case of direct democracy, it is mis-
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leading to posit a congruence between policy-makers and policy-takers. Referendum outcomes may produce
externalities affecting constituencies that are not powerful enough to influence the vote and, therefore, are
not exempt from the risk of subjection to majority tyranny. Vatter and Danaci (2011) have shown, for example,
that referendum outcomes in Switzerland are more inimical to minorities – especially the foreign resident pop-
ulation that has no right to vote – than decisions taken in parliamentary votes. The generation of externalities
affects not only groups that are not able to have a say, but also future generations: one may think of decisions
on environmental matters or on the sustainability and intergenerational equity of pension schemes. Offe and
Preuss (1991) argued in favour of the necessity for citizens to develop moral resources so that they display
self-restraint and make decisions that are other- and future-regarding. How can this be achieved? Trechsel
(2010) argues that in the context of direct democracy, citizens must develop reflexive accountability towards
themselves. This is not without some resemblance to accountability to internalised norms and role prescrip-
tions developed by professionals. The reflective turn becomes even more sophisticated in Goodin's work, in
which he pleads for people to become more decentred and empathetic by imagining themselves in the posi-
tion of other people and asking what they would think about a policy proposal (Goodin, 2003). This may be
desirable, but it is very uncertain if reflexive accountability alone suffices to lead to such virtuous attitudes.
Brennan and Pettit (1990), for example, suggested in an influential theoretical piece that voters do not choose
responsibly because the secrecy of the vote shields them from public scrutiny, and proposed as a remedy
to unveil the vote. Publicity of the vote is not sufficient as such; rather, publicity is a means to make voters
answerable for their decisions because it induces them to choose in a discursively defensible manner. This
is not without dangers – publicity may discourage voters to justify their preferences on purely self-interested
reasons, but it may also favour group pressure and conformity – but, again, the costs and benefits of voters’
accountability should be considered simultaneously.
Critical Assessment and Ongoing Debates: Maximising or Optimising Ac-

countability?
This chapter started with a reminder that accountability is usually a positive value. One could therefore logi-
cally expect that designers of democratic institutions seek to maximise the accountability of power-wielders.
However, the ‘pathologies’ (Halachmi, 2014) of accountability include both deficits and overloads: account-
ability is a value among others and its maximisation might entail undesired trade-offs. The advent of an ‘audit
society’ has been criticised for good reason because an ‘overload’ of accountability may be problematic in
several respects. There are obvious privacy issues if the powerful can use a pervasive Benthamian (or Fou-
cauldian) ‘panopticon’ to exert surveillance over their subjects. However, political accountability that we study
here has to do with the control and contestation of rule-makers (Heidelberg, 2017), not rule-takers, and the
vulnerability of the powerful is an indicator of the empowerment of those who are otherwise powerless (Wal-
dron, 2014: 27).
Having said that, ‘excess’ accountability may negatively impact the conduct of those – even the powerful –
subject to controls, which in turn may have deleterious consequences on the public interest. Over-exposure
and too much stress on the culpability dimension may be felt negatively by the objects of accountability and
psychological evidence reveals that if accountability is perceived as intrusive or insulting, then the pressures
may boomerang (Lerner and Tetlock, 1999: 258–9). They may therefore induce blame-avoidance or risk-
averse strategies, such as ritualistic ‘appearance of conformity’ (Philp, 2009: 43). They may also induce ex-
cessive proceduralism that inhibits thinking out of the box and, therefore, impede organisational learning, suc-
cessful adaptation or innovation. The presence of ‘many eyes’ may lead to fatalism or indifference because
it increases the randomness of control (Hood, 2010). Ultimately, an inflation of accountability mechanisms
may fuel ‘mutual suspicion and intrusive surveillance’ (Warren, 2014: 44), undermine trust relationships that
are necessary in governance and lead to the dominance of a ‘bad faith model of politics’ (Flinders, 2012).
Hence, it is wiser to plead for an optimisation of accountability, although it is not easy of course to establish
the adequate degree of accountability. This becomes even more difficult because accountability is multifac-

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eted: choices need to be made about who exactly should be held to account, by whom, for what, through
what means, and with what kind of consequences.
A related issue is that of the role of sanctions in accountability. The existence of sanctions is a Damoclean
sword that reduces the risk of misconduct, but excesses in the use of sanctions may also lead to a depletion
of mutual trust. Sanctions are an instrument, not an end: therefore, maximising sanctions ex post may be less
appropriate than combining them with ex ante mechanisms of socialisation – that, indeed, require investment
in the long term – to inculcate an ethos of responsibility among the rule-makers. Control is also effective when
it is internalised, leading to self-restraint not only because rule-makers fear sanctions, but also because they
come to develop preferences that are aligned with values that promote the public interest. The consequential
logic (anticipation of rewards and sanctions) should operate in combination with a logic of appropriateness
that dictates the kind of behaviour that is normatively valued by rule-makers.
Further, one should not assimilate an increase of accountability to an increase of its democratic component.
Accountability to democratic principals may be limited, while other forms of monitoring, scrutiny, checking and
auditing are steadily increasing (Papadopoulos, 2010), as in the case of international organisations that are
subject to accountability regimes that involve several formal and informal third parties as forums. What we
observe today is a proliferation of accountability mechanisms more closely related to the concrete activities
of decision-making bodies, including accountability to ombudsmen and courts and to informal forums such
as the media or NGOs. Does this offset the gap engendered by the growth of democratically unaccountable
policy-making, and illustrated most prominently by the rise of private governance bodies? This is debatable.
We have seen that democratic accountability is not always possible, and that surrogate forms then need to be
invented, but these forms are not without problems. Mutual accountability may be high between the actors in-
volved in rule-making processes, but the democratic credentials of several of them may be disputable. There
are also inequalities in actors’ capacities to effectively hold decision-makers to account. In addition, the ac-
countability forums may be self-selected, or even sometimes selected by those that should provide accounts
to them.
Finally, although the existence of democratic accountability seems an obvious candidate for the provision
of political legitimacy, one can also – a bit provocatively – ask to what extent it is desirable itself. We have
seen ‘the rise of the unelected’ (Vibert, 2007), and Pierre (2009: 592) writes that ‘power and accountability
have been divorced, if not de jure so de facto and we now need to assess what this means for democratic
governance'. This is correct, but one should also consider the consequences of the opposite challenge to
democracy, that is, the current dramatic rise of populism. Populism advocates a conception of politics accord-
ing to which the ‘people’ are better served if they rule themselves instead of delegating their power. If this is
unfeasible, then rule-makers should closely mirror the preferences of the ‘people’ (or, more precisely, of the
majority of a given constituency) and be subject to close monitoring by them: delegation should be limited,
veto points absent and accountability maximal. It is not without reason that such developments are perceived
as threatening for the quality of liberal democracy, which also rests on the existence of checks and balances
to unfiltered majority rule and on the protection of minority rights. Democratic accountability should not be
liberticide.
Notes
1 One can think of responsiveness to voters’ preferences, the respect of procedural norms (such as fairness,
impartiality or proportionality), the degree of performance and goal achievement, the adequate management
of public funds, the personal qualities (such as probity) of politicians and so on.
2 Political (for elected officials), legal/judicial (for specific rules), administrative/managerial (for civil servants),
and so on.

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3 Defining affectedness is more likely to engender controversy than defining ownership because delegation
relations are more visible than relations between outputs and outcomes.
4 The distinction is also inspired by the principal–agent model: members of the US Congress (principals) use
different devices to monitor the bureaucracy (agent) and avoid agency drift (McCubbins and Schwartz, 1984).
It can be extended to accountability relations beyond the principal–agent dyad.
5 This argument closely follows Papadopoulos, 2013: chapter 3.
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• actors
• voting
• elections
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n44

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Authoritarianisms and Authoritarianization
Contributors: Oliver Schlumberger & Tasha Schedler

Chapter Title: "Authoritarianisms and Authoritarianization"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Authoritarianisms and Authoritarianization

Oliver Schlumberger Tasha Schedler
A Short History
Authoritarianism is today mostly viewed as contrary to democracy. Ever since humans settled and formed
communities larger than the groups of a nomadic hunter-and-gatherer society, people have predominantly
lived under ‘dictatorship’ – even though the term emerged much later than language. No matter where we
look at historical forms of human association, patterns of authority have tended to be strictly hierarchical, and
political participation, or active part-taking in political decision-making, has for the most part been restricted to
a very narrow stratum of political elites, a small group, or even individual leaders: Egypt's pharaohs, Chinese
and East African emperors, Maya and Inca kings, ancient Sahel rulers such as the Jolof empire's bours, the
Mongol Khans, French emperors or post-independence rulers of sub-Saharan Africa may serve as examples.
Political association under female leadership has not been an exception to this rule, as examples such as
Queen Zenobia of Palmyra, Cleopatra of Egypt and others demonstrate.
While democracy is thus historically relatively recent and an exception rather than the rule, from the second
half of the 20th century it came to be seen by some as a universal value. Recent trends, however, signal that
the portion of humankind that suffers authoritarian rule has been increasing over the past two decades. Why
‘suffer'? Of course, not all subjects suffer under dictatorship. Rulers, their elites and circles of core supporters
usually fare well or better under authoritarianism than in a polity where equal political rights and civil liberties
are guaranteed even to opponents. But democracy arguably is the one political regime type that allows the
largest possible number of people to not die of a violent, politically caused death. Since World War II, more
people have died at the hands of dictators and their repression than died of war.1
Not only is democracy a recent phenomenon, but even during that half-century when democracy became
more widespread globally than ever, each wave of democratization was followed by so-called ‘reverse waves’
during which countries (re-)authoritarianized politically.
Today, more than half of the planet's humans live under authoritarian rule. Russia, after a brief phase of demo-
cratic experiment in the early 1990s, re-emerged as a great power under its seemingly omnipotent president
Putin; contrary to previous expectations, the former ‘satellite states’ of the Soviet Union also did not generally
democratize after gaining independence, but for the most part remained firmly authoritarian. The re-strength-
ening of Chinese single-party rule, as well as continued authoritarianism in other large and populous countries
(such as Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Pak-
istan, Turkey, Vietnam and others), helped in fostering new and massive scholarly interest in authoritarianism.
It is thus of little surprise that research on authoritarianism mushroomed and that it has become one of the
hottest sub-fields in comparative politics.
Basic Concepts and Theories

Authoritarianism today refers to two related but distinct fields. First, in a broader sense, it is a social science
concept that refers to traits of the individual; in this, the term is closely related to a seminal study conducted
by Adorno and his co-authors (Adorno et al., 1950). Trying to explain how the horrors of the Nazi regime could
occur, their main explanatory variable was the nature and behavior of the individual, for which their concept
of the authoritarian personality remains a landmark in social psychology. The present contribution, however,
focuses on the understanding of the term in political science. In this latter context, authoritarianism is under-
stood as a form of political rule or a distinct type of political regime.2

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In this understanding, authoritarianism has been most prominently defined by Juan Linz (1964). Writing on
Spain under Franco, he found that this type of political regime neither fits with the established characteriza-
tions of totalitarian regimes (cf. Arendt, 1951; Friedrich and Brzezinski, 1956) nor is compatible with preva-
lent definitions of democracy (e.g. Dahl, 1971: 3; cf. also Chapter 43, this Handbook). To the extent that it
is not used as a residual category, ‘authoritarianism’ emerges in political science as an ex-negativo class in
between democracy and totalitarianism and, together with the latter two, forms the ‘classic triad’ of political
regime types.
While suggestions have been advanced to re-define authoritarianism in order to overcome weaknesses in-
herent in Linz's initial definition, none have managed to achieve the broad scholarly consensus which Linz’
proposal still enjoys. According to Linz, authoritarian regimes (1) take a limited, non-responsible form of plu-
ralism (as opposed to the political monism of totalitarian regimes and the principally unlimited pluralism of
democracies); (2) have no elaborate ideology (as opposed to totalitarian regimes), but display distinct men-
talities instead; (3) have no extensive nor intensive mobilization [unlike totalitarian regimes], ‘except [at] some
points in their development’ (Linz, 1964: 297), but are characterized by ‘political apathy’ of the populace (oth-
er than in democracies where citizens are expected to partake in public affairs and debates); and (4) are
characterized by political rule – exerted by a single leader or a small clique – in which power is exercised
‘within formally ill-defined limits’ (unlike in democracies, where power is exerted within a restricted system of
formally guaranteed rights and liberties and a system of checks and balances), but which are ‘actually quite
predictable’ (in contrast to the unpredictability of state terror exerted by totalitarian regimes) (ibid.). For Linz,
the first criterion (limited pluralism) was the most important one.
This definition, however, is not free from problems. First and foremost, it has been established in contradis-
tinction to the other two basic regime types, in an effort to delimit it from both democracies and totalitari-
anisms. This is both a strength and a weakness. One core such weakness is that Linz’ four classical criteria
of authoritarianism are packed with hard to operationalize soft language. Therefore, they allow for numerous
exceptions and require subjective interpretation; the criteria themselves thus remain ambiguous. Another key
weakness lies in the process of how these basic regime types have been defined: since each of the triad
of authoritarianism, totalitarianism and democracy was defined independently of the others and by different
scholars at different points in time, they do not follow the basic principles of how to construct typologies,
namely to build classes that are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive (cf. Sartori, 1991).
Third, an additional problem emerges when ‘authoritarianism’ is understood broadly as anything deemed ‘un-
democratic'. In this sense, there can well be ‘authoritarianism', or elements thereof, in democratic regimes
which leads to ambiguity in language.
A fourth issue, still on the typological level, arises from existing suggestions of constructing subtypes of au-
thoritarianism. While the earlier work of Linz suggested a large number of often ad hoc subtypes, more re-
cently a tripartite subtypology proposed by Geddes (1999) has become the most ubiquitously used. It distin-
guishes between single-party, personalist and military dictatorship (read: authoritarianism) while acknowledg-
ing that mixed types exist. This brings us back to the methodological and epistemological quest for mutual
exclusiveness in class-building. It becomes problematic as soon as we would wish to use regime (sub)type
as a variable to test. When it is impossible to unambiguously attribute a given empirical case to a specif-
ic (sub)type, it is equally impossible to test whether the assumed effects are attributable to that specific
(sub)type.
Not within the family of authoritarian regimes, but on the blurred borders between democracy and authoritar-
ianism, one suggestion has been to insert a fourth basic type, that is, hybrid regimes (see Gagné and Mahé,
Chapter 47, this Handbook). A much more influential suggestion was to create so-called ‘diminished sub-
types', that is, subtypes that share some but not all traits of the root concept. That has led to a broad range
of adjectives that distinguish between – often ad hoc generated – subtypes of both democracy (such as ‘illib-
eral', ‘delegative', ‘domain', ‘enclave’ and even ‘authoritarian’ democracy) and authoritarianism (‘liberalized',

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‘electoral', ‘competitive’ and so on). This has not only further blurred the boundaries of basic regime types,
but also led to oxymoronic neologisms that make little sense. If and when, however, such adjectives were
added in order to create classical subtypes (i.e. subtypes that fulfil all definitional characteristics of the basic
type), such additions have mostly proven meaningless.3 This is because they seem to ignore basic elements
of the definition (such as limited political competition): obviously, as long as we adhere to Linz's definition of
an authoritarian regime, we should not be surprised about contestation taking place under authoritarianism –
as long as it is limited.
All this has resulted in an unresolved basic debate about typologies: following Frantz's (2018) wording, cat-
egorical typologies that view various types of regimes as equally authoritarian in nature (e.g. personalist,
military, multiparty or monarchic authoritarianism) compete with continuous typologies that assess political
regimes with respect to their presumed ‘distance’ to ‘full democracy'. Commonly used indices to ‘measure’
regimes or ‘democracy’ (such as Polity, Freedom House or the Bertelsmann Transformation Index) implicitly
adhere to this continuous understanding.
In conclusion, political science still works with Linz's classic definition despite its shortcomings and despite
the fact that to date, no methodologically sound subtypology exists. Likewise, our knowledge about what pro-
duces (which subtypes of) authoritarianism and, vice versa, which consequences (what subtypes of) authori-
tarianism have on a variety of possible dependent variables remains limited despite major advances that have
been made over the past two decades (for a more detailed discussion on these debates see below).
Regional and Global Trends and Developments

After World War II, the former ‘Soviet Bloc’ (Central Eastern, Eastern and South Eastern Europe), the Soviet
Union itself and a number of at least nominally socialist or communist republics in Central, East and South
East Asia existed under the single-party rule of local communist or socialist parties. East Germany, Poland,
Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania and Yugoslavia in Europe, alongside Vietnam, Cambo-
dia and Laos, were among these. The most exciting member of that group, however, might be China, where
the Communist Party has managed to transform ideologically and survive the end of communism as a rul-
ing party. In fact, communist or socialist-oriented countries represent the single largest group of single-party
regimes in the 20th century.
But with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the accompanying delegitimization of social revolutionary col-
lectivist ideologies, this changed. After the fall of the ‘Iron Curtain’ in Europe, Central and Eastern European
countries – some of them, such as Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, newly independent – democratized and
became members of the European Union. After the Balkan wars that ended the state of Yugoslavia, South
Eastern Europe gained a landscape of new states, of which Slovenia (2004) and Croatia (2013) accessed the
EU.
More recently, a group of regime hybrids has established itself in Central Eastern Europe: Hungary, Poland,
Ukraine and Moldova. Hungary and Poland have witnessed rapid processes of wilful authoritarianization (see
also below) despite EU membership. Moldova and Belarus maintained authoritarian rule under presidents
who preserved close ties with Russia, while Ukraine wobbled between democratic and clearly autocratic ten-
dencies during its independence, with periods of conflict similar to developments in Georgia, Moldova or Ar-
menia.
In Africa, when the age of colonialism ended in the decades after World War II, many of the then newly inde-
pendent states emerged under authoritarian rule.4 It was only during the most recent wave of democratization
that a number of them transited toward (formal) democracy (including, but not limited to, Botswana, Ghana,
Mali, South Africa and, as a latecomer, Tunisia in 2011–12).

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Nominally, many of these post-independence African regimes were ruled by single parties of socialist leanings
(such as in Algeria, Angola, Benin, Ethiopia, Mozambique, the former People's Republic of the Congo or So-
malia) or, alternatively, by right-wing and/or nationalist single parties (such as in Burundi, Cameroon or Chad).
Often these parties formed out of liberation struggles against former colonial powers. Overall, post-indepen-
dence Africa from the 1960s/70s until roughly 1990/91 thus provides the single most important reservoir of
cases to study authoritarian single-party rule, and the largest group of Marxist-Leninist single parties outside
the former ‘Soviet bloc'.
However, formal single-party rule often only thinly veiled clan- or tribe-based personalist rule – neopatrimonial
rule,5 where inclusion is often sacrificed for rewarding tribal loyalties. It is thus difficult to assess the type of
authoritarianism when single-party rule on paper coincides with personalist rule in practice. An extreme case
of such potentially misleading formal single-party rule but de facto personalist control is North Korea, where
formal single-party rule has regressed into an absolute monarchy-like personalist rule of the Kim dynasty.
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region also illustrates this problem: while MENA cases have pro-
vided inspiration for the study of military authoritarianism and civil–military relations, several countries in that
region, at least for some time between the 1950s/60s and the 1980s/90s, witnessed nominally socialist sin-
gle-party rule, which, however, was for the most part coupled with nationalist ideas (Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt,
Libya, Syria, Iraq, South Yemen). Over time, however, all these converged, in their organization of the centers
of political power, alongside their monarchical counterparts in Jordan, Morocco and the Persian Gulf (Kuwait,
Saudi Arabia, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain). More clearly than large parts of sub-Saharan
Africa, Middle Eastern states have been characterized not primarily by single-party or military rule, but by their
neopatrimonial regimes.6
Similar characteristics have been shaping states in Central Asia and the Caucasus, such as Kazakhstan,
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, since their independence at the turn of the 1990s. Most countries
in that region have been ruled for many years by increasingly personalist leaders who already held important
political positions in Soviet times and who assumed office shortly after their countries’ independence (Aliyev
in Azerbaijan; Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan; Karimov in Uzbekistan; Akayev in Kyrgyzstan). Georgia and Arme-
nia in the Southern Caucasus are the exceptions to this regional pattern, and Kyrgyzstan has reverted from
a decade of personalist rule to a multiparty system. The dominant regional trend, however, clearly consists of
personalist dictatorships.
This stands in marked contrast to the – mostly military – dictatorships which Latin America saw in the 20th
century. In fact, the only Latin American country that has not experienced long authoritarian rule is Costa Ri-
ca. While decidedly personalist rule (e.g. the Somoza regime in Nicaragua or the Duvaliers’ regime in Haiti,
and more recently Peru under Fujimori) also occurred in this world region, military rule was the dominant form
of authoritarian governance in 20th-century Latin America (Peron acceded to power virtually immediately af-
ter World War II).
Second, international factors, and particularly external involvement of the United States, are important in Latin
America's experience with authoritarianism. In part due to the Truman doctrine of containing communism,
US involvement produced mainly right-wing (military) dictatorships, many of which gained power through
coups d'état (such as in Guatemala in 1954, Paraguay in 1954, Brazil in 1964, Bolivia in 1971, Chile in 1973,
Uruguay in 1973 and Argentina in 1976). Thus, at one point during the late 1970s, military rule seemed an
almost defining characteristic of Latin American politics, but then the continent democratized quasi-collective-
ly in the 1980s and 1990s. Again, mixed types of personal–military and bureaucratic civil–military regimes
have existed in several cases, pointing to the need to re-think the differentiation of authoritarian subtypes. In
academic works, it was mainly the Latin American experience that resulted in the first series of now classic
in-depth studies on the working mechanisms of modern authoritarianism (most prominently O'Donnell, 1973;
Collier, 1979) in its bureaucratic and military forms.

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In the current century, a renewed tendency toward left-wing authoritarian rule combined with anti-American
populist rhetoric and policies can be found in Latin America, best exemplified by Venezuela under President
Chavez and his successor Maduro. While personalist in style, the defining feature of their rule is its populism.
While not all populist leaders in Latin America pursue clearly authoritarian politics (a counter-example is the
presidency of Evo Morales in Bolivia), Latin America's neo-populism can be seen as having spearheaded
what, in the late 2010s, had become a global trend toward populist politics. Alongside authoritarianization,
that is, the deliberate dismantling of democratic rule and its transition to authoritarian governance, and the
personalization of authoritarian rule, populism is one of the most pertinent current trends in the study of au-
thoritarianism (see below).
Databases
There has been a proliferation of new datasets published as part of the recent wave of research on author-
itarianism, all of which inquire into the question of the durability of various authoritarian (and democratic)
subtypes. The underlying basic idea in five of them is to measure regime durability (or life expectancy), and
to assess conditions of breakdown of both democratic and autocratic regimes (Anckar & Frederiksson and
Luhrmann et al., 2018; Cheibub et al., 2010; Geddes et al., 2014; Hadenius et al., 2012; Lührmann et al.,
2018; Wahmann et al. 2013).
The most prominent of these is probably the first, by Geddes et al. While the 154 countries these authors cov-
er between 1946 and 2010 are fewer than the 195 and 1,999, respectively, covered by the latter two, Geddes
et al.'s study includes more detailed information, for instance on the mode of transition (e.g. coup, popular
uprising or electoral defeat), on the degree of violence that occurred during a given transition and on exact
dates (instead of years) at which the authors see a regime as starting and ending. Also, it allows for longer
time series than the one established by Hadenius et al.7 The Anckar–Fredriksson dataset goes back to 1800,
but that brings only limited added value as several forms of authoritarianism have existed for a much shorter
time span (e.g. single-party authoritarianism); second, some of the definitional traits of authoritarianism (such
as those relating to, e.g., political mobilization, repression, public communication) would seem to require a
modern, post-industrial revolution world in and by themselves, so their applicability to regimes of the early
1800s seems at least highly questionable. Calculating average regime duration across more than 200 years
does not, therefore, add too much relevant knowledge to today's study of authoritarianism.
Interestingly, the studies’ respective definitions of ‘political regime’ differ – not tremendously, but significantly
– from one another.8 In that respect, too, then, the dataset provided by Geddes et al. is the one most easily
compatible with the existing literature and its conceptual foundations.
Geddes et al. organize their data along the question of who rules and create four authoritarian subtypes (dom-
inant-party, personalist, military and monarchy). By contrast, Hadenius et al. base their set on the question of
how leaders accede to power and arrive at three subtypes of authoritarianism (monarchy, military, electoral9
). Cheibub et al., in their turn, look at who the leaders are and how they acceded to power. They arrive at six
subtypes of regimes which include three democratic and three authoritarian subtypes (parliamentary, semi-
presidential and presidential, plus monarchy, military and civilian). Thus, when looking at how differentiations
among the group of authoritarian regimes are conceptualized, monarchies and military rule are included in all
of them, but only Geddes et al. provide a category for ‘personalist’ regimes, roughly along the lines of what
Juan Linz had earlier called ‘sultanism',10 while Lührmann et al. remain lean in their four-category typolo-
gy that covers both democracies and autocracies. Finally, Gothenburg's V-Dem team has produced another
dataset (Teorell and Lindberg, 2019) that reaches back to the French Revolution (1789–2016) and, like the
first four datasets, measures what they call ‘executive survival', but also tests their subtypes of regimes – the
same four basic types of autocracy and democracy as in Lührmann et al. – for properties such as corruption

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and repression.
While the existence of these databases is a major advancement, a core underlying problem in all of them is
that the typologies they establish mostly defy the principal rules of class-building efforts: that classes need
to be not only jointly exhaustive, but also mutually exclusive. For instance, it is obviously not inconceivable
that a monarchy might be ruled in a personalist manner. And would Iraq under Saddam Hussein come out as
a single-party regime run by the Baa'th party, or as a personalist system run by Hussein? And would North
Korea count as a multi-party electoral regime? A monarchy because power has become hereditary? Or per-
sonalist authoritarianism?
The sixth dataset by von Soest and Grauvogel (2017) stands apart. Covering the relatively short time span
from 1991 to 2010 only, it looks not primarily at regime durability but at legitimation strategies, which it as-
sesses for only 98 countries. It differs from the ones discussed so far in that it does not look at institutions but
at legitimation patterns, and tries to relate these to authoritarian subtypes. Six different claims to legitimacy
are identified: foundational myth; ideology; personalism; procedures; performance; and international engage-
ment. Their regime sub-typology also differs from the other three: they suggest four types, three of which are
authoritarian (closed authoritarian, hegemonic authoritarian, competitive authoritarian, democratic). This is an
important addition to the mainstream databases as it zooms in on one particularly important field that is linked
to the stability and life expectancy of political regimes, namely legitimacy (see more on this below). Yet Ged-
des et al. remains the most used, despite typological shortcomings – from which, it must be said, most of the
other extant datasets suffer just as much.
Debates
Recent debates on authoritarianism have been strongly influenced by the fact that Fukuyama's prediction of
the ‘end of history’ was empirically wrong. Consequently, much attention in research was spent on questions
of authoritarian resilience: what are the factors that give birth to authoritarianism in the first place? Which ones
make it survive, thrive and resist challenges from within and abroad? While much attention has been devoted
to institutional approaches, and to democratic-looking institutions in particular, an alternative structure of cur-
rent debates would cover areas that are vital for the above key research questions. First, (1) the foundations,
both social and economic, of authoritarianism are essential. But while the material origins and underpinnings
of authoritarianism are important, the category of (2) legitimacy and legitimation strategies undoubtedly rep-
resents another ‘pillar of stability', alongside (3) repression, which authoritarian regimes by definition rely on
in their survival over time. But since, in a globalized period of world politics, national political regimes do not
exist in isolation from one another but are more deeply influenced by outside developments than probably
ever before, (4) international factors cannot be ignored in any analysis of political regime development. These
four broader fields of inquiry thus merit a closer look.
Social and Economic Foundations of Authoritarianism
Regime Formation and Elite Constellations

First, important research has sought to explain the emergence and survivability of authoritarianism through
its initial construction (regime-building), the constellations of rulers vis-à-vis elites and elite–society constella-
tions. While a consensus exists that authoritarianism's various ways of emergence have given rise to diver-
gent subtypes of rule (the dependent variable in these studies), dissent follows immediately after. ‘Selectorate
theory’ (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003) builds on earlier findings by studies on democracy. It hypothesizes
that the smaller the innermost circle of loyalists around an imagined leader (the winning coalition), the more
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likely authoritarian survival becomes, if the selectorate (those who have helped bring the ruler to power) is
large; in principle, regime type does not matter here.11 By contrast, others have contended that the survival
of ruling coalitions depends mainly on the initial purposes for which they came into being: Slater (2010) dis-
tinguishes ‘provision pacts’ from ‘protection pacts', with the former guaranteeing, on average, better survival
prospects for authoritarian regimes than the latter in the face of threats from the masses. Svolik (2012) iden-
tifies such threats from below as one out of two core challenges to autocratic survival, the other one being
power-sharing among rulers and elites. In a different approach, Brownlee (2002) finds 15 cases in which ex-
tensive personalist neopatrimonial networks account for the re-stabilization of authoritarianism after crisis.
What all these efforts have in common is that the number of variables omitted is usually large. Disaggregated
empirical data that could specify concrete causal mechanisms that account for the overall claims is often ab-
sent or, if present, not generalizable. To capture more precisely who influences what decisions, and who sets
what agendas, thus remains a challenge.
State–Society Relations and Civil Society

While for Bueno de Mesquita and other orthodox political economy approaches, the citizenry at large plays
little if any role, a huge literature with a focus on institutions that regulate state–society relations has emerged.
UK and US-based scholars in particular have extensively examined the role of democratic-looking formal in-
stitutions in autocracies: political parties, party systems, competitive and non-competitive elections, voting
behavior, parliaments, as well as formal and informal political oppositions, both ‘loyal’ and ‘anti-systemic', and
courts and constitutions.12 This literature has the merit of (re-)focusing on a long neglected and/or misread
feature of authoritarianism, namely the existence of democratic-looking or ‘imitative institutions’ (cf. Schlum-
berger (2004). We know now that such institutions do not usually signal a rapprochement to democracy but
have been established to make autocracy more resilient because they fulfil functions that may range from
patronage machines to opinion barometers, instruments of gaining non-democratic forms of responsiveness
or facilitators of power-sharing, or may enhance both procedural security and legitimacy.
Ultimately, they serve to control the public sphere, which under authoritarianism is key to political survival.
The same applies to new media, which regimes actively use and manipulate to control public discourse and
delegitimize potential challengers. In the realm of civil society, regimes have been able to create lookalike civil
society organizations, frequently referred to as ‘GONGOs’ (governmentally organized NGOs), which mostly
depend on the state in terms of finance, personnel and registration.
Resources and Distribution

Richness in exportable scarce resources such as oil or natural gas tends to strengthen authoritarian rule
because it allows regime elites to realize rent income independently of domestic extraction, and to allocate
these rents (Luciani, 1987; Ross, 2001, 2012; Smith, 2004; Ulfelder, 2007).13 While the richest of such coun-
tries have for a long time refrained from taxing their citizens at all, allocation is practiced in two broad ways:
first, strategically important elites on whose loyalty rulers need to rely benefit disproportionately through such
allocation; second, rentier states also aliment the populace at large (through, e.g., subsidized basic food-
stuffs, consumer goods or petrol; low-cost or free health and educational systems; other infrastructure). Other
sources of such rent income include politically motivated external aid; tourism receipts; location rents due to

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important transit routes for ships, oil or gas pipelines; and even remittances by labor migrants back into their
home economies (to the extent they can be taxed).
Key, however, is the allocative power per person, so that countries with large populations and unequal distri-
butional patterns (e.g. Nigeria) face a higher risk of violent conflict than those with small local populations and
similar levels of rent income (e.g. the United Arab Emirates).
Legitimacy and Legitimation
Sources of Legitimacy
For a long time, authoritarian rule was thought to be innately less legitimate than democratic rule because
authoritarian regimes lack the kind of input legitimacy that is provided through regular free and fair elections.
In democracies, such elections legitimize those who ascend to positions of political decision-making power,
that is, incumbent elites. Under authoritarianism, by contrast, the masses have little to no say in the selection
of their rulers or policies. But legitimacy can be derived from a multitude of sources. Literature has produced
a broad spectrum of such potential sources of legitimacy for authoritarian regimes (cf., e.g., Schlumberger
2010). Prominent among these are nationalism and other ideological sources, religion, foundational myths,
war, avenues of political representation other than democratic elections, material benefits to specific target
groups or to the population at large to demonstrate effective regime performance – ‘output legitimacy', to
borrow Scharpf's term, procedural legitimacy through ‘imitative institutions’ that look like (and often carry the
names of) their counterparts in democratic settings but fulfil different purposes, discursive strategies of other-
ing, the construction of enemies, and other identity-based legitimacy claims. Legitimacy can thus be viewed
as an aggregate category which, important as democratic elections are, is not usually built on any single
source even in democracies. In that sense, then, there is no logical reason to consider authoritarian regimes
as a priori less legitimate than democracies.
Output Legitimacy or Performance

An older debate about whether autocracies or democracies perform better at delivering desirable outcomes
in the economic, social or cultural spheres has been complemented by a related and refined debate about
the performance of various subtypes of authoritarianism. Once we acknowledge the importance of authori-
tarian institutions, the question is how exactly what institutions and institutional arrangements are producing
what kinds of output on various dimensions such as social performance, human development, the protection
of property rights, environmental sustainability or responses to economic crises, with developmental perfor-
mance being among the most prominent topics in that emerging literature.
However, some of the findings generated by this work are less than coherent, as is evident, for instance, in the
literature on the assumed impact of (authoritarian) elections on performance on a wide range of indicators.
Some claim that if elections, however authoritarian, are competitive, this has positive effects on civil liberties
(which might be a tautological assessment), on gender equality, on health and on education, whereas non-
competitive elections would not have such beneficial side effects (Miller, 2015). By contrast, McGuire (2013)
finds that single-party regimes boast lower infant mortality than do multiparty regimes; Schedler (2013: 380ff.)
argues that ‘bad elections are better than no elections'; and Little (2016) claims that elections benefit citizens
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under any condition, whether competitive or not.
Overall, research on authoritarian performance remains a nascent strand of literature that needs to start ad-
judicating between a wide range of initial suggested findings that contradict each other and which, up to now,
cannot be said to have produced consolidated knowledge. The operationalization of key variables as well as
the quality and amount of data used leave a range of open questions as to generalizability.
Material Legitimacy, Social Inequality and Consequences

It has been said above that richness in scarce exportable resources can provide an economic basis for au-
thoritarianism through the constant influx of rent revenues. This means authoritarian regimes that boast reg-
ular high influx of external rent income are better able to create legitimacy than others, so that the conclusion
that ‘oil hinders democracy’ (Ross, 2001) seems valid. But we also know that bust periods in natural resource
trade do not automatically lead to regime crisis in rentier states (Smith, 2006). Rather, as the political econ-
omy of the 2011 Arab revolts has demonstrated, it was the longer term relative societal deprivation which
resulted from changes to the overall fiscal framework of the state that ultimately resulted in mass protests
(Moore, 2015). Such fiscal reforms were pursued as part of neoliberal adjustment policies as prescribed by
the international financial institutions and have, in the majority of cases, led to increased social inequalities.
From here, there seems to be a potential link to ruptures in state–society relations and the breakdown of pre-
viously existing social contracts in which citizen acquiescence had been bought by material rewards. This, in
turn, is related to regime performance, to repression (of often ensuing protests) and to questions of waning
regime legitimacy in the eyes of important segments of societies.
While another consequence of global neoliberalism, the frequently seen amalgamation of regime interests
with those of private business elites, can, on the one hand, constitute powerful underpinnings of authoritarian
rule, it can also provide a cause for instability when inequality and social injustice become so big that citizens
take to the streets in anger and frustration despite real risks of facing repression. In an opposite hypothesis,
Solt (2012) contends that once citizens have been exposed to social inequality for longer periods, accep-
tance of authority comes more naturally and thus would lead to authoritarianism (‘relative power theory'). By
contrast, Acemoglu and Robinson (2006) find that both very low and very high levels of inequality make au-
thoritarianism more likely, while medium levels of inequality are more likely related to democracy.
Repression
Following Gerschewski's (2013) reflections, repression complements legitimacy as another cornerstone for
authoritarian rule to remain ‘stable’ and survive over time. But repression is notoriously hard to study empiri-
cally, as real dangers for scholars and informants are often prohibitively high. Methodological issues such as
preference falsification add to these difficulties. It is for these reasons that repression, in comparison to qua-
sidemocratic institutions, has received far less attention.14
There is a potentially inverse relationship between repression and legitimacy (Schlumberger, 2004; cf. also
Gerschewski, 2013): while gains in legitimacy reduce the need to control oppositional actors by force, repres-
sion aims at preventing oppositional actors from building up their own sources of legitimacy. On the other
hand, not only can the potentially very high costs of repression be significantly lowered when repression is
discursively legitimized by regime elites, as Edel and Josua (2018) demonstrate; in the extreme case, re-
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pression, if successfully framed, can even lead to gains in legitimacy among both domestic and international
audiences.
There is, thus, a direct, but complex, nexus between legitimacy, repression and dissent. Now, when repres-
sion is exerted, the results are not obvious: the effects of repression on public dissent can be positive, neg-
ative or not discernable at all. This so-called punishment puzzle (Davenport, 2007) still remains unresolved,
even though several authors have hinted at potentially relevant variables that might explain the effects of re-
pression.
Yet, up to now most studies in the field of repression seem to treat the phenomenon as a dependent variable:
when, why, how, to what extent, in which forms and to what avail is repression employed by authoritarian
regimes? In order to answer such questions, the empirical phenomenon needs to be disaggregated into its
spatial, temporal, typological and actor-related dimensions. A range of studies have differentiated not only be-
tween levels of repression, but also their various forms (hard versus soft, incapacitating versus constraining,
and so on), in addition to the institutions of repression, its perpetrators, as well as its primary and secondary
targets. Also, variation in repression can be seen as caused by the institutional setup of the regime, by the
nature of the challenges and their perception by regime elites, and/or, in allusion to Weber's definition of the
state, by ‘state capacities’ (Josua and Edel, 2015).
Further important aspects of repression consist in its internationalization and commercialization or privatiza-
tion, which points to questions of agency, including for agents outside institutionalized regime actors them-
selves. Overall, then, the new research on repression has tackled an important and understudied field and it
is quite natural that it has, as of yet, produced more open questions than definite answers.
International Factors
There are four main ways in which international factors impact on authoritarian resilience that can be dis-
tinguished analytically: (1) democracies promoting, consciously or unconsciously, authoritarian resilience
abroad for either geostrategic or economic reasons or for lack of better understanding; (2) autocracies actively
and consciously supporting and promoting authoritarianism elsewhere; (3) domestic authoritarian rulers en-
gaging in processes of active and conscious learning from authoritarians abroad; and (4) structural interna-
tional factors that operate on a regional or global basis and enhance the survival prospects of authoritarianism
in a given country.
An important early distinction in this field is that made in the various works authored by Levitsky and Way
(e.g., i.a., 2002) on Western powers’ leverage over political developments elsewhere, including not only pol-
icy choices but also polity-related institutional choices on the one hand, and changes induced through an in-
creasing density of interactions between two countries or increased linkages between them (the exchange of
goods and persons; border-transgressing media including social media and the like; migration) on the other
hand. The latter need not be accompanied by any intent by the influencing power but assumes that a higher
density of interaction structurally influences the recipient country. The open question, however, is: who influ-
ences, and who adopts? In contrast to earlier assumptions, there is no inherent reason to believe that only
democracies spread their norms and ideas. Autocracies fare no worse in spreading their mode of governance
than do democracies.
Not only have foreign policy efforts specifically aimed at aiding democracy abroad been notoriously ineffec-
tive; also, they can have unintended opposite effects. Earlier naive assumptions about European foreign poli-
cies spreading democratic values by providing a credible role model have probably never had much empirical
substance. Western powers have not, in actual policy, accorded the priority to democracy aid that is found in
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their political rhetoric (Youngs, 2010; Schlumberger, 2006). If, however, foreign aid is not regime-neutral, then
Western policy-makers need to start reflecting more deeply than they have in the past about the usefulness
of lending aid, lucrative arms contracts or legitimating support through rhetoric or symbol politics to closed
dictatorships like Saudi Arabia. Large autocracies have in fact made inroads by appearing less paternalistic
toward developing nations, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, while the traditional colonial powers in Europe
and the United States for the most part have a track record of acting condescendingly or clumsily in their
foreign policies. By contrast, there is increased evidence of authoritarian learning from other autocracies’ ex-
perience, as well as a diffusion of strategies of regime maintenance and cooperation (e.g. Erdmann et al.,
2013).
Looking at the ‘recipient’ side, even smaller nations possess remarkable agency. They emphasize themes
that are prioritized by donors and can thus result in international support. The surge of globalized terrorism
along with the discourse of a ‘war against terror’ provided many autocracies with a pretext to repress at home
– and even to be rewarded for doing so internationally.
Simultaneously to the ineffective democracy assistance policies of Western powers, autocracies promoting
autocracy abroad has become a standard feature not only empirically but also in scholarly research. So-
called black knights (re-)stabilize autocracy (such as Russia in Syria, parts of Ukraine or Belarus); they pur-
sue policies aimed at disrupting the political process in established democracies (such as that same actor's
meddling with the US presidential elections in 2016); and they spread false rumors and ‘fake news’ that aims
at discrediting other countries’ governments, their domestic opponents, or democracy as such. What is less
well examined to date is material support given by dictatorial regimes to anti-systemic forces in established
democracies; there is by now evidence of systematic material support lent by Russia's leadership to extremist
right forces (both parties and movements) in many European countries, underpinned by ideational partner-
ships (such Germany's right-wing party's youth organization, which is twinned with the Putin Youth), mutual
visits and invitations.15
Overall, then, the international arena has tilted considerably, over the past two decades, in favor of authoritar-
ianism – a trend that has often been facilitated by established democracies. Whether and what consequences
this has for (1) further trends in regime developments domestically and (2) international politics and peace is
still unclear, but a range of perspectives remain to be discussed.
Perspectives
Authoritarianism has been on the rise over the past decades, as outlined above. So has its average life ex-
pectancy (Frantz, 2018: 120f.). The lesson from this is that the study of authoritarianism that has flourished
over the past 20-odd years now needs to enter a new phase in which initial findings are adjudicated, knowl-
edge is consolidated and new research questions are answered. Three fields in particular seem to merit deep-
er investigation: conceptual, methodological and epistemological issues; the global rise of populism and per-
sonalization of political rule; and the trend towards authoritarianization in formerly established democracies.
Methodological and Epistemological Challenges in Researching Authoritarian-

ism
Despite the many advances the new research on authoritarianism has produced over the past two decades,
our knowledge on the topic, when compared to our state of research on democracy, is still in a state of ado-
lescence at best. More new hypotheses have been generated than have been rigorously tested. The past 20
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years of research have produced too many contradictory findings and claims, and too few established ways of
adjudicating between contending results. There are competing explanations for core questions, with too little
discrimination between various possible answers. In order to consolidate our knowledge, distinguishing solid
from invalid findings remains probably the single most important challenge for research over the next decade.
Even though the new authoritarianism research might recently have become the fastest growing area in com-
parative politics, political science still means, for a large part, ‘researching autocracy in a discipline of democ-
racy’ (Ahram and Goode, 2016). This goes for the methodological, empirical and epistemological levels alike
and has serious repercussions for research. On a methodological level, preference falsification is only one
of such repercussions. If, as is the case in authoritarian environments by definition, transparency is absent
and data production and dissemination is controlled by the regime, adopting such data often means buying
into the frames that have been deliberately produced as part of a legitimizing discourse, which in turn can
represent an ethical challenge. Naively adopting whatever information is available is clearly not an option, but
cross-checking information for accuracy is often equally impossible. A recent renewed boost of quasi-exper-
imental methods has led, at times, to grossly invalid research; mainstream quantitative methods are for the
most part equally problematic, as they must rely on data whose accuracy cannot be evaluated independently
and for which the core assumption needs to be that they were produced in the interest of ruling elites. Quali-
tative empirical studies, on the other hand, bear real danger for both scholars and their informants, and suffer
from lesser generalizability. Overall, thus, political scientists need to devote more explicit attention to how
such challenges impact on their work and how they can be overcome. The resulting epistemological problems
have only just begun to be realized.
Populism and Personalization

There is today an evident global trend towards increased populism in politics, policies and institutional devel-
opments; this trend exists across political regime types, that is, in both democracies and autocracies. While
neither left nor right-wing populism is automatically associated with authoritarianism or a decline in ‘democra-
ticness',16 it empirically is when populism and its notion of who ‘the people’ are become exclusive instead of
inclusive.
The rhetoric employed by the proponents of exclusive versions of populist politics does not usually acknowl-
edge political adversaries as legitimate contenders in the political game; rather, it depicts them as corrupt,
rotten and illegitimate, and paints the present as apocalyptic and the future as threatened. Typically, thus, only
the populists’ own movement or group can bring salvation while, in this narrative, an incumbent ‘establish-
ment’ or ‘system’ is conspiring against ‘us', against ‘the nation’ or against ‘the people'. While in some democ-
ratic countries, latently or manifestly anti-democratic populist politicians, movements and parties have gained
their largest influence since World War II,17 such groups or individuals have even assumed government office
through elections in certain instances (in the US, Hungary, Poland, temporarily in Austria, for instance). In
those instances where they did assume governing responsibility, there is a clear trend toward democratic ero-
sion (e.g. the United States, Austria) or even towards authoritarianization, that is, the deliberate dismantling
of democratic rule and its transition to authoritarianism (e.g. Hungary, Poland, Venezuela).
But the trend is not confined to Europe or ‘the West'. Populist ruling styles have also become popular in places
as different as Russia, Turkey, Egypt or Venezuela; they can thus also be observed in already authoritarian
contexts. In Turkey, President Erdogan managed to re-organize the ownership structure of the entire media
sector (and large parts of private business in general), as well as incarcerating more journalists per inhabitant
than any other country on earth. President Putin of Russia has successfully brought under control or into ex-
ile the group of super-rich oligarchs on whom his predecessor largely depended and has concentrated more
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power in his hands than many former Soviet leaders. President Sisi of Egypt, during his 2013 campaign, dis-
played pictures of a young boy shaking the hand of legendary Arab leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, claiming the
boy was himself in his youth and insinuating a continuation of the charismatic leadership for which Nasser
had become famous, while disenfranchising the former ruling party to a greater degree than was seen even
in Turkey.18
The rise of populism is thus equally dynamic in authoritarian regimes, which today tend to become more per-
sonalized than they were half a century ago – this, some claim, ‘spells trouble for global peace and democra-
cy’ (Frantz, 2018: 103).
Authoritarianization
The birth of authoritarianism has been studied, but we still have little to no consolidated knowledge about
where it comes from, by whom it is brought about, and how it becomes established as ‘the only game in town'.
Apart from the above mentioned regime formation processes after independence or secession, authoritarian-
ism's expansion in the 21st century has begun to replace established democracies predominantly not by the
formation of new states, nor by coups d'état, military insurgency or revolutions from above. Authoritarianiza-
tion today usually occurs as a creeping encroachment on the discourses, norms, values and institutions of
liberal democracy, up to the point that discourses have changed, norms have been replaced and institutions
have turned into mere shells, while new authoritarian institutions patterns of mobilization and policy-making
have sprung up and become established. Democracy's death and the birth of autocracy come creeping.
To the surprise of many, authoritarianism (cf., i.a., Zielonka 2018 on Europe) has thus made its most success-
ful inroads in precisely those contexts in which modernization theorists of the past (and present) would predict
democracy to be most robust or ‘sustainable', to borrow Lipset's words: in reasonably established democra-
cies that tend towards the ‘centers', not the ‘periphery', of the global system, where the political system sup-
posedly is also embedded in a civic culture dominated by democratic values, and where regionally, risks of
an externally induced black knight overthrow are usually assumed to be lesser than in developing regions.
In these established democracies, a trend of ‘democratic backsliding’ was first decried by Freedom House in
2007 and has continued unabatedly until today; on a global scale, this has impacted negatively on the ‘qual-
ity of democracy'.19 Observers warn that democracies needed to be more strongly defended at home and/
or better aided abroad, while skeptics question the correctness of such figures, which they see as grounded
more in a change in scholarly perception than in empirical facts. However, two decades into the 21st century it
has become clearer that, rather than a decrease in the quality of democracy, developments in places such as
Hungary, Poland, Turkey and Venezuela are examples of the broader tendency toward authoritarianization.20
Unfortunately, the two processes are not distinguished by the main democracy indices due to the gradualist
approach toward changes in/of political regimes which these indices take; in reality, they are qualitatively dif-
ferent, because one signals change within regime whereas the other represents change of regime.
Authoritarianization and personalization are, thus, arguably the two most striking current global tendencies in
the study of authoritarian regimes, and they are inter-linked. Their scholarly adoption as a research topic was
triggered primarily by the advent of Donald Trump to the American presidency and the rapid rise of anti-de-
mocratic right-wing populist movements and parties in Europe. Reflections on ‘how democracies end’ (Runci-
man, 2018) abound. But scholars are likely just beginning to realize how dramatic might be the phenomenon
that will likely occupy our minds for years to come – at least, for as long as we are politically able to research
the issue.

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Notes
1 Independent of how authoritarian regimes perform on other criteria, this is an important background for both
politics and for academia. It is at the same time a good reason why studying authoritarianism will remain im-
portant in comparative politics.
2 A political regime can be defined as ‘the formal and informal organization of the center of political power,
and of its relations with the broader society. A regime determines who has access to political power and how
those who are in power deal with those who are not’ (Fishman, 1990: 428).
3 See, for instance, Schedler's (2006) ‘electoral authoritarianism': when virtually no authoritarian regimes do
not hold elections, it is unclear what we need an adjective for. The assumption that somehow authoritarian
regimes with elections are more likely to democratize or are per se better than others (Schedler, 2013: 380)
defies empirical and statistical counterevidence (cf. the work done by Gandhi and Przeworski (2007) or the
studies by Geddes, Wright and Frantz (2014)). Cf. Snyder (2006) for a critical discussion of ‘electoral author-
itarianism.'
4 Dorenspleet (2000: 395) counts 36 out of 44 new states in Africa that were run by authoritarian regimes
between 1958 and 1972.
5 The concept dates back to Weber (1922) and received broader attention in the study of developing countries
since the 1970s. For an overview, cf. Erdmann and Engel (2007). As a subtype of authoritarianism, it is de-
fined by – idealtypically – a personalist leader who rules through an extensive patronage network. While for-
mal state institutions such as a modern bureaucracy, military, security agencies and often also political parties
or parliaments do exist, these formal institutions are penetrated by informal patterns of interaction that are
decisive in determining Laswell's famous ‘who gets what how'.
6 The exceptions to this rule are, of course, Israel in its 1948 borders (democratic); Turkey between 1923
and, roughly, 2010 (single-party/military; later democratic), and the Islamic Republic of Iran (authoritarianism
with factionalized elites and massive contestation despite the existence of a ‘Supreme Leader').
7 The Swedish team only covers the time period from 1972 to 2010, while Cheibub et al.'s dataset ends in
2008 with no update in sight.
8 Roughly, both Hadenius et al. and Cheibub et al. rely on an understanding of ‘political regime’ as the ‘insti-
tutions on which elites rely in order to regulate the access to and maintenance of public authority’ (Hadenius
et al., 2012: 21); Geddes et al.'s understanding of ‘regime’ comes closer to Fishman's (1990) almost classi-
cal definition, namely ‘the set of basic formal and informal rules that determine who influences the choice of
leaders – including rules that identify the group from which leaders can be selected – and policies’ (Geddes
et al., 2014: 327). By contrast, Cheibub et al. define an ‘authoritarian regime’ as being non-democratic, which
is a matter that would merit more discussion than is possible here.
9 Within electoral authoritarian regimes, they further differentiate between multiparty, no-party and single-par-
ty regimes.
10 To make things more complicated yet, Linz did not view Sultanism as a subtype of authoritarianism, but as
a regime type.
11 This model has been criticized for omitting a multitude of known relevant variables. For instance, it ignores
not only qualitative differences between democracy and autocracy such as the necessity, in democracies, to
govern through the rule of law, but also a broad range of other factors such as any normative conviction that
might lead leaders and followers to adhere to democratic norms in democracies.

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12 As exemplified in the works by Gandhi and Lust-Okar (2009); Magaloni (2009); Brown (2001); Ginsburg
and Simpser (2013); Albrecht (2005), and others more.
13 Further refinement of the claims of the rentier state approach has been made in various fields and direc-
tions. For recent critical discussions, see Waldner and Smith (2015) or Brynen et al. (2012: chapter 9).
14 For an overview, cf. Davenport and Inman (2012).
15 This goes at least for the ruling parties in Hungary and Poland, for the French Front National and for the
German Alternative für Deutschland. But similar links are said to exist to extreme right and/or anti-democratic
forces in other European countries.
16 A counter example, arguably, was Bolivia under the presidency of Evo Morales.
17 Particularly in Western Europe, including France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Finland, Denmark, Swe-
den, Greece, the Netherlands and others. On Europe in particular, cf. Zielonka (2018).
18 Even China, where the leadership of the Communist Party has ruled collectively since the 1940s, has now
abolished the terms of office of its leader, indicating that the global wave toward not only populist but person-
alized authoritarian rule might have reached the shores hitherto deemed by many to be the most unlikely.
19 On that concept and as a structured introduction, cf., e.g., Diamond and Morlino (2005).
20 ‘Authoritarianization’ can thus be defined as ‘one type of democratic backsliding that results in the estab-
lishment of a dictatorship’ (Frantz, 2018: 94).
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• authoritarianism
• democracy
• regime
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n45

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Democracies
Contributors: Philippe C. Schmitter

Chapter Title: "Democracies"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Democracies
Philippe C. Schmitter
In the real world of politics, democracy in the singular does not exist. There is only a large (recently growing)
number of regimes (Whitehead, Chapter 52, this Handbook) that describe themselves as democracies and
share a common core of principles – political equality, participation and accountability being the most impor-
tant. They embody these principles through a wide variety of distinctive rules and practices. None of these
configurations conforms strictly to the etymological meaning of the original Greek term: demos + kratos, or
‘rule of or by the people'. All modern versions are much more accurately described as regimes which are gov-
erned by politicians who claim to represent the people because they have competed in and won an election
and can subsequently claim to rule on behalf of the people. It would be more accurate to call them ‘poli-
tocracies', but the concept of democracy has stood remarkably firm against replacement, despite the great
changes in its concrete embodiments.
By most accounts, the term ‘democracy’ first appeared in ancient Athens. Its birthdate is sometimes given as
508 bc, when Cleisthenes introduced major reforms that expanded the role of its (adult, male, native-born,
tax-paying) citizens and changed the nature of their constituencies. It continued to evolve through a series of
advances and reversals until Philip II of Macedonia conquered the city-state in 338 bc. Moreover, it seems
probable that similar elements of citizenship and popular participation in government were more widespread
– not just in Greece, but elsewhere in the city-states of Phoenicia and Mesopotamia. What distinguishes the
Athenian version is the articulacy with which its participants and observers reflected upon their respective ex-
periences with democracy and wrote about them – often unfavorably. The surviving works of Plato, Aristotle
and Thucydides provide the ‘classic’ basis of our understanding of what democracy is (or, better, was). Some
of these same features of citizenship were present in the Roman Republic and subsequently in various inde-
pendent Italian city-states, but democracy by and large had disappeared from political practice by the 15th
century – kept alive only in a few Swiss mountain cantons and the island of Iceland. It did not even survive as
a popular aspiration, since virtually no one believed that this form of political domination was appropriate for
any larger scale polity – and even then, it was associated with persistent disorder and ‘mob rule'.
This changed in the 18th century, when a series of institutional innovations were introduced which radically al-
tered its practice and made it applicable to the larger political units – national states – that had been emerging
during the previous century in Western Europe. Moreover, changes in the structure of developing European
capitalist economics also produced a group – the bourgeoisie – that had important interests in challenging
the authority of established regimes based on monarchy, aristocracy or theocracy and, thereby, in obtaining
ruling positions for themselves or their representatives. What emerged was something that could be called
‘democracy with lots of adjectives': liberal, constitutional, representative, national, electoral, and, of course,
capitalist. While these regimes differed considerably in their formal institutions of government – presidential
versus parliamentary, unitary versus federal, uni-cameral versus bi-cameral, majoritarian versus consensual,
monarchic versus republican – they shared a set of common principles:
• an exclusive emphasis on the individual person as the basis for citizenship and on individual motiva-
tions and choices as the basis for political action – substantive and procedural;
• a strong commitment to voluntarism in the form and content of political participation, as well as in the
recruitment of politicians;
• an insistence on formal political rights and their protection by pre-established constitutional/legal
norms that place these rights beyond political contention;
• a fixation with territorial representation and electoral competition for providing the primary legitimate
link between citizens and public authorities and for ensuring the accountability of the latter;
• confinement to the boundaries of emerging national states, as well as a (tacit) complicity with nation-
alism, despite claims to cosmopolitan validity;
• an ingrained hostility to coercive public authority, especially when backed by large numbers of less
privileged citizens and, therefore, an affinity for complex systems of ‘checks and balances';
• a restriction of formal equality in political rights and obligations and an indifference to the systemic
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persistence of inequalities in the distribution of benefits, the representation of interests and the pur-
suit of influence produced by the capitalist economy in which they were all embedded.
While initially ‘liberal’ democracies varied considerably in the criteria for acquiring and exercising citizenship,
participation and accountability, these practices gradually and fitfully became relatively standardized such that
by the end of the 20th century all permanent residents holding the proper nationality by birth or naturalization,
regardless of gender, religion, education, cultural origin or other sources of social or economic discrimination,
had been granted equal political rights. Only age – 18 in most cases, 16 in a few – remains as a formal bar-
rier, although in the contemporary context there is a continuing dispute over the status of legally resident but
foreign-born nationals and over the voting rights of national citizens living outside their country of origin.
Definitions
The formal practice of democracy may have become increasingly standardized, but its meaning remains
‘essentially contested.’ Most definitions emphasize some or all of the institutional characteristics mentioned
above, and these have been employed in most quantitative scholarly analyses to measure empirically
whether a given regime is ‘really’ democratic and, if so, how democratic. Moreover, the effort at definition is
almost inevitably contaminated by the normative connotations that the concept carries – namely, that it is con-
sidered ‘good’ to be democratic and therefore it is good that the definition includes the peculiar traits of one's
own regime. At one time, the political marketplace was flooded with labels such as ‘people's democracy';
‘proletarian democracy'; ‘guided democracy'; ‘theocratic democracy'; ‘Asian', ‘African’ or ‘Islamic democracy’
– not to mention such recent aberrations as ‘delegative democracy', ‘hybrid democracy', ‘ersatz democracy',
‘defective democracy’ and, worst of all, ‘democradura'.
Many scholars have simplified matters by concentrating on the absence or presence of only one (admittedly
central) feature of all liberal democracies – namely, the presence of regular, ‘free and fair’ contested elections
of uncertain outcome. Not infrequently they have justified this choice by citing the definition proposed by econ-
omist Joseph Schumpeter (1942): democracy is ‘that institutional arrangement for arriving at political deci-
sions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people's
vote'. The political scientist Robert Dahl (1971: 235–6), goes beyond the usual minimal electoral criteria by
introducing a number of ancillary conditions that are necessary to ensure that these elections are not merely
ritualistic, but actually empower citizens before and after making their choice:
1. Freedom to form and join associations.

2. Freedom of expression.
3. Right to vote.
4. Right of political leaders to compete for support.
5. Alternative sources of information.
6. Free and fair elections.
7. Institutions for making government policies depend on votes and other expressions of
preference.
Dahl proposed calling the regimes respecting these norms ‘polyarchies', rather than democracies. His empiri-
cal criteria have been applied by many subsequent scholars, even if they have continued to use the venerable
label ‘democracy’ for the subject of their study.
A different approach is to define democracy according to the process that it is supposed to empower, and
to leave unspecified the particular institutions and practices that are intended to ensure that this process is
effective. Philippe Schmitter and Terry Karl (1991: 4) have proposed the following definition: ‘Modern Political
Democracy is a regime or system of government in which rulers are held accountable for their actions in the
public realm by citizens, acting indirectly through the competition and cooperation of their representatives.'
How, as well as when, this interaction between rulers, representatives and citizens takes place remains to be
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discovered and implemented in accordance with the social, cultural and economic conditions in each country.
Many different institutional configurations can, at least potentially, fulfill the function of ensuring accountability.
In the liberal orthodoxy, elections are supposedly unique in doing so. However, even if they are free and fair
(but invariably biased in terms of the material resources available to competitors), it is possible for the political
parties involved to collude to restrict the range of alternatives offered to voters and to form a de facto cartel
in order to share power and its spoils (Katz and Mair, 2009). The Italians have even invented a word for this:
partitocrazia. In the sort of polyarchy imagined by Dahl, citizens would have at their disposition other channels
of representation and strategies of protest that might be more effective. Even public opinion, if reliably and
convincingly known, can be effective in inhibiting rulers ex ante from proposing or pursuing policies that they
anticipate will trigger a contrary mobilization among citizens.
If the distinction between procedures and processes were not enough, many definitions rely upon product.
They stress the substantive outcomes that democracies are presumed to produce. For liberal democrats, this
means ‘freedom', defined negatively as the avoidance of arbitrary or unreasonable constraints on individual
behavior. Social democrats look for ‘equality’ in social and economic conditions for all citizens. For the less
ideologically minded, what counts is a ‘civic political culture', namely, the extent to which citizens believe that
their government is democratic and that this is sufficiently important to them that they obey voluntarily its laws.
Table 43.1 Two realistic and two idealistic models of democracy

Models Realistic Idealistic
Dimensions COMPETITIVE COOPERATIVE DELIBERATIVE PARTICIPATORY
Procedure Voting Negotiating Persuading Mobilizing
Actors Parties Associations Committees Movements
Structure Pluralist Corporatist Disciplinary Solidaristic
Resource Numbers Intensities Preferences Identities
Decision-mak-
Majority Consensus Agreement Acclamation
ing
Representation Territorial Functional Ideational Motivational
Vote for oppo- Withdraw from bar- Break off commu- Disrupt policy implemen-
Accountability
nent gaining nity tation
Behind the diversity in procedures, processes and products are several competing but not conflicting generic
‘models’ of how democracy should operate, as illustrated in Table 43.1. Two are realistic and claim to describe
actual rules and practices; two are idealistic and advocate potentially better rules and practices.
Competitive democracy is the most familiar one. Citizens in territorial constituencies vote for candidates pro-
posed by parties. Their votes are counted equally. The winners are determined by a simple majority (or even
a plurality) and, together, they form the government pro tempore. Accountability is ensured by the possibility
of voting for opposing parties in a subsequent election that can form an alternative government.
Cooperative (aka consociational) democracy is less well known but extensively practiced, especially in small
European states. Associations representing mainly functional interests (classes, sectors, professions, but al-
so sometimes religious and ethno-linguistic groups) express the intensity of their preferences, bargain with
each other, reach a consensus and hand it over to a parliament which ratifies and makes it publicly binding
by an overwhelming majority. Accountability is ensured by the potential for withdrawal of negotiators and the
subsequent failure to reach a consensus and to propose a policy.

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Deliberative democracy is a persistent ideal form of decision-making in which actors in small groups (e.g.
‘committees’ or ‘forums') communicate with each other about their preferences and their reasons for holding
them, and seek to reach an active agreement (not just a passive consensus) by persuading initially reluctant
or opposed actors to change their preferences. Accountability is ensured by an eventual failure to persuade
and, hence, a non-decision or action by the group.
Participatory democracy emerges usually as a result of dissatisfaction with one or both of the realistic models.
Its core actors are collective movements which appeal to the solidaristic identities and commitments of indi-
viduals and social groups in order to mobilize them in favor of a substantive or procedural change in existing
practices. Accountability is ensured by the presumed or actual capacity of these mobilized groups to disrupt
entrenched rules or policies and impose new ones.
All existing democracies have some combination of the first two ‘realistic’ models – without the competitive
one they would not succeed in being recognized as democratic, and without the cooperative one they would
have great difficulty in implementing policies. Deliberative and participatory ideals are latent in the very ety-
mology of the original concept of ‘rule by the people’ and serve as reminders of what is missing and could be
made present in its defective existing practice.
As Aristotle informed us long ago, all regime-types have their virtuous and their perverse configurations (Aris-
totle, 1984). For him, demokratia was likely to degenerate into okhlokratia (mob rule). Table 43.2 illustrates
two contemporary perversions of this regime-type.
Table 43.2 Two perverse models of democracy

Model PLUTOCRATIC TECHNOCRATIC
Dimensions
Procedure Buying Proving
Key actors Firms Guardian institutions
Structure Oligopolistic Monopolistic
Resource Money Expertise
Decision-making Cartelistic Epistemic community
Representation Chief executives Professional ‘think tankers'
Accountability Market collapse Rivalry among experts
Bankruptcy Policy failure
While neither of these two perverse models yet exists in pure form, they are both latently present within the
two realistic versions – competitive and cooperative – and could become an alternative to either or to both of
them in the future.
Implications
Given its ‘essentially contested’ and ‘intrinsically normative’ nature, the use of any definition of democracy can
have serious implications. The simple fact that the same concept is shared by politicians and scholars, with
their different motivations, virtually ensures controversy over usage. And in recent decades, developments at
the supra-national level of politics have made this more consequential.

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Being a certified member of the ‘Club of Democratic Regimes’ has become an imperative for entry into pres-
tigious (and profitable) regional and global institutions – first and foremost the EU. Not being a member, or
being threatened with expulsion from the club, may be invoked by one's democratic neighbors as an excuse
for intervention in the name of promotion and protection of democracy. Emmanuel Kant (1796) long ago ar-
gued that ‘perpetual peace’ was only possible in the relations between what he called ‘commercial republics'.
In contemporary parlance, one of the most frequently cited maxims of international relations is that democra-
cies do not go to war with each other.
Moreover, acquiring the status of a well-established democracy (regardless of adjectives) can be of consid-
erable economic advantage, since it is usually accompanied by the assumption that such regimes (and only
such regimes) can be relied upon to reliably observe ‘the rule of law’ – in particular, the rule of law regarding
private property. This presumably leads to a competitive advantage as a recipient of foreign direct investment,
an intermediary in managing international financial flows, a partner in free trade agreements, a site for cross-
national production arrangements and/or a venue for foreign tourists. All of this presumes that – all things
being equal (but they are not always) – certified democracies will be in a better position to benefit from an
increasingly globalized capitalist economy. Losing one's certificate or never having obtained one can be a
major obstacle to development and the capacity to fulfill the expectations of one's subjects, which, in turn, has
implications for the stability and durability of a regime.
Theories
There are almost as many theories about why democracies exist as there are definitions of what it is. Begin-
ning with Solon and Cleisthenes in ancient Greece, the emphasis was upon the ‘lawgiver', some enlightened
soul who, for various reasons, was motivated to and capable of imposing new rules that expanded the rights
of citizens. Ever since, the history of almost all democracies has some heroic founding figure(s), although
more recent theories tend to stress why he (it is almost always a ‘he') was so motivated and capable of doing
so.
Since they emerged primarily in Western Europe in the late 18th and 19th centuries, most theories focus
on the unique conditions present there (and, secondarily, in their North American and Oceanic outposts). A
‘proper’ feudal past with its multiple ‘orders’ and representative institutions is one feature that distinguishes
Western from Eastern Europe. And, of course, even better if the country had no feudalism at all, as was the
case in Switzerland and some central Italian city-states. Another, stressed by Barrington Moore Jr (1972), in-
volves the evolution of capitalism and, more specifically, the early spread of wage labor into agriculture. Once
landowners no longer needed coercion or slavery to ensure their supply of labor, they were capable of envis-
aging an accountable form of parliamentary government (provided, of course, that they retained a privileged
position in it).
There is also a suspicious correlation with religion. Christianity may have initially played a role, with its em-
phasis on the individual person as the locus of ethical responsibility, but this was very quickly displaced by its
internal split between Roman Catholicism and various forms of Protestantism. Virtually all the early develop-
ment of liberal democracies occurred in countries dominated by the latter – so much so that the former was
long considered an active impediment to it, especially in Southern Europe and its Latin American, African and
Asian colonies. Associated with the religious divide was the importance of popular literacy – much higher in
the Protestant countries. And there have been innumerable ‘cultural explanations'. The simple positive cor-
relation between Anglo-American and Scandinavian (plus Swiss) societies and long-term, stable democracy
suggested to some that these countries had national cultures that were especially propitious for this sort of
regime, and the inverse correlation between Southern European, Latin American, Asian and, especially, Arab
Muslim societies and democracy seemed to indicate a basic cultural animosity to citizen-based, competitive
and accountable politics. The circularity in such causal reasoning seems obvious. It might just as well prove
that no culture is intrinsically democratic. All basic human institutions – the family, the clan, the shop, the fac-
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tory, the church – are hierarchical and authoritarian. It is the successful historical practice of democracy that
eventually produces a correspondingly favorable ‘civic’ political culture. It might be easier to start the process
in some cultures, but none preclude it.
There are many other such correlations: smaller countries are more likely to be democratic than larger ones,
as are those with linguistic/cultural/religious homogeneity (unless they are Arab Muslim), those located in
temperate climates (unless they are semi-tropical Costa Rica or Jamaica) and those colonized by the British
(except for the former French colonies of Senegal and, more recently, Tunisia). But by far the most frequently
observed and explored correlation in the theoretical literature has been that between democracy and ‘mod-
ernization'. In a seminal article in 1959, the American political sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset concluded,
after an extensive quantitative analysis of all existing polities at that time, that ‘the more well-to-do a nation,
the greater the chances that it will sustain democracy’ (75). This unleashed a veritable avalanche of compar-
ative research into what came to be called ‘the social pre-requisites of democracy'. Most of it has confirmed
his observation, although the effect is not constant over time. No country can simply ‘buy’ democracy year
by year by getting richer, nor do there seem to be insuperable thresholds to be crossed before becoming
so. Lipset did not claim that only wealthy capitalist countries tried to become democratic, just that they had
been more successfully in sustaining it. There were and still are obvious deviant cases. Switzerland and Nor-
way were among the poorest countries in Europe when they became democratic, and yet have sustained the
effort to the present day (where they are among the richest). Poverty-stricken India advertises itself as ‘the
World's Largest Democracy'. Saudi Arabia has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world and has
never made the slightest attempt to democratize. In the contemporary world, countries as ‘un-modernized’ as
Albania and Mongolia have managed to hold regular competitive elections, respect citizen rights and even
peacefully alternate parties in power.
The crucial question behind these correlations and exceptions involves the ‘mechanism’ or ‘mechanisms’ that
are presumed to connect successful capitalism and the emergence of democracies. To begin with, the wealth
has to be earned, rather than extracted as rents from the export of some natural resource. So-called “petro-
states” have been notoriously difficult to democratize. It also is important that behind the wealth lie a number
of co-variant achievements, mainly the development of an urban, literate and better educated population, a
substantial proportion of which is middle class in income and status. It is certainly advantageous if the in-
crease in wealth is accompanied by a more even distribution of this economic surplus, but this hardly seems
to be a prerequisite. Two of the countries with the most unequal distributions of wealth in the contemporary
world, Brazil and South Africa, have managed (admittedly with difficulty) to sustain democratic institutions for
more than 25 years. This may be important, since very few democracies that have survived for such a long
period subsequently revert to autocratic rule (the exceptions being Chile and Uruguay in the early 1970s).
Often implicitly (but virtually unanimously), scholars presume that democracies have only emerged and will
continue to emerge within political units that already have the status of sovereign national states. Without pri-
or ‘stateness', democracy could not exist and, to make matters worse, there is no ex post democratic means
for determining what these units should be. The objective of ‘self-determination of nations’ cannot be accom-
plished democratically – only a complex and lengthy process of wars, marriages and accidents can do this.
The new regime needs the fiscal resources and physical security that only an organization with an effective
monopoly of violence over a given territory can provide.
Even more problematic, however, is the assumption of a prior demos, that is, a population that already has an
overriding single identity and sense of shared fate. A cursory glance at the history of many successful cases
would reveal instances in which ‘nationhood’ was the product, not the producer, of eventual democracy.
‘Sovereignty’ is an important component because democracies are presumed not only to be responsive to
the preferences of their citizens, but also to be capable of acting on them without interference from other ‘im-
perial’ authorities. This has always been an elusive property of national states, and nowhere more so than
in Western Europe, where a relatively compressed space was populated by a large number of them. Their

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rivalries and conflicts had a major influence on democratization. First and foremost, war and even the threat
of war was a powerful incentive for autocratic or oligarchic rulers to be concerned with the loyalty of their
subjects and to accept reforms that increased their rights as citizens. Second, the close proximity and com-
petition among these units virtually guaranteed that political innovations in one state would affect the others.
In other words, first in Europe, and later in Latin America and Africa, democracy has been proven to be con-
tagious. This helps to explain why, if one plots the instances of attempted democratization over time, one will
find ‘clusters’ or ‘waves’ occurring sequentially – usually in adjacent states. Where they were temporally but
not physically near each other, the triggering factor was World Wars I and II.
The theoretic quest for the ‘pre-requisites of democracy’ seems, in retrospect, to have been misguided. While
there are certainly historical conditions that have made such an outcome more likely – wealth, size, location,
climate, religion, feudalism, capitalism, colonialism, just to name the most obvious – none of these is impera-
tive. Democracy is possible anywhere – but not necessarily either inevitable or immediate. What is more, as
we shall see below, its very nature is constantly changing. What might have been an effective facilitator or
impediment in the past may no longer be in the present and future.
Transformations
One of the reasons why theorizing about it has been so difficult is that democracy has always been a moving
target. Not only has it not been possible to realize the ideal of ‘rule by the people', but the actual efforts to do
so have repeatedly changed. Robert A. Dahl (1971) did not hesitate to call these changes ‘revolutions', even
though they were usually introduced gradually and non-violently by politicians who did not think of themselves
as revolutionaries. Most often they were just responding to popular pressures, externally imposed circum-
stances or just everyday dilemmas of choice with incremental reforms and experimental modifications. These
accumulated over time until citizens and rulers eventually found themselves in a radically different polity – but
they still identified it with the same name.
Dahl identified three early democratic revolutions. The first was in size. The American constitution, the first to
make extensive use of territorial representation, federalist autonomies and presidential authority, broke with
the previous limitation to city-states. The second was in scale. Early experiments with democracy were based
on a very limited conception of citizenship. Sometimes gradually, other times tumultuously, these restrictions
were removed until all adult ‘nationals’ eventually acquired this status. The third was in scope. Originally,
democracies had a very restricted range of political tasks – mostly, external defense and internal order. Over
time, they acquired responsibility for a vast range of regulatory, distributive and re-distributive matters. Subse-
quently, democracies have suffered through and benefited from several other revolutions. Two of them have
exhausted their potential and become well-entrenched features of ‘modern, representative, liberal, political
democracy’ – in Europe and North America, at least. Three others are more contemporary and still very active
in their capacity to generate new challenges and opportunities.
The first involved the displacement of individuals by organizations as the effective citizens of democracy. Be-
ginning in the latter third of the 19th century, new forms of collective action emerged to represent the inter-
ests and passions of individual citizens. James Madison (1787) and Alexis de Tocqueville (1835) had earlier
observed the importance of a multiplicity of ‘factions’ or ‘associations’ within the American polity, but neither
could have possibly imagined the extent to which these would become large, permanently organized and
professionally run entities, continuously monitoring and intervening in the process of public decision-making.
Moreover, the interests and passions they represent cannot be reduced to a simple aggregation of the indi-
viduals who join or support them. They have introduced, on a large scale, their own distinctive organizational
objectives into the practice of policy-making and become democracy's most effective citizens.
The second has to do with the professionalization of the role of politician. Earlier, democratic representatives
and rulers were persons who might have been somewhat more affected by ‘civic’ motives, but who were oth-
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erwise not different from the restricted body of ordinary citizens. They would (reluctantly) agree to serve in
public office for a period of time and then return to their normal private lives and occupations. At some time
during the early 20th century, more and more democratic politicians began to live, not for politics, but from pol-
itics. They not only entered the role with the expectation of making it their life's work, but they also surrounded
themselves with other professionals – campaign consultants, fund-raisers, public relations specialists, media
experts and – to use the latest term – ‘spin doctors'. Whether as cause or effect, this change in personnel has
been accompanied by an astronomical increase in the cost of getting elected and of remaining in the public
eye if one is so unfortunate as to become un-elected. Creating one's own foundation seems to be the pre-
dominant way of coping with this dilemma.
The third, fourth and fifth transformations are contemporary and simultaneous – and their implications are
uncertain. Over the past 20 or more years – indeed, much longer in the case of the United States – democ-
racies have ceded the authority to make binding public decisions to ‘guardian institutions'. The expression is
taken from Plato and refers to specialized institutions – usually regulatory bodies – that have been assigned
responsibility for making policy in areas which politicians have decided are too controversial or too complex
to be left to the vicissitudes of electoral competition or inter-party legislative struggle. The locus classicus in
the contemporary period is the central bank, but earlier examples would be the general staffs of the military,
anti-trust agencies or civil service commissions. In each case, it is feared that the intrusion of ‘politics’ would
prevent the institution from producing some generally desired public good. Only experts acting on the basis
of (presumably) neutral intent and scientific knowledge can be entrusted with such a responsibility. A more
cynical view would stress that these are often policy areas in which the party in power has reason to fear
that if they have to hand over office in the future to their opponents, the latter will use these institutions to
punish the former or to reward themselves. The net effect of guardianship has been to deprive contemporary
democracies of discretionary action over issues that have a major impact upon their citizens. ‘Democracies
without choice’ is the expression that has emerged to describe and to decry this situation. Even more poten-
tially alienating is the fact that some of these guardians are not national, but operate at the supra-national –
regional or global – level. The European Union currently has 32 such regulatory agencies.
Which brings us to the fourth ‘revolutionary’ transformation: multi-level governance. It is particularly well de-
veloped in Europe, although similar developments are emerging elsewhere. During the post-World War II
period, initially in large measure due to a shared desire to avoid any possible repetition of that experience,
European national polities began experimenting with the level of aggregation at which collectively binding
decisions would be made. The most visible manifestation of this has been the emergence and subsequent
expansion of a set of regional institutions, culminating in the EU. But paralleling this macro-level experiment
has been a micro-level one, namely, the devolution of various political responsibilities to sub-national units:
provinces, regioni, Länder or estados autonómicos. As a result, virtually all European citizens find themselves
surrounded by a very complex set of authorities, each with vaguely defined or concurrently exercised policy
compétences. The oft-repeated assurance that only national states can be democratic is no longer true in
Europe, even though in practice it is often difficult to separate the various levels and determine which rulers
should be held accountable for making specific policies. European politicians have become quite adept at
passing the buck, and especially at blaming the EU for unpopular decisions. New political parties and move-
ments have even emerged blaming the EU for policies over which it has had little or no control – for example,
the massive influx of migrants from non-EU countries. Multi-level governance could, of course, be convert-
ed into something much more familiar, namely, a federal state, but resistance to this is likely to remain quite
strong for the foreseeable future – which means that the ambiguity over which of these multi-level institutions
are appropriate for each of these multiple levels will persist. And, when it comes to the design question, there
seems to be a general awareness that the rules and practices of democracy at different levels cannot and
should not be identical. Especially when it comes to ensuring the accountability of a ‘layered’ polity of the size,
scale, scope and diversity of the EU, democracy will have to be (yet again) re-invented (Schmitter, 2000).
The last of these simultaneous transformations in the nature of democracy is both the most challenging and
the most ambiguous: information and communications technology. Innumerable observers, theorists and pun-
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dits have declared that the new electronic means of direct communication are one of the – if not the – revolu-
tionary instruments that will substantially and irrevocably alter the practice of democracies. Most, at least ini-
tially, regarded these developments very favorably. As early as 1983, Ithiel de Sola Pool declared them ‘tech-
nologies of freedom'. More recently, this claim has been reiterated and expanded by Manuel Castells (2010,
2013), among many others. By making communication between individuals virtually effortless and costless,
by eliminating the factor of distance and number and by ensuring equality of access and anonymity of users,
the new social media seemed destined to realize the latent possibilities of both participatory and deliberative
democracy. Citizens could participate virtually in the organization of eventual collective actions and the elab-
oration of policy proposals. They could use the new media to search for and discuss controversial issues with
other interested persons – even without regard for national borders. As a result, they would become better
informed about the preferences of others and more inclined to participate in the other available channels of
political participation. Given the ability to make payments ‘online', candidates for elected office or for lead-
ership roles in associations or movements could reach much larger and more diverse audiences to request
financial support – freeing them from dependence on big donors. Voting itself could become electronic – and
perhaps expanded to a much wider set of issues and positions beyond and between the usual two, four or six
year parliamentary or presidential cycles. ‘E-democracy’ would supersede the limitations of competitive and
cooperative democracy and usher in new practices that would be both more participatory and more delibera-
tive.
Subsequent experience with the effects of this ‘revolution’ has dampened, if not dashed, much of the initial op-
timism. Individuals use the internet more to reinforce their existing opinions than to deliberate with those who
have contrary ones. Anonymity seems to promote the dissemination of ‘fake news’ and exaggerated claims.
The cross-border advantage has been turned into a license to interfere in other people's elections. Electronic
voting does seem to have encouraged higher voter turnout but has had little or no discernible positive im-
pact on either party affiliation, electoral outcomes or citizen interest in politics. Security issues still plague the
internet and its political exploitation. In short, e-democracy, with its alleged participatory and deliberative ad-
vantages remains an idealistic aspiration.
Democracies – new and old – are presently facing the challenge of coping with the accumulated impact of
these three multiple, overlapping and interacting transformations – even before they have absorbed com-
pletely the implications of having more organized intermediaries and professional politicians. The threat is es-
pecially critical since all of them focus attention on liberal democracy's most vulnerable institution: represen-
tation. If citizens do not trust and follow those who win elections in specified territorial constituencies and/or
if they do not trust and follow those who are selected by associations from designated functional categories,
then the entire edifice of legitimate public authority becomes vulnerable.
Trajectories
When Robert Dahl (1971) conducted the first systematic empirical research on the then existing 114 national
regimes in 1969, he found only 28 full polyarchies. Four others (Switzerland, Chile, the United States and
Ecuador) came close, but still retained de jure or de facto restrictions on voter eligibility. Most of them were lo-
cated either in Western European or in overseas territories colonized by the British or the Americans. The only
exceptions were Japan, Israel, Lebanon, Costa Rica and Uruguay. To make matters worse, Chile, Uruguay,
the Philippines and Lebanon soon lost this exalted status. The implication seemed clear to scholars: democ-
racy with the proper adjectives was a rara avis, suitable primarily for those polities that already had an An-
glo-American ‘civic’ culture or that had been fortunate enough to have been colonized by one or to have been
defeated in war and occupied by one.
On April 25, 1974, a coup by junior military officers in Portugal unexpectedly brought down the longest surviv-
ing autocracy in Europe. This was closely followed by other regime transitions in Southern Europe and, with
only a slight delay, in South America. In the ensuing 25 years, more than 60 countries distributed across all
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continents got rid of a variety of forms of autocracy and began to experiment with new forms of democracy.
And then a second unexpected event occurred: the autocratic regime of the Soviet Union collapsed, and with
this came the democratization of all six of its former allies in Central and Eastern Europe, along with the three
Baltic republics and Georgia. Yugoslavia's transformation was more tumultuous and violent, but despite the
ensuing civil wars, all of its component republics have eventually settled into some variant of democratic pol-
itics. So has even Albania, the most isolated and repressive all the Communist autocracies.
Democracies can now be found almost everywhere across the globe. One recent tally lists 68 ‘politically trans-
formed', successful new democracies since 1974 (Bertelsmann, 2008). Whatever its historical origins, this
form of political domination no longer has a unique geographical, cultural, ethnic or religious ‘site'. The only
‘requisite’ that all of these regimes have in common is a capitalist economy, but that is much more varied
in terms of level of development and source of wealth than in the past. Even in the Middle East and North
Africa, the world region which has been most resistant to democratization, Lebanon, Kuwait, Bahrain and,
more recently, Tunisia have been supporting free and competitive elections; the political freedoms of speech,
assembly, press, association and petition; and governments that are potentially revocable according to the
will of their citizens.
More notable even than the number of attempts at democratization since 1974 is the proportion of them
that have managed to remain democratic. In many cases, this constituted their very first attempt, and very
few countries had previously succeeded the first time they tried to democratize. Countries in Latin Amer-
ica seem to hold the world record for failed attempts (Ecuador and Bolivia are the champions), but there
have been many European, African and Asian failures as well. Today, all countries in both South and Central
America (except for Cuba) have at least popularly elected governments, if not all of the liberal freedoms and
rights associated with them. Africa can boast of several even greater accomplishments: Ghana, Mali, Benin,
Botswana, Senegal, Namibia, Mauritius and South Africa. South Korea and Taiwan have become models of
stable Asian democracy.
The usual mechanism for reversion to autocracy has been the military coup, but the underlying motive is usu-
ally civilian, namely, the threat that governments elected by the non-property-owning majority presented to
the property-owning minority previously protected by some civilian or military authoritarian regime. In other
cases, it was cultural, ethnic or religious differences between minority rulers and their majority subjects that
impeded successful democratization. Among the post-1974 attempts at regime change, very few have been
overthrown by their respective militaries. Pakistan, Thailand and Egypt stand out as exceptions to this un-
precedented rule.
The spectre that threatens many of the other neo-democracies is decay rather than demise. The institutional
overlay of constitutions, elections, associations, civil society organizations, sometimes even press freedom
remains, but is distorted to ensure the tenure of incumbents and their allies. Russia is the prime example,
but is only the most salient among a sizable group of ‘hybrid regimes’ (Gagné and Mahé, Chapter 47, this
Handbook). Nicaragua, Venezuela and Honduras in Latin America; Liberia, the Congo, Togo, Cameroon, the
Ivory Coast, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Angola in Africa; Morocco, Algeria, Jordan and Iran in the Middle East
and North Africa; Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia and all of the Central Asian former republics of the Soviet Union
(except for Kyrgyzstan); Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar in Asia – all claim to have
made the transition from autocracy, but all have failed to consolidate a regime that can plausibly claim to be
institutionally accountable to its citizens.
Part of the answer to this diffusion of ‘regime hybridization’ lies in what the recent literature on democratization
has called ‘modes of transition’ (Karl and Schmitter, 1991). Historically, there were two models for getting
from autocracy to democracy: the reformist path conveniently exemplified by Great Britain, and the revolu-
tionary path less conveniently exemplified by France. In both cases, it was assumed that the impetus came
from below – from a mobilization of those in the population that had been excluded, for various reasons, from

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full citizenship. In the former, ruling elites recognized the threat before it became widespread and violent and
then responded by revising the rules of the game, using the pre-existing rules to incorporate the excluded. In
the latter, they failed to do so and were subsequently deposed by a mass uprising, typically beginning in the
capital city.
When the post-1974 ‘wave of democratization’ began, it became immediately apparent that reform and revo-
lution were not going to be the exclusive modes of transition. Leaving aside the very peculiar case of Portu-
gal (whose revolution was triggered by a military coup), many of the other cases followed different patterns.
There was almost always some degree of popular mobilization, but not enough to be threatening to the incum-
bents in itself. What made them vulnerable were divisions within their ranks, and this led to two relatively new
modes of transition: the Pacted and the Imposed. In the first, a faction of the ruling elites agreed to negotiate
with their more moderate opponents and came to an agreement on the rules that would lead to an eventual
democracy. In the second, some hegemonic group within the existing regime anticipated the emerging threat
from below and initiated a change in regime from above, controlling the timing and content of the transition.
In both cases, the key element was some degree of reassurance of the enduring status and interests of the
autocratic elite – hence, the greater likelihood that the ensuing democracy would have ‘hybrid’ characteris-
tics. The presumption – not unrealistic – was that the subsequent functioning of electoral competition, interest
group negotiation and social movement pressure would gradually and consensually eliminate these ‘authori-
tarian enclaves'.
Prospects
When the post-1974 wave of democratizations struck – and, even more, when it was reinforced by the sec-
ond, post-1989 wave – both practitioners of politics and students of political science tended to react euphori-
cally. Democracy with all those adjectives had become ‘the only game in town’ (Linz and Stepan, 1996: 5) and
‘the final form of human government’ (Fukuyama, 1992: xi). Now that its main rival, the Soviet-style ‘People's
Democracy', had been irremediably defeated, all the world's regimes would converge toward the new norm –
dependent only upon their economic development.
This has not happened. Those pundits were correct that a period of history had ended during the 1970s and
1980s. What they neglected to consider was that it would be followed by another period, and one which has
proven to be much less tranquil and consensual than they predicted. The absence of a clearly inferior ene-
my deprived ‘real-existing’ democracies of one of their most important sources of legitimacy. Henceforth, they
would be judged primarily according to their conformity to the enduring principles of democracy – equality,
participation and accountability – not just by being marginally better than the alternative. To make matters
worse, the increasingly globalized capitalist economy that had been performing so well in the aftermath of
World War II started to falter and a full-scale financial crisis had come about by 2008. The threat of commu-
nism was gone, and the surplus of capitalism had diminished.
The great political paradox of this new period of history was that precisely at the moment when so many aspir-
ing neo-democracies emerged with the declared intention of imitating pre-existing ones, these archeo-democ-
racies were entering a compound crisis caused by the ‘revolutions’ we described above. Their citizens have
been questioning the very same ‘normal’ institutions and practices that new democratizers were trying so
hard to imitate, and finding them deficient – not to say, outright defective. The list of morbidity symptoms is
well known: their citizens have become more likely to abstain from voting; less likely to join or even identify
with political parties, trade unions or professional associations; more likely not to trust their elected officials or
politicians in general; and much less likely to be satisfied with the way in which they are being governed and
the benefits they receive from public agencies. Needless to say, it has not taken long for the citizens of most
neo-democracies to become equally, or more, disillusioned with what they have so recently accomplished.
The Spaniards have called this desencanto and there is hardly a democracy – new or old – that is not cur-
rently suffering from it.
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Which is not to say that democracy – with or without all those adjectives – is doomed to extinction. Perhaps
the strongest reason for its existence has been its repeatedly and uniquely demonstrated capacity to survive,
and to do so by using pre-established institutions to change its rules and practices peacefully and consen-
sually. So far, there is neither an obvious agent to promote the necessary reforms, nor a credible alternative
ideology to justify them, nor an obvious method for doing so. The working class has been replaced by a frag-
mented and anomic public; neo-liberalism has entrenched itself behind the plausible slogan of TINA – ‘There
Is No Alternative'; and the mechanism of revolution, or even its specter, is no longer credible. Who will pro-
mote the necessary changes? Why will they promote it? How will they accomplish it? I am confident that it
can and eventually will be done, but with what detours and delays I cannot say.
References
Aristotle, Politics: A Treatise on Government. In Jonathan Barnes, ed. (1984). The Complete Works of Aristo-
tle: The Revised Oxford Translation. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2 vols.
Bertelsmann Stiftung, ed. (2018). Transformation Index BTI 2018. Gütersloh: Verlag Bertelsmann.
Castells, Manuel (2010). Rise of the Network Society. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.
Castells, Manuel (2013). Communication Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press;
2nd edition
.
Dahl, Robert A. (1971). Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Fukuyama, Francis (1992). The End of History and the Last Man. New York: The Free Press.
Kant, Immanuel (1796). Project for a Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Pub-
lishing.
Karl, Terry L. and Schmitter, Philippe C. (1991). ‘Modes of Transition in Latin America: Southern and Eastern
Europe'. International Social Science Journal, 43(2), 269–84.
Katz, Richard S. and Mair, Peter (2009). ‘The Cartel Party Thesis: A Restatement'. Perspectives on Politics,
7(4), 753–66.
Linz, Juan J. and Stepan, A. (1996). Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe,
South America and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Lipset, Seymour M. (1959). ‘Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Le-
gitimacy'. American Political Science Review, 53(1), 69–105.
Madison, James (1787). The Federalist Papers No 10. New York Daily Advertiser, November 22.
Moore, Barrington Jr (1972). The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Boston: Beacon Press.
Schmitter, Philippe C. (2000). How to Democratize the European Union … and Why Bother? Boulder, CO:
Rowman & Littlefield.
Schmitter, Philippe C. and Karl, Terry L. (1991). ‘What Democracy Is … And Is Not'. Journal of Democracy,
Summer, 3–16.
Schumpeter, Joseph A. (1942). Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. New York: Harper & Brothers.
Sola Pool de, Ithiel (1983). Technologies of Freedom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Tocqueville de, Alexis (1835 and 2010). De la démocratie en Amérique. Paris: Flammarion.
• democracy
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n46

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Electoral Systems
Contributors: Bernard Grofman

Chapter Title: "Electoral Systems"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Electoral Systems
Bernard Grofman
Varieties of Electoral Systems

Perhaps the most important observation about voting rules is just how many different ways there are to im-
plement democratic elections. Even when we confine ourselves to the election of a single candidate, we can
readily identify dozens of ways to do so: from the simplest, where voters cast an X for a preferred candidate
and the candidate with the most votes wins (the plurality rule, known in many English-speaking countries as
first past the post); to a rule that asks voters to cast Xs for all the candidates they regard as acceptable,
with the one receiving the most ‘approval votes’ declared the winner (Brams and Fishburn, 1983 [2007]); to
a plethora of procedures requiring runoffs if no candidate receives a majority on the first ballot (Grofman,
2008), with the two-round majority runoff used in France being the best known of these; to rules requiring
voters to rank order candidates, such as the alternative vote (Fraenkel and Grofman, 2006), the Borda rule
(Saari, 1994), the Coombs rule (Grofman and Feld, 2004) and the median preference rule (Balinski and Lara-
ki, 2011). Rules such as approval voting, the Borda count, the Coombs rule and the procedure developed
by Balinski and Laraki can all be thought of as ways to assure the selection of a candidate who is generally
acceptable. Some procedures for selecting candidates that require a full ranking of alternatives by voters are
intended to satisfy the majoritarian criterion (more often labeled the Condorcet criterion after its 1785 propos-
er, the Marquis de Condorcet), which requires that, if there exists an alternative that is preferred by a majority
to each and every other alternative, then that is the alternative which should be chosen. Most common proce-
dures for selecting a single winner fail to satisfy the Condorcet criterion (Black, 1958). Plurality not only fails
the Condorcet winner criterion but even violates the Condorcet loser condition, which requires that no alter-
native which loses to each and every alternative in pairwise competition should be chosen.1
The range of options for electoral rule choices grows far larger when we move beyond elections for a single
winner to consider ways to elect members of a legislature or other representative body. In addition to plurality
rules applied to single-seat elections, the most important electoral rules worldwide are list forms of proportion-
al representation (the most common rule for national parliamentary elections), and mixed electoral systems
that combine plurality elections in individual districts with proportional representation rules for some of the
seats (see Reynolds et al., 2005).
While, at the national level, plurality rules are most often found in use in single-seat elections, plurality rules
can also be applied directly to multi-seat elections: the simplest form is called plurality bloc voting, that is,
M seats to be filled with each voter having M votes to cast as Xs, and with the M candidates with the most
votes declared to be the winners. With this rule, a majority bloc that votes in a cohesive fashion can fill all M
of the openings with its preferred candidates. Other variants of plurality are similar in effects but place some
restrictions on candidacies, such as involving voting for numbered places so that, although the majority can
still control all M elections, they must do by casting separate Xs in each of M single-seat contests. Usually the
numbered places are given a specific geographic location, even though the voting electorate for each place
is the set of voters as a whole, not just those who live within the given geography. A further variant of plu-
rality voting with numbered places involves a geographic residency requirement for candidacy in each of the
numbered places. Such rules, sometimes in conjunction with plurality elections in single seats, are common
in US local elections (Davidson and Grofman, 1994). They have been used in the past for legislative elections
in the United States in a substantial proportion of states (Niemi et al., 1985), although today only vestiges of
this usage persist (e.g. the two-seat districts in the lower chamber of the New Jersey legislature). Moreover,
multi-seat plurality can be combined with party lists to create the little-known plurality party bloc voting rule
used for national legislative elections in Singapore (Tan and Grofman, 2019).
List proportional representation (PR) rules also have many variants. One dimension of variation involves the
degree to which votes can affect the rankings of candidates on the party lists, with the key distinction being
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that between open lists and closed lists, with the latter far and away the most common. Another way to dif-
ferentiate among list PR rules has to do with the specific aggregation rule used to translate votes into seats.
List PR rules for translating votes to seats are mathematically equivalent to rules for allocating seats to geo-
graphic units within a legislature based on the population of those units. One important form of list PR is the
greatest remainder method, which corresponds to the Alexander Hamilton method for legislative apportion-
ment (Balinski and Young, 1982). But perhaps the most important set of rules for PR allocations are where
we find a divisor such that the resulting quotients will fill all the seats under a particular rule for ‘rounding’
the quotient. There are five basic forms of rounding: round up, round down, round in the usual way, round
according to the geometric mean and round according to the harmonic mean (Balinski and Young, 1982).
The rounding method involving the harmonic mean is now used for apportioning the US House of Represen-
tatives. The D'Hondt rule, which is the most common form of list PR, corresponds to ‘always round down'. It is
the equivalent of the rule proposed by Thomas Jefferson for apportioning the US House of Representatives.
We can show that, under D'Hondt, any group with at least a share of the electorate equal to 1/(M + 1), where
M is the number of seats in the district, can guarantee to elect a candidate of choices if its affiliates vote co-
hesively as a bloc. The Sainte-Lagüe rule, used in modified form in the Scandinavian countries, makes use of
what we think of as ordinary rounding, that is, rounding based on whether the remainder is above or below .5.
It is the equivalent of the Daniel Webster rule once used for apportioning the US House of Representatives
(Balinski and Young, 1982). Similarly, we can show that, under pure Sainte-Lagüe, it is still the case that any
group with at least a share of the electorate equal to 1/(M + 1) can guarantee to elect a candidate of choices if
its affiliates vote cohesively as a bloc. Where D'Hondt and Sainte-Lagüe differ is in how they generate values
for obtaining seats beyond the first seat (Lijphart and Gibberd, 1977).
There are a number of different ways to mix plurality and PR in multi-seat elections for a legislature. One im-
portant consideration is the share of seats allocated to each of the two components, but even more important
in determining overall effects is whether there is a linkage between the two components. The simplest distinc-
tion is between mixed member systems in which the single-seat plurality component and the PR component
operate completely separately; and ones in which the level of electoral success in the single-seat component
is taken into account in calculating the proportional share a party is to be given. Outcomes in the first type of
mixed system can be thought of as semi-proportional in that they combine some seats allocated accorded to
proportional rules with some seats allocated by plurality; the latter type of mixed system in effect operates as
a PR system even though it has a single seat plurality component.2
Another important distinction among mixed-member systems has to do with ballot structure. In a single-ballot
system the vote for the single-member candidate is credited to the party ticket (if any) on which that candidate
is running; in two-ballot systems, voters may express separately their preference for a candidate in the elec-
tion in the single-member district in which they are entitled to vote and their preference for a particular party
list (Massicotte and Blais, 1999).
The electoral rules identified above, while arguably the most influential, do not even begin to exhaust the vast
bestiary of electoral rule options. Here I mention only a handful of the better known rules. The most important
proportional representation alternative to list PR is the single transferable vote (STV).3 STV is the multi-seat
variant of the alternative vote. Under STV, voters rank candidates, and any candidate who receives over one
Droop quota of votes is elected. A Droop quota equals 1/(M + 1). Any cohesive group with at least a 1/(M+ 1)
share of the electorate can guarantee to elect a candidate of choice. In tallying votes under STV we first look
to first preferences to check for winners. If there are none, we eliminate the candidate with the fewest first-
place votes and reallocate her votes to the next candidate on her list. But once there is a winning candidate
who receives more than a Droop quota share, we look to the ballots cast by the candidate's supporters, and
a share of those ballots representing votes in excess of what was needed for the election of that candidate
are reallocated to the next candidate on such voter's ranked list.4 Then we check to see if that results in the
election of a further winner. This process continues until M candidates are chosen. It is easy to see that it is
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mathematically impossible for more than M candidates to have greater than a 1/(M + 1) share of the vote.
STV, in principle, allows voters to express complicated preferences that take into account both preferences
for parties and views of individual candidates but, in practice, voters may choose to report a truncated ballot
in which they confine their preference rankings to candidates of the party with which they identify. STV is most
famously used for parliamentary elections in Ireland; there it has proved resistant to attempts to do away with
it. It was also briefly used in more than two dozen localities in the United States, but now only the city council
elections for Cambridge, Massachusetts continue to use STV.
There are also other rules that can, in principle, achieve proportional representation, even if in practice they
do not do so perfectly. One of these is cumulative voting, a rule that allows voters to differentially weight their
votes for different candidates to express intensity of preference. Another is the single non-transferable vote in
which, even though there are multiple candidates to be elected, voters may vote for only one of these candi-
dates, with those with the most votes being elected. In the United States such rules have been proposed as
ways to assure the representation of racial and ethnic minorities at the local level. These rules allow a minori-
ty of a given size to elect at least one candidate of choice if they vote cohesively as a bloc (Brockington et al.,
1998). SNTV (single non-transferable vote) has been used in the past in places such as Japan and Korea,
and it is still in use in several countries, including Jordan and Afghanistan (Reynolds et al., 2005).
The more general form of the single non-transferable vote, the limited vote, gives each voter k votes but with
M candidates to be elected and M > k > 1. The limited vote can be thought of as a semi-proportional voting
rule. It has been used in Spain.5 Other rules first developed for use in single-seat elections, such as the Bor-
da rule and approval voting, can also be extended to allow for multi-seat elections.
There are a number of different ways to create a taxonomy of electoral rules. By making more fine-grained
distinctions we can avoid the misleading nature of simple comparisons of PR and non-PR systems, since
each category has multiple variants which can differ greatly in their implications for the behavior of voters,
candidates and political parties, and in their consequences for the types of public policies that are most likely
to be chosen (e.g. ones targeted to particular constituencies versus ones designed for broad appeal).
One common approach to classification of electoral systems relies solely on ballot features (e.g. Xs versus
rankings; party-based voting versus candidate-based voting versus some mix of the two; number of rounds of
election required or potentially required). These are all features that do not explicitly reference expected out-
comes. The second approach classifies voting rules according to their expected (or actual) proportionality of
outcomes, taking district magnitude (the number of seats per constituency) into account. This approach lends
itself to using proportionality as a key variable in explaining other outcomes of interest, such as the expected
number of parties. In turn, the structure of the party system can be used to understand other politically salient
outcomes, such as the nature of governing coalitions.
History of the Study of Electoral Systems
Four Books that Defined the Modern Subfield of Electoral Studies

The political science study of electoral systems is heavily normative in the 1930s and through the 1950s, with
the beginnings of the modern study of electoral systems seen in Duverger (1948, translated into English in
1954). We may think of the early literature on electoral system effects as focused on three topics: effects on
numbers of political parties seeking/gaining representation (Duverger, 1948, 1951); effects on proportionality
of the translation of votes into seats (Lakeman and Lambert, 1955); and effects on the ideological structure of
party competition, especially the likelihood that extremist parties will gain representation (Hermens, 1940).

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I view the birth of the modern comparative study of electoral systems as coming with the publication of Rae's
seminal Political Consequences of Electoral Laws in 1969. This book more or less does it all: it introduces
new quantitative measurement tools, uses what were for the time sophisticated methods of analysis, makes
use of graphical display to make points clearly and identifies most of what became the defining issues in the
subfield over the next several decades. But I also wish to flag for special attention three subsequent books
published in the 20th century that have become classics.
The 20th-century culmination of the mainstream study of electoral system effects in major democracies is
Arend Lijphart's Electoral Systems and Party Systems: A Study of Twenty-Seven Democracies, 1945–1990,
published in 1994. With the help of a large team of country specialists, this work uses cross-national regres-
sions, and some before and after analyses involving changes in electoral rules, to study electoral system ef-
fects, including proportionality of seats–votes relationships and party system fragmentation. It also provided
an influential typology of electoral rules, and a discussion of time trends in electoral rule choice.
Two other landmark books provide major methodological innovations in the study of electoral systems.
Taagepera and Shugart (1989) introduce a theory-based approach that on the one hand restricts itself to a
handful of structural variables, such as district magnitude (the number of seats elected from a constituency),
and on the other looks not to a prediction of country-specific outcomes but at predictions of the expected
average values (and distribution) of a handful of key outcome variables such as proportionality and the (effec-
tive) number of political parties.6 This work is based on the notion of logical constraints serving as boundary
conditions on the range of feasible values, the principle of insufficient reason and insights into the behavior of
aggregates of voters drawn from thermodynamics – ideas that stem from Taagepera's training as a physicist.
While Taagepera takes his inspiration from physics, Cox (1997) draws from contemporary economics. His
book offers a magisterial synthesis of game theory-based models of electoral system effects, in which the
aim is to find equilibrium solutions to games involving the interaction of voters and political parties who take
electoral systems rules to provide incentives for and constraints on the creation of political parties and their
ideological locations. In his ‘rational’ world, parties look for winning ideological niches, seeking to maximize
seat share – though later models allow for parties to have policy goals as well.
The Development of the Subfield

There has been a remarkable growth in books and articles studying electoral rules from a theoretical and
comparative perspective. That growth has, if anything, accelerated in the 21st century. The subfield of com-
parative electoral systems is now fully established as a major subarea within the broader field of comparative
politics, and its theoretical underpinnings seem firmly in place. Moreover, it seems that at least every other
issue of the top general-purpose political science journals carries an article on electoral systems.
While the organizing issues of earlier work of electoral law effects – proportionality in the seats–votes rela-
tionship, number of parties, ideological range of party competition, coalition structure – remain central in the
literature (see e.g. Carey and Hix, 2011 for recent work on proportionality), with a better theory of how elec-
toral systems affect party systems, the literature has gone on to look at other types of effects of electoral
rules. Here I mention only a few of the (relatively) newer topics, and provide only a few illustrative citations:
1. What are electoral systems’ effects on voter turnout? While research continues to confirm
the long established fact that countries with PR systems tend to have higher turnout than
countries operating under plurality rules, using within-nation comparisons, it disconfirms
many of the standard theories as to why we might expect such a relationship to occur
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(Grofman and Selb, 2011; see also Grofman and Selb, 2009, for example, the notion that
more parties increase voter choice and thus, ceteris paribus, the more parties there are,
the more likely are voters to have a party that they are enthusiastic about supporting at
the polls – so that turnout should be higher when there are more parties – is not well sup-
ported.
2. What are the consequences of electoral rules for racial, ethnic and gender representation
and for the mitigation of ethnic conflict? With respect to gender representation, as in other
areas of electoral systems research, a clear finding is that the devil is in the institutional
detail (see e.g. Krook and Moser, 2012). In particular, the effects of gender quotas depend
considerably on whether they are suggestive or mandatory, on the level of gender repre-
sentation that is called for, on the enforcement mechanism and on such subtle details as
whether a requirement for the alternative placement of women on party lists also requires
random assignment by gender as to who is at the top of the list. Similarly, work on elec-
toral rules and ethnic accommodation casts doubt on overly facile acceptance of the idea
that either proportional representation rules or so-called vote-pooling methods necessar-
ily mitigate ethnic conflict (compare Reilly, 1997, 2005 with Fraenkel and Grofman, 2006).
3. What are the effects of ethnic cleavages on party proliferation under different types of
electoral rules? Work such as Amorin Neto and Cox (1997) and Li and Shugart (2016)
demonstrates that social diversity can increase the size of the party system above what
we might expect from the electoral rule taken in isolation. However, what happened in
Belgium, where a polarizing linguistic cleavage in effect nearly doubled the number of
parties by having a language split override ideological similarities among party supporters
coming from different language communities, seems to be an extreme case.
4. What factors affect the likelihood that campaigns will be party-specific as opposed to can-
didate-centered? Here, we have learned that single-member districts are far from the only
electoral rule to be compatible with candidate-centered politics (Carey and Shugart,
1995), and more recent work has shown that there are longitudinal trends toward person-
alized campaigning that extend well beyond the United States (Renwick and Pilet, 2016).
A closely related question deals with the implications of electoral rule choice for the likeli-
hood that campaigns will be centered on constituency-specific concerns, such as pork-
barrel projects in the district, rather than policy and distributional or redistributional issues
affecting broad segments of the voting public defined in terms of class interests (see
Persson and Tabellini, 2002; cf. Grofman, 2005).
5. What types of voting rules foster the type of political manipulation that produces partisan
bias, and, relatedly, how do electoral rules differ in their susceptibility to manipulation via
the gerrymandering of constituency boundaries? Tan and Grofman (2019) argue that par-
ty bloc voting as it is used in Singapore and in some African nations is especially perni-
cious in its potential for favoring the plurality group, and that it has become what they call
the ‘autocrat's friend'. But they also note that, on the other hand, there is little actual evi-
dence for partisan gerrymandering in Singapore. Similarly, Sauger and Grofman (2016)
show that partisan gerrymandering effects in France's two-round ballot system appear to
be exaggerated.
6. How does choice of electoral rules affect the likelihood that the views of the median voter
will determine the policies of the governing party or party coalition (Powell, 2000)? On this
question there is ongoing controversy. The earliest work seemed to confirm the view that
PR systems would be more responsive to the preferences of the median voter than would
ones using plurality, but later work (involving a different time period and a slightly different
set of countries) did not support this conclusion.7
Since a full review of even the literature of the past two decades is beyond the scope of this short essay, I
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would like to call particular attention to a few recent books that either extend our knowledge or provide a use-
ful synthesis, some of which are monographs and some of which are edited collections.
Turning first to the monographs: Moser and Scheiner (2013) compare data on party proliferation effects in
the PR and plurality components of mixed electoral systems, and emphasize the importance of distinguishing
new democracies with still evolving party systems from more established democracies; Reynolds (2011) looks
at the relationship between electoral systems and racial, ethnic and gender representation; Lublin (2014) also
looks at ethnic representation but with a focus on ethno-regional parties, making use of a remarkably exten-
sive data set which he has compiled; Bochsler (2010) brings to the political science literature on electoral
systems a concern for electoral geography previously found almost solely among political geographers; Ren-
wick and Pilet (2016) show how candidate-centric as opposed to party-centric competition is enhanced by or
retarded by particular types of electoral rules; Norris (2004) offers a synthesis of the literature on electoral
engineering that covers a multiplicity of topics; Taagepera (2007) provides new models for the relationship
between electoral systems and the distribution of party sizes; and, perhaps most importantly, Shugart and
Taagepera (2018) offer a magisterial update of Taagepera and Shugart (1989), but now with both the order
of authorship reversed and the causal arrow in the reverse direction, that is, from seats to votes rather than
from votes to seats.
Turning now to edited volumes: a series of five edited books sponsored by the Peltason Center for the Study
of Democracy at the University of California, Irvine under a research scheme which I devised compares coun-
tries that use the same electoral rule to seek to identify electoral effects that generalize across cases, and
to identify intervening factors that limit generalizability.8 This series spans the last decade of the last century
and the first decade of this one and reviews five of the world's major electoral systems: STV, SNTV, list PR,
plurality and mixed-member systems. Grofman et al. (1999) look at the single non-transferable vote in Japan,
Korea and Taiwan; Bowler and Grofman (2000) look at the single transferable vote in Australia, Ireland and
Malta; Shugart and Wattenberg (2001) examine mixed-member systems in both western and eastern Europe,
as well as in New Zealand; Grofman and Lijphart (2002) look at list PR elections in the Nordic countries; and
Blais et al. (2008) examine plurality-based elections in Canada, India, the UK and the United States, with a
focus on the effects of single-seat plurality on the (effective) number of parties. I would also single out two
other edited volumes that expanded our knowledge of electoral system effects: Colomer (2004a) and Gal-
lagher and Mitchell (2005). While primarily containing country-specific analyses across a range of electoral
rules, these volumes seek to go beyond case studies to develop genuine comparative theory. Finally, I would
note the important compilation created by an APSA taskforce edited by Mala Htun and G. Bingham Powell,
published in 2012, that looks at the relationship between electoral rules and democratic governance, and con-
tains a number of very insightful essays.
Data Availability, Measurement Tools and Graphical Display

The tremendous growth in the electoral systems subfield has been facilitated by a number of factors – most
notably the dramatic enlargement in the number of countries that could be treated as democratic and the
creation of ever longer post-World War II longitudinal data sets, on the one hand, and the expansion in the
number of political scientists doing empirically oriented research, especially those from newer democracies,
on the other. While scholars located in the United States or the UK continue to play a large role, an increasing
share of the work being published in the subfield is by younger scholars who are located at institutions out-
side the United States or other English-speaking countries, though many of these younger scholars received
training outside their home countries. The increased use of English-language materials and instruction in the
political science graduate programs of top European universities also plays a role in creating a truly interna-
tional community of electoral systems scholars that fosters research collaborations across national borders.

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But there are two other important changes that have greatly improved the quality of electoral system schol-
arship. The first is the increasing availability of data for elections in many countries at the level of individual
districts, not merely at the national level, and in a format that allows for easy computer processing (Struther
et al., 2018). The second is the existence of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) multi-na-
tional project (cses.org/) that allows researchers to meld aggregate election data with survey data (and other
information) on the same elections.
Another reason for progress in electoral system research is the development of measurement tools that lend
themselves to precise quantitative assessment and the development of long-run time series. Key articles ap-
pear in the 1970s introducing measurement ideas such as the Threshold of Exclusion and the Threshold of
Representation (Rae et al., 1973), which provide a priori measures of the degree to which a given electoral
rule allows for minority representation; the Index of Distortion (Loosemore and Hanby, 1971), which provides
an ex post measure of disproportionality; and the Laakso–Taagepera (1979) measure of the Effective Num-
ber of Parties, which reflects the need to take into account party sizes when considering party constellations,
rather than simply counting the number of parties gaining representation.9 Perhaps the most important tech-
nical refinement of the 1990s is the Gallagher Index (1991), an alternative way to measure ex post dispro-
portionality in the form of a weighted measure that pays less attention to the disproportionality in the smaller
parties, since these make up a smaller percentage of the votes or seats. All these tools, but especially the
Laakso–Taagepera index, continue to be very widely used and are now more or less taken for granted fea-
tures of much current work in the electoral systems and parties literature.
There are, however, some more recent further advances. Both Blais and Lago (2009) and Grofman and Selb
(2009) offer generalizations of Cox's (1997) measure of electoral competitiveness to multi-party situations op-
erating under proportional representation rules. The Cox measure involves the gap between the vote shares
of the largest and the second largest party. While that operationalization of level of competition makes sense
for plurality settings, in PR settings even parties with relatively low seat shares may have an opportunity to
gain seats. Thus, we would wish to know how far away from a seat gain each party's share places it in the
context of the overall distribution of votes across the parties.
Feld and Grofman (2007) show how the Laakso–Taagepera (L-T) index can be reformulated in more standard
statistical terms as regards the mean and variance of party seat or vote distributions. Dumont and Caulier
(2003) and Kline (2009) offer an interesting way to extend the L-T index. They propose combining the Laak-
so–Taagepera index with power scores derived from game theory.10 This reformulation has a number of nice
features, but in particular, unlike the L-T index, it generates a finding of one-party dominance whenever any
party controls a majority of seats. However, perhaps the single most important contribution of the present
century to an already solidly established measurement tool kit is the development of a new index of bipartism,
looking exclusively at the extent to which a party constellation can be characterized as a two-party system
(Gaines and Taagepera, 2013). This measure is of particular importance in testing Duverger's (1948, 1954)
claim that single-seat plurality-based elections foster two-party competition – at least at the local level.11 A
quite different perspective has, however, also been recently proposed by Grofman and Kline (2012). They
look at party constellations in terms of ideological propinquity rather than seat share and use a clustering
model derived from earlier work on theories of cabinet formation to determine the ‘effective number of ideo-
logically distinct parties'.
Graphical tools also have come to the fore. Taagepera and Shugart (1989) introduce the Index of Advantage,
a ratio measure, and then plot it over the range of party sizes so as to provide a graphic measure of the extent
to which disproportionality in the translation of votes into seats benefits or hurts larger as opposed to smaller
parties. Display tools showing the structure of party competition, such as ternary diagrams and Nagayama
diagrams, are described and made use of in Grofman et al. (2004), Taagepera (2004) and Taagepera and
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Allik (2006).
Origins of Electoral Rules

Issues involving choice of voting rules are found in many settings: from elections for a single executive (e.g.
Baumgartner, 2006 on rules for electing the Pope; and see dueling perspectives on the Electoral College in
Ross, 2019); to local elections for bodies such as city councils or school boards (Weaver, 1986); to elections
for the European Parliament (Dolez and Laurent, 2010); to choice of voting rules within both governmental
and non-governmental voting bodies, such as voting rules for the Council of the European Union or voting
rules for corporate elections in the United States (Glazer, Glazer, and Grofman,1984). Here our focus will be
on national elections for parliament (Rae, 1969; Lijphart and Grofman, 1984; Kreuzer, 2010).
While the literature on voting rules stretches far back in time (McLean and Urken, 1995), a convenient starting
point for this section is the invention of proportional representation (PR) methods in the 19th century. The in-
vention of PR was eventually followed by a transformation of the electoral system usage map in the decades
prior to World War I (Mackie and Rose, 1991), with PR rules adopted for parliamentary elections in most major
non-English-speaking democracies.
There remains considerable dispute about the reasons why this change occurred (see e.g., Dunleavy and
Margetts, 1995). The most common argument builds on ideas of Stein Rokkan (1970), to wit, that established
elites saw PR as a way of holding on to power in the face of inexorable pressures for suffrage expansion that
threatened to bring socialist parties to power (see especially Boix, 1999). While there is broad-based agree-
ment that choice of electoral rules is intimately linked to issues of suffrage expansion and to broader process-
es of democratization (see e.g. Blais et al., 2005), the Rokkan thesis has been challenged in a number of
different ways. For example, Calvo (2009: 255) reminds us that this argument ‘fails to explain PR reforms
in countries with weak or nonexistent socialist parties, a list that includes most countries of the world in the
early twentieth century'. Calvo also calls attention to an argument neglected in Rokkan about the importance
of ethnic representation for choice of voting rules. Calvo's own work emphasizes effects of electoral geogra-
phy that can generate partisan biases that affect party preferences for electoral rule choices. Ahmed (2010)
argues for the importance of strategic choices by conservative parties as to how best to fight socialism which
did not always generate a preference for proportional representation. Ziblatt (2017) similarly takes a party-
centric approach, focusing on conservative parties’ adaptations to a new electoral environment and the ways
in which they developed strategies to compete for the votes of the less well off. et al. (2007, 2010), however,
take a quite different tack, and argue that the degree of adversarial relationships in worker–management in-
teractions offers the key explanation for why not all major democracies adopted PR, and that this factor also
explains the continued relationship between varieties of capitalism and choice of electoral rules.12
From World War II through the early 1990s, in most long-term major democracies, we observe largely frozen
electoral system usage at the parliamentary level – with English-speaking nations using plurality or the alter-
native vote and just about every other OECD country using some form of PR. France is an exception in that
the perceived weakness of the proportional system in use in the 4th French Republic led to the adoption of a
two-round single-ballot system for parliamentary elections under the 5th Republic.13 In the 1990s, however,
there was a new wave of change, involving imitation of some features of the mixed-member system electoral
system that had been adopted by Germany: in Japan, the use of SNTV ended; in Italy, proportional represen-
tation was discontinued; and in New Zealand, a plurality system was replaced. In each case the replacement
is a mixed-member system. For these cases of electoral system change, theories of electoral system choice
based on western Europe in the late 19th and very early 20th centuries seem of limited relevance.

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Moreover, once we look beyond the long-term democracies, both the range of cases to study and the range
of possible explanations for electoral choices widens considerably. Global changes come with the rise of new
democracies after decolonialization in the 1960s, and then again in the 1990s after the break-up of the So-
viet empire, with new (or restored) countries adopting new electoral rules. Here we simply note four factors
that can impact electoral system choice. None of these factors reflects the idealist vision of electoral reform
as serving good government ends, though surely some participants in electoral reform debates are primarily
motivated by exactly such sentiments.14
1. Preference-based rational choice calculations made by those with the ability to affect
change can be based on their (long run or short term; accurate or mistaken) expectations
of having electoral or policy outcomes (more) to their liking. In John Ferejohn's classic
phrasing (personal communication, 1971): ‘Preference for rules is conditioned by prefer-
ence for outcomes.’ For example, as the potential threat to white dominance from enfran-
chised black voters began to be taken seriously, white Democrats in power in the US
South after World War II began to adopt majority run-off election rules for Democratic
congressional primaries to prevent African Americans from being nominated as plurality
winners.15
2. Borrowing from what is used in other countries – perhaps historically conditioned, per-
haps more or less faddish. For example, Mozaffar et al. (2003) note the link between the
choice of electoral rules in Africa and colonial heritage, with British colonies more likely to
choose plurality and French colonies initially opting for either proportionality or a two-
round ballot (reflecting the rules from the 4th and 5th French republics). But it is hard to
see the 1990s attractiveness of mixed-member systems as reflecting anything other than
a view in other countries that post-World War II Germany has been very successful both
economically and politically, and that at least some of that success should be credited to
its electoral institutions.
3. Decisions by outside actors after a country's military loss, or negotiations taking place as
part of a broader peace agreement after a civil war (perhaps brokered by outside media-
tors).
4. Sometimes there can be popular pressure for change, especially when the seats–votes
relationship seems ‘out of whack'. But parties in power may be able to successfully resist
pressures from below, unless accidents occur. For example, we apparently owe New
Zealand's change to a mixed-member system in part to a minister who misspoke and
found his government committed to a referendum on electoral law change – one which
his party later unsuccessfully opposed.
The Future of Electoral Systems Research

Looking to the future of electoral system research, we can say for sure that there will be continuing work on
the role of various types of quotas and redistricting mechanisms in ethnic and gender representation. But
there are a number of other developments in recent decades which I expect to see being built upon and ex-
panded in the future. Here I wish to highlight just three of these.
1. We will need to deal better with issues of causality. Understanding when particular types
of electoral system effects will manifest remains key to future progress in the subfield.
Because of overdetermination, disentangling causation can be quite difficult. For exam-
ple, societies where socialist traditions are weak, or which have particular cultural fea-
tures, such as British colonial heritage, have also been ones with plurality-based rules.
These societies may be also be expected to have major differences from one another in
a variety of ways, and so we need to be careful about making claims about the causal
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effects of electoral system differences. Similarly, Colomer (2004b) emphasizes selection

bias effects in which countries pick voting rules that are compatible with their preexisting
cleavage structure. The embedded institutions approach, to whose edited volumes I have
previously called attention, deals with causality in terms of most similar systems design,
on the one hand, and natural experiments, on the other. As previously noted, the most
similar system design is intended to help tease out context effects (e.g. the intermediat-
ing role of institutions such as a president or a federal system). There is also a growing
literature using experiments, both in the field and in the laboratory (Dolez, Grofman and
Laurent, 2010; Muraoka and Barcelo, 2017) to better understand causality of electoral
system effects. We can also expect that more will be done with the new methodological
tools for empirical causal analysis, such as regression discontinuity design, difference in
difference, and statistical matching of most similar cases.
2. Relatedly, we must better answer the question of how much we can use the levers of
electoral system choice to achieve social change. Answering this question will require us
to assess the independent effects of electoral rules as compared to other factors such as
political culture and political history.
3. We should better acknowledge and build upon contributions from disciplines other than
political science. In particular, work by leading economists uses very sophisticated econo-
metrics as well as applied game theory to examine electoral system effects. Also, much
of the most interesting experimental work on electoral system effects has been done by
economists – and economists are central in contributing to the highly mathematical work
on voting rules that is published these days, largely in interdisciplinary journals such as
Social Choice and Welfare. But the flow of ideas goes both ways. For example, the Cana-
dian economist Stanley Winer has worked on applying electoral system ideas to the de-
velopment of the Canadian party system (Winer et al., 2017), while the Italian economist
Pietro Navarra, along with the British economist Ram Mudambi, has done work on elec-
toral system effects on Italian party systems (Mudambi et al., 1996), and I have previously
referenced work by the Spanish economist Josep Colomer (2004a, 2004b). I should also
note that a new subfield of computational social choice has been developing in computer
science, involving both axiomatic approaches to voting rule properties and simulations of
election law effects. Because this work is being published largely in computer science
and artificial intelligence journals and conference proceedings (see e.g. Betzler et al.,
2013), and because it is highly technical, it has been virtually invisible to political scien-
tists.
Notes
1 One famous example of this failure of plurality is the US Senate election contest in New York in 1970 involv-
ing the Republican candidate, James Buckley (brother of William F. Buckley); Richard Otinger, the Demcoratic
candidate; and Charles Goodell, a liberal Republican running on the Liberal Party line. Buckley won with a
39% plurality to 37% for Otinger and 24% for Goodell. If Otinger had not been in the contest, it is certain that
most Democrats would have supported Goodell over Buckley, since in a choice between two Republicans
most Democrats would have supported the more liberal of the two. But similarly, almost certainly the majority
of Goodell supporters, who were voting for him on the Liberal line, would have supported Otinger over Buck-
ley, allowing Otinger to win. Thus, Buckley was a Condorcet loser.
2 However, there may be ‘contamination’ effects across the two components which operate to make the con-
stellation of parties in each similar to one another.
3 STV is also known as the Hare system, after its British exponent, but it was first proposed by the Danish
mathematician (and politician) Carl Andræ, and was used for the first time in an election to the Danish Rigs-
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dag in 1856.
4 Here we slough over technicalities involving the randomization of this allocation process.
5 An interesting historical footnote is that the limited voting rule was first proposed by the mathematician
Charles Dodgson, who is better known to most of us under his pen name of Lewis Carroll (Black, 1969).
6 See below for definition of this term.
7 My own view is that electoral system representational effects depend heavily upon the degree of polarization
between/across parties and on the ideological distribution of party strengths. This can vary across time. Thus,
I am not that disturbed by seemingly contradictory findings.
8 I refer to examination of context effects in this most similar system design as ‘embedded institution’ analysis
(Grofman et al., 1999).
9 The Laakso–Taagepera index involves summing squared seat (or vote) proportions. This index is the in-
verse of the even better known Hirfindahl–Hirschman index used in economics.
10 Writing in ignorance of the work of Dumont and Caulier (2003), Grofman (2006) independently suggested
the possibility of creating such a combined index.
11 Duverger offers a three-part ‘law’ which asserts that plurality single-seat constituencies favor two-party
competition, and that proportional representation and two-round ballot systems favor multi-partyism. Duverger
proposes that electoral system effects occur through two mechanisms – one mechanical, tied to the district
magnitude and the Threshold of Exclusion, and one more incentive-based, referred to by Duverger as a ‘psy-
chological effect'. The latter impacts both voters and parties. Parties that expect to lose have little incentive to
run, and voters have little incentive to vote for parties that have no chance of victory. These two sides of the
coin interact to reduce the number of parties to what I have referred to as the ‘carrying capacity’ of the system.
There are many articles arguing for the continued accuracy of Duverger's Law, which has long been referred
to as one of the handful of true ‘laws’ in the social sciences. This literature convincingly shows that, on av-
erage, the effective number of political parties is lower in countries with single-seat plurality elections than in
other countries. However, there is a literature suggesting some important caveats. In particular, (a) Duverg-
er's law has been tested using ‘effective number of parties', which is distinct from what Duverger had in mind;
(b) for plurality elections, Duverger's law can only be viewed as plausible in terms of district outcomes, not
jurisdiction-wide outcomes; and (c) even at the district level, with the exception of a handful of tiny Caribbean
island republics, the United States is virtually alone in looking like a true two-party system. For example, in
many districts in the UK and Canada, third parties (often regional parties) persist, and competition is rarely
limited to only two major parties. In India, the picture is also not straightforward. With the decline of the Con-
gress Party, Indian political competition at the district level is only rarely limited to two parties, but also parties
tend to come and go.
12 I make no attempt to arbitrate this controversy, other than to note that necessary or sufficient conditions for
some type of outcome are unlikely to be reducible to a single factor and that explanatory factors may interact
in complex ways; nor need we expect that all similar outcomes have the same cause.
13 That two-round ballot is also used for French presidential elections in the Fifth Republic.
14 Renwick (2011) offers both case-specific analyses and theory to better understand the nature of debates
about electoral reform.
15 D'Alimonte (2012: 255–6) provides another example of an interest-driven explanation for electoral system
choice: Italy in 1993. ‘On the choice between two round elections and simple plurality in the SMD component
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of the mixed system that was being proposed the DC succeeded in steering the decision away from the
French system, which was the preferred option of the PDS and towards the plurality formula. Its preference
for this choice was influenced by the results of the [June 1993] local elections held with a two-round electoral
system. The poor performance of the DC candidates, due to the DC difficulty in forming alliances, convinced
party leaders that the French system was not in its interest.'
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• electoral systems
• voting
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• seating
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http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n47

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Executive Power
Contributors: Ferdinand Müller-Rommel & Michelangelo Vercesi

Chapter Title: "Executive Power"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Executive Power
Ferdinand Müller-Rommel Michelangelo Vercesi
Introduction
Executive power exists in all polities. Although ubiquitous in all countries, the concept of executive power has
received remarkably little scholarly attention, if key political science handbooks are taken as the reference
point. The subject is not well studied because it is difficult to define and to measure. In most studies, executive
power is defined as the power of the political executive to make and influence governmental policy. Empiri-
cally, it has often coincided with political power tout court (Finer, 1997). In this sense, executive power can be
fragmented or centralized, it can variously interact with other forms of social power and it can be channeled
through more or less strong institutions (Acemoglu and Robinson, 2012).
This chapter attempts to conceptualize executive power in different political regimes.1 It starts with a historical
review of the notion of executive power. The chapter then introduces various definitions of executive power
and advocates that executive power should be studied in context with the functioning of political institutions.
The discussion paves the way to an overview of the organization of executives in authoritarian and democra-
tic regimes. In a further step, we examine the internal structure of political executives in democratic regimes
particularly in light of their linkage to political parties and legislative support. Moreover, we discuss the issue
of gender representation in the context of executive power. In the final section we tackle the pressing debate
on how to measure executive power.
Executive Power in a Historical Context

If one recalls the history of executive power back to Greek philosophers, Plato and Aristotle have probably
been the most influential thinkers. While the former tried to define the best rulers’ profiles, the latter was more
concerned with illustrating (normatively) how rulers should use their power. Later Roman writers extended
these issues. Cicero, for example, argued that an ideal system should give wise people the chance to choose
superior leaders, who govern based on goodwill and are loved by the governed themselves (Keohane, 2014:
26–30). Outside Western society, Confucius (551–479 bc) had already stressed – even before Plato – the
need to lead people through specific virtues and moral qualities (Wong, 2011: 771–2). A new perspective was
introduced by early Christian thinkers, who were interested in answering the question of what role govern-
ing plays in God's creation and how Christians should govern accordingly (Lunn-Rockliffe, 2011: 142). The
relationship between religion and politics was also a relevant topic in the Muslim world during the medieval
period of Islam (about 850–1200): some philosophers sought to reinterpret Plato and Aristotle against the Is-
lamic law; others provided advice to leaders about ethics and the ideal government. In this regard, the most
famous treaty was the Book of Government, written by the Persian Nizam al-Mulk in the late 11th century.
Later works on executive power simply described the caliphate as the sum of the functions of the caliph. After
the abolition of the caliphate in the first half of the 20th century, Islamist theorists mainly focused on Islamic
ideals, rather than providing empirical accounts of governing institutions (Akhavi, 2011). The classical Hindu
tradition was another example of thought where ‘good’ government was related to the fulfillment of a sacred
law: the individual's spiritual sphere was seen as superior and government was understood as a necessary
burden. An exception was Kautilya's Arthashastra, a text of political realism from the 4th century before Christ
(Dalton, 2011: 811–12).
Because of its focus on government as it is and not government as it ought to be, Weber ([1919] 1992: 75)
compared Arthashastra to Machiavelli's later The Prince. The Prince's publication (1513) can be considered
a watershed for the passage from a normative to a realist study of executive power in the Western thought.
‘The theme of the treatise is not guardianship or statesmanship, but the success of the individual prince in

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obtaining and retaining power.’ According to Machiavelli, these activities may well require behaving immorally
(Keohane, 2014: 30). Only between the 17th and 18th centuries was executive power explicitly connected to
the issue of constitutionalism. Authors such as Locke (1632–1704), Montesquieu (1689–1755) and Rousseau
(1712–78) aimed at justifying the executive as a distinct power of the state and defining how it relates with
other constitutional powers. Similarly, Hamilton (about 1757–1804) discussed the specific powers of the exec-
utive in the well-known Federalist Papers (Keohane, 2014). In 1848, Marx and Engels connected the notion
of executive power to their materialist theory of history, by asserting that in modern states the executive is but
a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.
Executive Power and Political Institutions

When political science as an academic discipline came into being at the end of the 19th century, old institu-
tionalism focused on executive power, with a legalistic approach in terms of leaders’ formal powers in office
(Helms, 2014: 196). Meanwhile, the main representatives of the Italian school of elitism (Pareto and Mosca)
argued that politics is invariably about a minority who rules over a majority, irrespective of the political regime.
These scholars tried to discover why executive power is always exerted by a relatively small number of in-
dividuals, citing factors such as superior personal qualities and oligarchical organizational principles (Blondel
and Müller-Rommel, 2007: 820). These contributions have been prodromal to the establishment of the mod-
ern empirical study of executive power in political science.
Over the years, it has become conventional wisdom in the discipline that politics is characterized by the
search for and the exercise of power. Since this power is disputed between political actors, we can simply
assert that politics essentially refers to a ‘struggle for power’ (Weber [1919] 1922).
A first systematic–empirical linkage between politics and power was introduced by the Chicago School of po-
litical science in the 1920s and 1930s. Its main three representatives (Catlin, Merriam and Lasswell) argued
that power should be the key concept to understand politics. In this regard, Lasswell's definition of politics as
‘who gets what, when, how’ is the most famous expression (Lasswell, 1936). In the early 1950s, Lasswell,
together with Kaplan, distinguished between influence (control over valued material or immaterial resources)
and power: power, the two argued, is an exercise of influence, which modifies others’ behavior through (po-
tential) punishments or rewards. This phenomenon would denote the realm of politics (Lasswell and Kaplan,
1950). Similarly, de Jouvenel (1963) depicted the core of the political as a relation between an ‘instigation’ (to
do something) and a corresponding (positive) ‘response'. Yet, other scholars have observed that it is not any
form of power that denotes politics, but rather a very specific type. In his theory of social systems, Parsons
(1969) stressed that only political power is crucial to understand politics. Easton (1953) criticized the Chica-
go School and proposed to connect the notion of political system precisely to the authoritative allocation of
values. Finally, Sartori (1975: 132) rephrased Easton and argued that politics is about collectivized decisions,
which are ‘(i) sovereign, (ii) without exit, and (iii) sanctionable'.
The theoretical viability of such definitions ultimately depends on how one defines the community that is af-
fected by these enforceable decisions. If one argues that this community is political since it is subjected to
the political power itself, the conceptualization will appear tautological. If, instead, one does not define the
community this way, one will conclude that other powers – for example, religious power – may also present
the same characteristics. For these reasons, we assume that a sound definition of political power needs to
address the very function of such power. Moreover, we argue that executive power can usually be equated to
political power.
Some authors suggested that the function of political power differs from other types of social powers’ (Stop-
pino, 2001; Poggi, 2014). Political power is a stable power, which integrates a form of authority and is valid
for an entire social field. For those who are part of such field, political power produces stable entitlements,
whose enforcement is ultimately guaranteed by political authorities. The function of political power is thus to
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generate these entitlements through policies. For example, political power can provide public goods such as
laws, physical protection, civil liberties and social rights.
These theoretical arguments are particularly useful for understanding executive power across time and space.
The function of the political power – or, in other words, the governmental function – relies on specific authority
positions, which endow rulers with the right to take binding decisions. In this sense, political executives are
the central institutions that fulfill the functions of initiating, coordinating and implementing political decisions
(Blondel, 2011: 866). These decisions are the outputs of the political process and are exchanged with political
support from society (Easton, 1975). Executive institutions (the structural facet of the executive power) frame
how power is produced and how it is exercised by political actors (the agential facet of the executive power).
Thus, the way in which executive power is channeled depends on the institutional organization of political ex-
ecutives.
Executive Power in Authoritarian and Democratic Regimes

Historically, executive power has always been concentrated. Before the birth of contemporary liberal democ-
racies, executive power was wielded either by authoritarian governments or by relatively restricted and closed
oligarchies in mutual competition. In particular, the ‘government by one’ was the rule, rather than the excep-
tion (Brooker, 2014). In the contemporary world, however, the emergence of new forms of authoritarian rule,
hybrid regimes and varieties of democracies have made the picture of the extent of executive power more
complex.
The power of political executives differs extensively among the different regime types. In democratic regimes,
for instance, the formal institutional setting defines and limits executive actors’ room for maneuver. The exer-
cise of executive power in democracies derives from open competition and is based on stable expectations
about the rules of the game (i.e. elections and constitutional provisions). In autocratic regimes, competition is
often closed, not very permeable and ultimately based on the approval of the apical actors of the regime, such
as the king or the leader to be succeeded. Power dynamics within the executive and between institutions are
often uncertain and fickle (Stoppino, 2001: 368–71). These general differences are strictly connected to the
very legitimation bases of executives in democracies and autocracies: legal–rational in the former and tradi-
tional/charismatic/ideological in the latter (Weber, 1921; Brooker, 2014).
Authoritarian Regimes
In spite of previsions about the ‘victory’ of liberal democracy against alternatives after the end of the Cold War,
authoritarian executives have remained numerous. Over the past decades, the third wave of democratization
(Huntington, 1991) has been counterbalanced by reverse trends of autocratization (Mechkova et al., 2017):
between 1991 and 2001, the number of countries with an authoritarian government increased from 42 to 48
(Freedom House, 2001). From a more institutional perspective, the Polity IV project (Marshall et al., 2018)
has estimated that in 2017 a total of 106 countries out of 165 (64%) were characterized by (more or less full-
fledged) democratic systems, whereas 36% were under some sort of autocratic rule.
Among non-democratic regimes, one can distinguish between competitive and non-competitive authoritari-
anisms (see Schlumberger and Schedler Chapter 42, this Handbook). Hybrid regimes (see Gagné and Mahé,
Chapter 47, this Handbook) or competitive authoritarianisms can tend to either preserve the same institutional
settings of democracies (or at least a façade) or reproduce characteristics of the other forms of non-democ-
ratic regimes. Executive power in non-competitive authoritarianism is basically channeled through two types
of institutional settings: personal rule and organizational rule. The former implies that executive power is con-
centrated in the hands of ruling monarchs, military leaders or civilian dictators, whose power is hardly affected
by institutional forms of checks and balances. Organizational rule refers to those cases where power is exer-
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cised by a collective organization such as the military or one ruling party (Brooker, 2014). Several sub-types
exist; they differ based on how power is achieved, on the sources of legitimation and on the way of gov-
erning (Cheibub et al., 2010; Wahman et al., 2013; Geddes et al., 2014). We also find authoritarian regimes
(particularly military dictatorships) in which the executive power is based on a combination of personal and
organizational rule (mixed rule). Table 45.1 provides an overview of the different types of executive power in
authoritarian regimes worldwide.
According to the data, the most common way to organize executive power in contemporary authoritarian
regimes has been civilian personal rule (54%), followed by party-based government (23%). Overall, the fig-
ures show that executive power by the military is the exception: only in five countries (out of 52) was the
military involved (10%). This number is even lower than that of countries with monarchic rule (13%). Thus, the
data confirm the trend currently observed toward more civilian-oriented autocratic leadership where executive
power is basically in the hands of one person.
Table 45.1 Executive power in 55 authoritarian countries, 2010 (percentage of countries)

Personal rule Organizational rule Mixed rule
Party-
Military- Party-perso
Monarchic (13) Civilian-personal (54) Military (4) One-party (23) military
personal al-military (
(2)
• Afghanistan
• Armenia
• Azerbaijan
• Belarus
• Burkina Faso
• Cameroon
• Central
African Rep.
• Angola
• Chad
• Jordan • Cambodia
• Congo
• Kuwait • China
• Cuba
• Morocco • Ethiopia
• Eritrea
• Oman • Laos
• Gabon
• Saudi • Algeria • Mozambique • Eg
• Gambia Rwanda
Arabia • Myanmar • Namibia • Sy
• Ivory Coast
• Swaziland • Singapore
• Kazakhstan
• United • Tanzania
• Libya
Arab • Tunisia
• Madagascar
Emir. • Vietnam
• Mauritania
• Zimbabwe
• North Korea
• Russia
• Sudan
• Tajikistan
• Togo
• Turkmenistan
• Uganda
• Uzbekistan

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• Venezuela
• Yemen
Note: Iran is counted as an authoritarian regime sui generis.
Source: Geddes et al. (2014); Marshall et al. (2018), own elaboration. The dataset of Geddes et al. on the
classification of authoritarian regimes provides information only until 2010. Countries are considered authori-
tarian if they scored below 6 in the democratic scale of the Polity IV dataset in 2010.
Democratic Regimes
Contrary to authoritarian regimes, democracies are based on the principle of inclusive political representation
(see Schmitter, Chapter 43, this Handbook). In order to transfer individual political demands into collective
interest, all democracies have constitutionally introduced free election. By voting for individual politicians or
political parties, citizens (principals) delegate executive political leaders (agents). These leaders in turn be-
come accountable to their voters when it comes to implementing governmental policy (Strøm, 2003; Samuels
and Shugart, 2010). The chain of democratic delegation and accountability exists in all parliamentary, presi-
dential and semi-presidential democracies.
In parliamentary and presidential systems, the executive power derives from the relation between voters and
the executive branch. Yet, the origin of executive authority differs in the two types of liberal democracies.
In parliamentary democracies we find a ‘fused power system’ where voters elect a legislature, which in turn
chooses (directly or indirectly) the cabinet, which consists of a prime minister and her ministers. The cabinet
is (collectively) accountable to the (majority of the) legislature, which can withdraw its confidence toward the
executive power. The head of state has a merely ceremonial role and can be either a monarch or a presi-
dent. Clear-cut examples are Germany, Japan and the UK. On the other hand, presidential democracies are
defined by a ‘separated power system’ where the executive cannot dissolve and is not accountable to the
legislature (Samuels and Shugart, 2010: 27). The presidential system is more likely to be conducive to grid-
locks between the president and the legislature, thus undermining presidential freedom of action in certain
situations (Blondel, 2011: 867). Furthermore, in presidential regimes, the political executive is monocratic,
represented by a president who selects her cabinet members. Both the president and the legislature are di-
rectly elected by voters for fixed terms and the legislature can remove the president only in exceptional cases.
Thus, the president is not an agent of the legislative majority but of her voters. Presidential democracies exist
primarily in the United States of America and in Latin America (Blondel, 2015).
The executive power in semi-presidential systems differs from the one in parliamentary and presidential
democracies. In semi-presidential systems, a popularly elected president coexists with a prime minister who
is selected by the parliament and accountable to its majority. Since a clear-cut definition of the separation
of power within this dual executive remains vague, Shugart and Carey (1992) introduced the notion of pre-
mier–presidential and presidential–parliamentary sub-types of semi-presidential systems. In premier–presi-
dential systems, the prime minister and her cabinet are exclusively accountable to the parliamentary majority
and not to the president, while in presidential–parliamentary systems the prime minister and her cabinet are
accountable to the parliamentary majority and to the president. Table 45.2 provides an overview of the exec-
utive power structure in 103 democratic countries.
The data show that parliamentary and presidential democracies exist in 60% of all countries under observa-
tion while semi-presidential systems are only present in 34% of all countries, with a clear majority of cases

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falling in the premier–presidential category (74%). Furthermore, the monarchical form of parliamentary sys-
tems is still in existence: 17 out of 30 parliamentary countries still have a monarch as (ceremonial) head of
state. Finally, mixed executive power is only presented in a few countries.
How executive power is distributed and organized in both regime types has important implications for how
executive institutions are internally structured. In this regard, democracies display more complexity than au-
thoritarian regimes. In the following sections, we therefore focus only on the power dynamics of political ex-
ecutives in democratic countries. Moreover, we only discuss executive power in the two most straightforward
examples of separation of powers (i.e. presidential) and fused power (i.e. parliamentary) systems. Semi-pres-
identialism is considered as a mixture of both types.
Table 45.2 Executive power in 103 democratic countries, 2017 (percentage of countries)
Presidential (30) Semi-presidential (34) Parliamentary (30) Mixed rule (6)
Premier–presidential President–parliamentary
Directorial (2) Othe
(25) (9)
• Argentina • Albania (R)

• Benin • Bulgaria • Australia
• Bolivia • Cape Verde (M)
• Brazil • Central • Belgium (M)
• Chile African • Bhutan (M)
• Colombia Rep. • Canada (M)
• Comoros • Croatia • Denmark
• Costa Rica • Czech Re- (M)
• Cyprus public • Estonia (R)
• Dominica • Finland • Germany
Republic • France (R)
• Ecuador • Georgia • Austria • Greece (R)
• El Sal- • Haiti • [Burkina Faso] • Hungary (R)
vador • Ireland • [Madagascar] • India (R)
• Ghana • Kyrgyzstan • [Mozambique] • Israel (R)
• Suriname
• Guatemala • Lithuania • [Namibia] • Italy (R)
• Switzerland
• Guinea- • Macedonia • Peru • Jamaica (M)
Bissau • Mali • Senegal • Japan (M)
• Guyana • Moldova • Sri Lanka • Latvia (R)
• Honduras • Mongolia • Taiwan • Lebanon (R)
• Indonesia • Montenegro • Lesotho (M)
• Kenya • Niger • Luxembourg
• Liberia • Poland (M)
• Malawi • Portugal • Malaysia
• Mexico • Romania (M)
• Nicaragua • Serbia • Mauritius
• Nigeria • Slovakia (R)
• Panama • Slovenia • Nepal (R)
• Paraguay • Timor-Leste • Netherlands
• Philippines • [Tunisia] (M)
• Sierra • New

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Zealand (M)
• Norway (M)
• Pakistan (R)
Leona
• Solomon Is-
• South Ko-
lands (M)
rea
• Spain (M)
• United
• Sweden (M)
States
• Trinidad &
• Uruguay
Tobago (R)
• United King-
dom (M)
Note: (M) means monarchy; (R) means republic.
Source: Elgie (2018); Marshall et al. (2018), own elaboration. Countries are considered democratic if they
score from 6 to 10 in the democratic scale of the Polity IV dataset in 2017. Some countries were author-
itarian in 2010 (see Table 45.1). These countries are in squared brackets.
Democratic Political Executives

Democratic political executives are complex institutions. Several institutional bodies, offices and individuals
work together and relate to one another within the executives to make the whole machine work (King, 1975).
Sometimes the relationship between the various individual and collective political actors is cooperative; some-
times it is conflictual.
A presidential government provides only a small amount of variation in terms of how the executive power is
wielded (Müller, 2017). Presidential governments are openly hierarchical. The president, who is directly elect-
ed by the voters, is the most powerful figure of the executive. She selects the members of the executive based
on her will and ministers are subordinated and responsible to her (Blondel, 2004: 285). A key characteristic
of many presidential systems is that executive members are loosely connected to one another: ‘the president
may not have … a close relationship with at least a number of them, although some of the positions [… are]
filled by the president with those … who are rewarded for their help, in particular during electoral campaign’
(Blondel, 2011: 864). Thus, presidential executives invariably function according to a model of government in
which ‘the president is sovereign’ within the executive. Presidential political power is predominantly based on
a list of formal constitutional prerogatives. Since the formal constitutional power of presidents varies across
countries, the executive power of presidents differs between countries (see below). Latin American presidents
are, for example, constitutionally stronger and therefore more powerful than the president of the United States
(Mainwaring and Shugart, 1997).
The formal and informal organization of executives in the parliamentary government is fundamentally different
to that in presidential systems. As stressed by Blondel (2004: 285), in parliamentary – or cabinet – systems,
the chief executive (i.e. the prime minister) is formally embedded in a collegial context, meaning that she is
nothing more than a primus inter pares. Ministers are also supposed to participate together in the decision-
making process. From a principal–agent perspective, they are both agents of the cabinet and principals of
their own ministry (Andeweg, 2000). Irrespective of countries’ idiosyncrasies, the highest echelon of the ex-
ecutive always comprises the prime minister and a number of heads of department, who form the cabinet.
Junior ministers too are usually appointed, but they are hierarchically below the minister of their sector of

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competence (Barbieri and Vercesi, 2013). The principle of ‘collective responsibility’ binds cabinet members,
by stating that all of them have to adapt to cabinet decisions. If these egalitarian principles are valid on pa-
per, this does not normally apply in reality: they ‘are markedly eroded … in nearly all the countries [… and
often] the cabinet ratifies decisions … de facto delegated to individual ministers … groups of ministers sitting
in committee … or to the prime minister and some of the ministers’ (Blondel, 2004: 286).
The comparative literature on cabinet decision-making in parliamentary systems has introduced a few types
of government, which account for these variations (Vercesi, 2020). Cabinet government illustrates, for in-
stance, the ideal-type of egalitarian and collective executive power as described above. In ministerial govern-
ment, on the other hand, ministers have the power to decide over policies within their own jurisdiction, without
colleagues’ interference. Other types of government highlight issues such as the fragmentation of the deci-
sion-making process, the hierarchical nature of intra-cabinet dynamics or the impact of bureaucracy over the
cabinet (Elgie, 1997). Perhaps the most controversially discussed model is the prime ministerial government,
where the prime minister exercises a sort of monocratic power within cabinet by setting the agenda and con-
trolling ministers’ actions (Rhodes, 1995; Strangio et al., 2013).
The idea of an increasing executive power of prime ministers is also included in the concept of the ‘presiden-
tialization of politics’ set out by Poguntke and Webb (2005). According to them, the power of prime ministers
in parliamentary democracies has increased in three political arenas: in the prime ministerial office (execu-
tive face); in relation to their own party (party face); and in the direct impact of prime ministers on electoral
campaigns (electoral face). In addition, Rhodes (2008: 328) claims that the central role of prime ministers in
cabinet varies and depends on circumstances and policy areas. Prime ministers can be even stronger than
presidents, if they are able to control their own party and a parliamentary majority.
Executive Power, Political Parties and Legislative Support

In modern democracies parties play a crucial role in the recruitment, support and management of executives.
In this context, Müller (2017) suggested that the political capacity of democratic executives and their way of
functioning are deeply affected by their autonomy vis-à-vis parties as well as the partisan support they enjoy
in the legislature.
A first party-related aspect which has an enormous impact on executive power is the division between unified
and divided government. This distinction typically applies to presidential (and semi-presidential) systems, al-
though Elgie (2001) has argued that this can be applied also to parliamentary systems with two parliamentary
chambers. A divided government occurs when, in one (or both) of the two legislatures’ branches, the parti-
san majority differs from the partisan orientation of the elected president. Especially when the chief executive
does not hold strong constitutional powers to force members of parliament to pass legislation (or to block
it), a president's chances of getting her policy decisions into force decrease substantially. To overcome this
problem, presidents can employ a range of strategies (from consensual to more conflictual) to cope with leg-
islatures (Cox and Morgenstern, 2002).
A second party-related impact on executive power is linked to the form of party government in parliamentary
democracies. In the literature, we broadly differentiate between majority and minority governments. In all de-
mocratic polities, political executives need the support of a majority in parliament in order to successfully im-
plement their policy proposals. This is particularly true for parliamentary and semi-presidential systems, but
enjoying a parliamentary party majority is also relevant for presidents who want the legislature to translate
their will into laws. Müller (2017: 145–6) argued that a party's majority status in parliament increases the
political power of chief executives tremendously. However, he also stated that minority governments do not
necessarily have a negative effect on the power of the executives. Although majority governments tend to
last longer and thereby might have long-term political power over policy decisions, minority governments are
the ‘policy viable’ outcome in those situations where a ‘core’ party is important enough – either in terms of
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parliamentary seats or ideological position – to be included in all possible coalition alternatives (Laver and
Schofield, 1990; Laver and Shepsle, 1996). Moreover, in some countries, particularly in Scandinavia, the po-
litical executive does not need a positive vote of investiture to enter office. Rather, it survives as long as a
majority does not vote against. This rule favors minority governments when parties in opposition do not reach
a common agreement to find an alternative government (Bergman, 1993). Finally, minority cabinets are more
likely when parties can obtain policy concessions from outside the government and when elections are deci-
sive in determining the winner, especially when cabinet participation produces a loss of votes in the following
elections (Strøm, 1990).
A further (albeit intertwined) party-related impact on executive power is based on the distinction between sin-
gle-party and coalition governments in parliamentary systems. Party coalitions substantially circumscribe the
freedom of political activities among members of the political executive (Blondel and Müller-Rommel, 1993).
For example, a coalition government limits the power of the prime minister to control the ministers and may
thereby lead to oligarchical arrangements. In single-party majority cabinets, it is easier to achieve the goals
of the political executive, because the only party in government controls the majority in the parliament.2 This
scenario is well known in the UK, where the prime minister is the chief of the executive and at the same time
the party leader. In coalition governments, however, policy decisions are the result of compromises about dif-
ferent policy views and goals between political parties on the one hand, and chief executives on the other. In
this situation, executives face severe challenges even to their stability, in particular when the coalition parties
are programmatically heterogeneous. In order to avoid governmental destabilization, coalition parties mostly
employ a set of mechanisms to control one another and to make the decision-making smoother (Bergman et
al., 2013). Within the political executive, coalition parties can for instance agree on appointing junior ministers
who come from a different party than the minister's. These junior ministers serve as ‘watchdogs’ for senior
ministers, because they are screening the policy decision-making process in single ministries (Verzichelli,
2008). Potential conflicts between coalition parties can also be reduced by proving jointly formulated coalition
agreements, which ‘guide’ policy decision over the whole legislation (Andeweg and Timmermans, 2008).
Table 45.3 Women executives in office on December 31, 2017 by country, office and regime
Country Leader Office Regime (sub-)type
Bangladesh Hasina Wazed Prime minister Non-democracy
Chile Bachelet President Presidential
Croatia Grabar-Kitarović President Semi-presidential
Estonia Kaljulaid President Parliamentary
Germany Merkel Prime minister Parliamentary
Iceland Jakobsdóttir Prime minister Semi-presidential
Liberia Johnson Sirleaf President Presidential
Lithuania Grybauskaitė President Semi-presidential
Malta Coleiro Preca President Parliamentary
Marshall Islands Heine President Democratic-other
Mauritius Gurib President Parliamentary
Myanmar Aung San Suu Kyi Prime minister Democratic-other
Namibia Kuugongelwa Prime minister Semi-presidential

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Nepal Bhandari President Parliamentary

New Zealand Ardern Prime minister Parliamentary
Norway Solberg Prime minister Parliamentary
Peru Aráoz Prime minister Semi-presidential
Serbia Brnabić Prime minister Semi-presidential
Singapore Yacob President Non-democracy
Switzerland Leuthard President Directorial
United Kingdom May Prime minister Parliamentary
Note: Territories under the formal rule of a third country or part of the Commonwealth are excluded. The same
applies to royal heads of state.
Sources: See Table 45.2; Jalalzai (2018: 263), own update based on Worldwide Guide to Women in Leader-
ship, https://guide2womenleaders.com/ (accessed on November 29, 2018).
Executive Power and the Issue of Gender Representation

In a study on female government leaders around the world, Jalalzai (2013) found a general underrepresen-
tation of women among executive rulers. Although in some countries women seem to have (nearly) broken
the glass ceiling of representation in national ministerial posts (Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson, 2009;
Annesley, 2015), the number of female presidents and prime ministers around the world has increased at a
much slower pace. In late 2017, only 21 women were top leaders of the political executives. This corresponds
to 11% of the available chief executive posts in the 194 national states around the world (see Table 45.3).
Table 45.3 shows a striking variation of female representation in chief executive positions across regime
types, party system types and geographical areas. Among the 21 female heads of government, only one per-
son holds a prime ministerial post in a non-democratic state. All others are chiefs of democratic governments.
The majority of them are elected in parliamentary and semi-presidential regimes where political parties are
important actors in daily politics. Only two women were chief executives in democratic presidential system.
Furthermore, we find ten female heads of government in European countries, four in Asia, three in Africa, two
in Latin America and two in the Pacific. Finally, most women are chief executives in small states where the
selection and recruitment processes to top political offices are less complex.
In a nutshell, these empirical findings indicate, first, that women have to struggle more to reach chief executive
positions. Second, democratic regimes foster the selection of women into chief executive offices. Third, par-
liamentary and semi-presidential regimes with strong multi-party systems help women to reach chief execu-
tive positions. Fourth, women have higher chances of entering into executive office in countries run through
a democratic transition. Fifth, small countries provide greater access to chief executive positions for women
than do large states. Sixth, the majority of the female chief executives are located in Europe, which indicates
that the level of political empowerment of women is higher in this region of the world.
Measuring (Chief) Executive Power

The measurement of executive power is difficult to tackle. If we define executive power as policy-making pow-
er, then the political power in democratic countries lies in the hands of the government. It is certainly true that

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members of parliament in presidential and parliamentary systems may exercise some influence on the policy-
making. However, in reality, central political decisions are taken primarily by the chief executives rather than
by the legislative chambers. This holds certainly true for the presidential systems but gradually even more so
for parliamentary systems (Poguntke and Webb, 2005). Consequently, one – most prominent – way to ex-
amine executive power is to measure the political strength of chief executives in liberal democratic systems.
In this context, several diverse indexes on the political power of presidents and prime ministers have been
proposed (Doyle, 2020).
The power of chief executives is usually measured by considering the formal constitutional prerogatives for
presidents and prime ministers. Informal aspects of executive power have not been studied systematically
because of formidable problems in their conceptualization and operationalization. First, it seems unclear what
the focus of analysis should be. Are we looking for informal executive power in the definition of policy ar-
eas, in the decision-making process or in the interaction among political actors? Second, even if one of these
research subjects is specified, there are still serious problems in getting reliable information about informal
decision-making processes among political executives, since most decisions are taken behind closed doors.
Third, the few sources of information that are available on informal executive power structures are usually
eclectic and difficult to quantify, particularly under a cross-national perspective. In the following, we therefore
only introduce the existing measures for the formal political power of chief executives (i.e. presidents and
prime ministers).
Studies on presidentialism agree that the variety and degree of presidential power is defined differently in
each country's constitution. Shugart and Carey (1992) were the first to measure presidential power based on
a cross-national examination of these written documents. They identified two dimensions of presidential pow-
er: legislative and non-legislative. Legislative power is conceptualized as the president's power to veto legis-
lation, to make new laws and suspend old ones, to exclusively introduce bills, to initiate the annual budget bill
and to propose referenda. Non-legislative power is defined as the president's power over cabinet formation,
cabinet dismissal, the selection and de-selection of single ministers and the dissolution of the assembly. The
authors placed each item on a scale and added them together to a measure of presidential power on both
dimensions in 35 countries. As a result, the authors identified world regions with strong presidential power,
regions where presidents comprise great legislative power and regions with low presidential power (Shugart
and Carey, 1992: 156). A few years later, Frye (1997) extended the checklist of power items to 27. One major
disadvantage of this measurement is, however, that ‘it does not capture the dual authority structure of semi
presidentialism’ (Metcalf, 2000: 667). Therefore, Metcalf suggested minor revisions of the existing checklists
in order to apply the method to semi-presidential systems. Over the past two decades, major comparative
studies have applied the ‘constitutional approach’ to operationalize the executive power of presidents.
Measuring the power of prime ministers in parliamentary systems is more difficult because constitutions of
parliamentary systems vary substantially in their definition of prime ministers’ powers. Furthermore, the power
of prime ministers is not only dependent on constitutional prerogatives but also (and more) on their interac-
tion with cabinet members and political parties. In a first systematic comparative assessment, Bergman et al.
(2003) classified the power of prime ministers in a two-dimensional space that consists of institutional powers
and power that derives from party system characteristics. The institutional power dimension is defined by nine
items, most of them are related to the formal and informal behavior of prime ministers in cabinet. The party
system dimension reflects the type of cabinet that exists in a given country (single-party cabinet; ‘bloc’ coali-
tion cabinets; coalition cabinets in pivotal party systems). The authors applied the items of both dimensions
to 17 countries and found that British and Spanish prime ministers are comparatively powerful, while prime
ministers in Iceland, the Netherlands and Norway are the weakest chief executives in Europe.
A second quantitative study on prime ministerial power focuses on survey data rather than on ‘objective’ hard
evidence. O'Malley (2007) asked 249 experts in 20 democracies to rate each prime minister on a nine-point
scale about their influence over the policy outputs of the government. The findings confirm that prime min-
isterial power tends to be higher in countries with single-member plurality electoral systems. Furthermore, in

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countries with fragmented party systems and proportional electoral laws, prime ministers are less powerful.
Conclusion and Research Outlooks

Executive power has been and will continue to be a prominent and widely used concept in political science.
In most studies, executive power has been equated with political power, which – by its very nature – can be
associated to the functioning of executive institutions in political regimes. The concept of executive power
was easily applicable to countries under authoritarian rule, where political power is usually in the hands of
one person. Its validity became markedly more complex in democratic societies, where political power is dis-
persed among many political actors. This is probably why studies on executive power in democratic regimes
have been more numerous than in authoritarian regimes.
The main challenges for future research in this field consist first in examining the effect of different forms of
executive power on government performance, and second in the collection of more systematic empirical data
on the different forms of executive power. The effect of executive power on governance varies, for instance,
not only by the formal power of presidents and prime ministers (as described above), but also by their (ratio-
nal) behavior within institutions. Future research therefore needs to examine in greater detail the individual
behavior of chief executives in decision-making processes. A behavioral measurement of executive power
is surely not as objective as a formal analysis of constitutional rules, but it certainly reflects more accurately
what Siaroff (2003: 303) has called the ‘actual political practice'.
Furthermore, the impact of executive power on government performance depends strongly on the personality
traits and the leadership styles of single presidents and prime ministers. Thus, future research on executive
power has to compose more sophisticated theoretical assumptions and empirical measurements that inves-
tigate the effect of personality traits and leadership styles on the quality of governance. Future studies could,
for instance, follow up the classical works on presidential personalities in the United States (Barber, 2009)
or on prime ministers in Europe (King, 1994) and examine under which conditions different personality and
leadership styles lead to different governmental performance.
Finally, the discipline needs more comprehensive comparative data on various forms of executive power in
different political regimes. So far, the literature on executive power has been characterized by a paucity of
data outside Western democratic countries and Latin America. The collection of more information and data
on other parts of the world, such as Asia and Africa, is a necessary condition for more global-oriented com-
parisons of the modes of wielding executive power and the consequences that they have on political outputs.
It would be particularly useful to identify measures that can bridge the concept of executive power in parlia-
mentary and presidential systems. The more scholars agree on a universal concept and on the measurement
of executive politics, the greater will be our ability to compare and assess the practices of power in politics.
In sum, the use of the concept of executive power can help to understand the functioning of political life world-
wide. However, one should note that, at present, the concept of executive power remains very vague in terms
of definition, empirical measurement and impact on governmental policy. Therefore, executive power should
be treated as a flexible tool, taking into account the immense complexities of the political power relationships
between political actors in different political regimes.
Notes
1 We exclude from our analysis both sub-national governments and supranational political organizations,
such as the European Union.
2 This argument assumes that the party is united and not weakened by endemic factional internal conflict.
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• executive power
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• politics
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Federalisms1
Contributors: Surinder Kler Shukla

Chapter Title: "Federalisms1"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Federalisms1
Surinder Kler Shukla
Meaning of Federalism
Under a federal system of government, each of the self-governing units is answerable to a central authority. In
this way, the whole country is unified under a common constitution or other legal system, despite being sep-
arated into different regions. The legal written constitution divides the governing powers between the provin-
cial or state governments and the central government. In other words, smaller entities (such as provinces or
states) unite and forgo some of their powers in favor of the national government.
One example of a federal system of government is that of the United States. Here, the country is divided into
several different states, each of which have (to some extent) their own laws and self-governing ability. How-
ever, all the states are part of the same country and governed by the central authority in Washington, D.C.
The Constitution of India, as well as many other diversified countries with different cultures and histories, also
provides for a federal system. In India, the powers are properly distributed between the central government
and the state governments. In present times, the importance of federal structures is increasing in order to
accommodate differences of size, language, culture and socio-economic development within existing bound-
aries. Social identities based on such differences are often mobilized to obtain greater regional autonomy or
even secession, as presently in Spain/ Catalonia or the United Kingdom and Scotland and Wales. Among the
special rights claimed by regional identities are:
• a)special representation rights, devolution and national self-determination;

• b)special rights seeking accommodation of cultural and educational rights.
History of Federalism
It was only in modern times, after Montesquieu's The Spirit of Laws (1748) that a theory of separation of
powers and the conceptualization of a federative republic was developed. Federalism in the modern sense
then took form in the American experience of federalism as conceived in the Federalist Papers published
by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison under the name of ‘Publius’ (1786–1800). It contrasts
with a unitary government in which a central authority holds the power, and a loose confederation in which
individual states retain much of their sovereignty. In the nineteenth century, the French theorist Pierre-Joseph
Proudhon used the concept of federalism for questioning the legitimacy of the French Jacobin State. Instead
of a centralized state, he argued for a federalism, which promoted new modern principles such as autonomy,
subsidiarity, cooperation and participation, in partial accordance with social Christianism and revolutionary
unionism (Proudhon, 1863).
Contemporary federalism is based on certain principles: the principle of partnership in place of central domi-
nation, the principle of union in place of separation, and the principle of concrete guarantees in place of vague
assurances of future good conduct. The main pathways of federalisms are those seen in the United States,
Canada, the UK, Switzerland, Germany and India.
A new federalism has been progressively conceived as a conflict management strategy and was imposed by
international actors in Bosnia Herzegovina, by the Dayton agreements in December 1995 or in Iraq by the US
military occupation. It was also used as a state-building device when the decolonization process had to face
an untraceable national background (in Nigeria, Comoros) or even for trying to overcome the Western model
of nation-state (e.g. the Mali Federation briefly including French Sudan and Senegal as a first step to Pan

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Africanism). All these constructions turned out as fragile or even ephemeral. The concept has also been used
in international relations for referring to regional integration processes (“European federalism”, which tries to
promote a “strong integration” and goes beyond a simple association of states) or to international integration,
describing the utopia of a “world government”.
This has given a new meaning and an international relations dimension to the study of federalism. Moreover,
in some countries like India the traditional concept of federalism has been colored by local nuances in contrast
to Western claims of being universal (Chatterjee, 1994: 285).
In the 20th century federalism was integrationist and accommodative in nature, such as in Indian federalism.
India adopted a federal structure, without using the term in its constitution, as both an integration strategy
and an accommodative strategy in a diverse multicultural society. The success of India's federal structure has
encouraged the adoption of this system in Afro-Asian states since the early 1960s.
United States: Modern Federalism as a Form of Cooperative Federalism

The United States today is composed of 50 self-governing states and several territories. Since the founding
of the country, and particularly with the end of the American Civil War, power has shifted away from the states
and toward the national government.
Although a cooperative form of federalism has its roots in the civil war, it was the Great Depression that
marked an abrupt end to dual federalism and a dramatic shift toward a strong national government. President
Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies reached into the lives of US citizens like no other federal measure.
The national government was forced to cooperate with all levels of government to implement the New Deal
policies; local government earned equal standing with the other layers, as the federal government relied on
political machines at a city level to bypass state legislatures. The formerly distinct division of responsibili-
ties between state and national government had been described as a ‘layer cake', but with the lines of duty
blurred, cooperative federalism was likened to a ‘marble cake’ or a ‘picket fence'. In cooperative federalism,
federal funds are distributed through grants in aid or categorical grants, which gave the federal government
more control over the use of the money (Lowi 1979).
A “new federalism”, which is characterized by a gradual return of power to the states, was initiated by Pres-
ident Ronald Reagan (1981–9) with his ‘devolution revolution’ in the early 1980s. Reagan's administration
introduced a practice of giving block grants, freeing state governments to spend the money at their own dis-
cretion.
Canada: A Reluctant Confederation

Canada is a federation with 11 jurisdictions of governmental authority: the countrywide federal Crown and ten
provincial Crowns. (Three territorial governments in the far north exercise powers delegated by the federal
parliament, and municipal governments exercise powers delegated by the province or territory.) Each, gen-
erally independent from the others in its realm of legislative authority, derives its authority from the Canadian
Crown. Most sectors are under federal jurisdiction (such as foreign affairs and telecommunications) or that
of the provinces (such as education and healthcare). The division of powers is outlined in the Constitution
Act 1867 (formerly the British North America Act 1867), a key document in the Constitution of Canada (Smith

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2012).
Federalism in Canada has been challenged by attempts in the mainly francophone province of Quebec to
obtain greater autonomy or even secession. The primary mainstream political vehicle for the movement is
the Parti Québécois, which has governed Quebec on multiple occasions. In 2012 it was elected to a minority
government, in which its leader, Pauline Marois, became the first female Premier of Quebec. However, only
18 months later, the party was defeated by the Liberal Party of Quebec in the 2014 election. Other provinces,
in turn, such as the oil-rich Province of Alberta, have raised similar claims. Altogether, a larger degree of re-
gional autonomy and cultural diversity has been maintained than in the U.S.
Germany: Three Layers of Federalism

Federalism in Germany is made up of states and the federal government. The central government, the states
and the German municipalities have different tasks and partially competing areas of responsibilities ruled by
a complex system of checks and balances. Since reunification in 1990, the Federal Republic has consisted
of 16 states: the ten states of the former West Germany, the five new states of the former East Germany, and
Berlin. In several areas, this separation of powers also has been challenged, especially with regard to the
educational system where the major authority still lies with the federal states.
The EU and Economic Integration

At the end of World War II, the political climate favored unity in Western Europe, seen by many as an escape
from the extreme forms of nationalism, which had devastated the continent. One of the first practical and
successful proposals for European cooperation came in 1951 with the European Coal and Steel Communi-
ty. Since then, the European Community has gradually evolved into a Union, with a range of policy areas in
which its member states hope to benefit from working together.
The federalization of the EU is seen as an institutional process by which the EU is transformed from a con-
federation (a union of sovereign states) into a federation (a single federal state with a central government,
consisting of a number of partially self-governing federated states). There are ongoing discussions about the
extent to which the EU has already become a federation over the course of decades, and, more importantly,
to what degree it should continue to evolve into a federalist direction.
Since the 1950s, European integration has seen the development of a supranational system of governance,
as its institutions move further from the concept of simple intergovernmentalism and more toward a feder-
alized system. With the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, new intergovernmental elements have been introduced
alongside the federal system, making it more difficult to define the EU as a polity “sui generis”.
The “multi-speed Europe” thesis envisions an alternative type of European integration, where the countries
that want a more integrated EU can accelerate their integration, whereas other countries may go at a slower
pace or cease further integration altogether. Specific current examples include the Eurozone and the Schen-
gen area, which not all members have elected to join.
According to Joseph H. H. Weiler (2003), ‘Europe has charted its own brand of constitutional federalism. The
EU only lacks two significant features of a federation. First, the member states remain the ‘masters’ of the
treaties, i.e., they have the exclusive power to amend or change the constitutive treaties of the EU. Second,
the EU lacks a real ‘tax and spend’ capacity, in other words, there is no fiscal federalism.

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Treaties must be agreed by all member states even if a particular treaty has support among the vast majority
of the population of the EU. Member states may also want legally binding guarantees that a particular treaty
will not affect a nation's position on certain issues. In a referendum held on June 23, 2016 in the UK, 51.9%
of the voters voted for the UK to exit the EU.
Bosnia and Herzegovina

As noted previously, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a federal structure has been used as a method of conflict
resolution after the dissolution of the former state of Yugoslavia and an ensuing civil war in the 1990s – there-
by giving a new impetus to the concept. Bosnia and Herzegovina has been an established federation since
1995.
The contradictions in the Bosnian constitution are obvious. First, the Bosnian constitution is part of a peace
treaty. In November 1995, the Dayton negotiations – peace negotiations between the states of Croatia, Serbia
and Bosnia and under the moderation of the United States and the EU – were undertaken. Furthermore, the
existence of two entities in a country with three main national identities (Bosnians, Bosnian Serbs and Bosn-
ian Croats), of which one is named ‘Serb Republic’ and the other is a federation within a federal state, shows
not only the complexity of the Dayton constitution but also its over-federalization and the dominant feature of
ethnicity.
India
India adopted a federal structure in 1950, in a multicultural society (Kashyap, 1969; Jennings, 1983) with di-
versity in religion, caste, language and geographical region and a large continental size. Indian federalism
was an attempt to disperse power, both constitutional and political. It was focused on economic regulation
and planning, besides forging administrative relations with smaller states in a mode of equanimity. It was felt
that a highly centralized structure of decision-making and resource allocation in a large geographic expanse
would not be conducive to rapid development. At the same time, the center should not be overly powerful, to
ensure that the plural society does not disintegrate.
Federal features of the Indian Constitution include a written constitution, constitutional division of power and
the provision of an independent judiciary. Despite the division of powers clearly laid down in the Constitution,
there still exist palpable center–state tensions relating to issues of the federal structure. The center–periphery
bias for disbursement of funds is much resented by states. The classic example is that of the state of Punjab,
which almost broke away from the Union.
Although the states are empowered to make laws according to the State List, it is alleged that policies are
generally evolved at the center and sent down for implementation. This fact is resented by the states. Protag-
onists of state autonomy claim that there is an unfair allocation of resources.
A number of areas, including education, have been brought under the control of the center to enlarge its finan-
cial industrial, administrative and legislative powers vis-a-vis states. Center–state tensions are not specific to
India – in fact, in modern times, they are an international phenomenon, and most nations – including the Unit-
ed States – have failed to strike a perfect balance between the powers of the center and those of the states.
Center–State relationship
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For administrative efficiency, either the nation state is divided into states (centripetal phenomenon), or a con-
gregation of states pool their resources for common benefit (centrifugal phenomenon). Indian federalism is
based on the former. Tensions between center–state and local level officials are at the core, as regulation in-
terferes with the policy preferences of different state and local units, leading to a general feeling of discontent
with the democratic set-up (Kohli, 1991). Three key areas of conflict are:
1. conflict of interest among federal units;

2. unavoidable interdependence and interpenetration between levels;
3. increased role of state at all levels.
Channels of center-state relations devolve as they do on (i) legislation and policymaking, (ii) administration,
(iii) fiscal adjustment, which is crucial in most multi-sphere federal structures.
Interactions in federal systems encompass center -state relations that operate in vertical and horizontal or
longitudinal and latitudinal dimensions. Regional movements in Asia, and more especially India, have coa-
lesced around the question of cultural identity (Kothari, 1970) and all have posed demands in relation to the
central power structure located at the capital. However, the party in power at the center has flexed its muscle
in terms of channeling grants to the states/ provinces.
In the actual working of the constitution, the center and state in India faced a number of problems, leading to
tensions between them. The problem was compounded by the presence of the Congress Party at the center
and non-Congress parties in the states. The tensions between the center and Punjab with special reference
to Akali Dal (a regional political party in Punjab mostly representing the Sikh community) are different from
the other states, because the importance of Akali Dal (whether in power or out of it) cannot be ignored.
Terrorism also led to a lack of understanding between the center and Punjab (Puri, 2008). It had far-reaching
consequences, including displacement of people and hesitation in the business class to invest.
The unitary tendencies of federalism in India and the powerful Congress system of the 1950s had to retreat
in the face of a popular movement in Andhra, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Punjab and Haryana. In Jammu and
Kashmir, centralizing tendencies are thwarted by local dissidents, with the support of agents from neighboring
countries.
Existing Data Sets

In a field that is characterized by a high discontinuity of results and research projects left uncompleted, there
are two sets that deserve to be mentioned. The first one is the Database of Political Institutions (DPI) and the
second the Comparative Constitutions Project (CCP). The DPI has been projected and implemented by the
World Bank Development Research Group and started in 2000. During these years, it has been widely quot-
ed. It has institutional data on government structures, measures of checks and balances, tenure and stability
of the government, identification of party affiliation and ideology, and fragmentation of opposition and govern-
ment parties in the legislature. It covers about 180 countries for 40 years, 1975-2015 with updating until 2017.
The CCP has been conceived and implemented by Zachary Elkins, Tom Ginsburg, and James Melton and
includes more than 300 topics on almost every active national constitution in the world. All of the constitutions
have been tagged by subject area and the researcher can find out relevant constitutional provisions on par-
ticular subjects.
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Some other database projects focused on federal countries have not been completed and eventually discon-
tinued.
An Overall Balance
Effects of enforcement of federal structures can be both positive and negative. Among the positives, first, gov-
ernance becomes easier. It is very hard for a central authority to govern the entirety of a large country at once.
Splitting the country into manageable chunks makes it easier to govern. Further, it is easier to give specific
directions if you can narrow things down by state boundaries. Second, local issues are given more weight.
Federalism enables local government to govern in a way that reflects the needs and interests of the specific
region. Under a federal system, federal governments can pay attention to the issues that matter most to the
people in the region, and then respond to these issues through the way in which they create and implement
laws. Third, the federal system encourages diversity within a country. Different federations may have different
ways of doing things, but they will all be respected equally. Fourth, it enables people to choose the best place
for them to live. Citizens of a federal country can choose which region's way of doing things suits them best,
and then move to live or work in the region that best suits their lifestyle. Fifth, under a federal system, citizens
feel a connection with their governors. It can be hard to feel connected to the people governing you when they
live many hundreds of miles away in the capital of a central authority. Under a federal system, your federal
governors will always live in your region. Sixth, a federal system is not one that aims to overthrow the cen-
tral government. Rather, all federal governments are answerable to the country's national legal system and/
or constitution. In this way, a federal system provides unity for its people as well as diversity. Seventh, when
people can vote to change federal laws, or when they can vote to replace federal governors, they have more
immediate power over the issues that concern them and their region. Eighth, large countries may have entire-
ly different climates in different regions. Thus, a federal system is useful, as federal laws relating to agricul-
ture and similar issues can be tailored to suit the particularities of a region's climate. Ninth, federal governors
have a better understanding of their region. It is very difficult for a centralized government to have an in-depth
knowledge of all the regions. Tenth, when a centralized government is not the only power in a country, it can
be better kept in check. Different federal states can act as checks and balances for each other and give each
other ideas about how to govern. This also helps to balance the power of a central government. Eleventh,
this system is ideally suited to big countries. It can be easier to govern several smaller states than one large
nation alone. Large nations work better when they are divided up into smaller units as this makes governing
them easier. Twelfth, recognizing distinct federal states helps to preserve the local character of each federa-
tion.
The negative effects of enforcement of federalism include, first, parochialism. It can be argued that federal
governments become overly parochial, putting the interests of a relatively small region of a country ahead of
national interests in a counterproductive way. Second, when several federal states deeply disagree on legal
matters, conflicts can arise. Conflict and disputes between states can cause friction. Third, in a federal gov-
ernment, governors and the central government may become engaged in conflicts of authority about what is
best for a given region. Fourth, there may be a lack of unity: the federal system of government may become
very fragmented – the country can appear to be broken into various parts, without real unity between them.
Fifth, citizens may feel out of touch with other citizens in different parts of the country, making it harder for
them to relate to people from different states. Sixth, when your most visible system of government is the fed-
eral state government, you may feel out of touch with the central government, especially when it is far away.
Seventh, having different laws for different states can be confusing. It can be argued that it is better to have a
consistent system for all areas of a nation. Eighth, federalism can become very complex to navigate.
Federalism can be a useful solution to the issue of governing a large country. It is a way of meeting each
region's needs without allowing those regions to lose touch with the central government. However, federalism
can also carry with it the potential for conflict and confusion if it is not handled properly.

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Perspectives
From these considerations we can conclude that:
• Federalism expands opportunities for citizens to participate at various levels of government.

• Federalism allows peripheral states to act as ‘laboratories’ of public policy that will show negative
effects of bad policy and allow for diffusion of good policies.
• Expanded opportunities to participate can lead to ‘election fatigue’ and confusion over which level of
government is responsible for addressing public problems.
These features may account for the relative success of Federalism that covers about twenty-five countries in
the second decade of the 21st century and more than 40% of the world population.
Note
1 Shortened and revised by the editors.
References
Burgess, Michael (2006), Comparative Federalism: Theory and Practice, London: Routledge.
Chatterjee, Partha (1997), A Possible India – Essays in Political Criticism, Oxford: Oxford UP.
Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison and John Jay (1788), The Federalist Papers,
Dover Thrift Editions (2014)
, Mineola/N.Y.: Dover Publications.
Jennings, Ivor (1983), Some Characteristics of the Indian Constitution, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kashyap, Subhash C., ed. (1969), Union-State Relations in India, New Delhi: Institute of Constitutional and
Parliamentary Studies.
Kohli, Atul (1991), Democracy and Discontent, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kothari, Rajni (1970), Politics in India, Delhi: Orient Longman.
Lowi, Theodore (1979), The End of Liberalism: The Second Republic of the United States.
Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph (1863), Du Principe fédératif et de la nécessité de reconstituer le Parti de la Révo-
lution, Paris: E. Dentu.
Puri, Harish (2008), Terrorism in Punjab, Delhi: Jain Book Depot.
Smith, David E. (2012), The Crown and the Confederal and Autonomy Arrangements, Harlow: Longman Cur-
rent Affairs.
Weiler, Joseph H. H. (2003). Federalism without Constitutionalism: Europe's ‘Sonderweg', in: Kalypso Nico-
laidis and Robert Howse, eds, The Federal Vision: Legitimacy and Levels of Governance in the United States
and the European Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• federalism
• state government
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Hybrid Regimes
Contributors: Jean-François Gagné & Anne-Laure Mahé

Chapter Title: "Hybrid Regimes"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Hybrid Regimes
Jean-François Gagné Anne-Laure Mahé
Introduction
Traditionally, the study of political regimes (see Whitehead, Chapter 52, this Handbook) has been dominated
by a dichotomy: democracy on the one hand, and autocracy on the other. Few contested cases could be
located at the conceptual frontier and everything in between was considered an anomaly. This framework
prevailed up until Linz's (1964) work, which opened new research avenues. Later on, a closer look at political
regimes in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia and the post-communist space gradually revealed
the coexistence of contradictory rules, norms and practices. In some countries, it was found that multiparty
elections combined with targeted repression of opposition leaders. How best to describe this interaction be-
tween democratic and autocratic features?
The concept of hybrid regimes is an answer to this question, and what makes it an interesting problem is
the prevalence of hybrid regimes and their resilience. Schedler claimed that ‘most regimes today are neither
clearly democratic nor fully authoritarian’ (2002: 37). Moreover, many hybrid regimes settle durably in the
middle of the continuum between democracy and autocracy. They are not a mere ‘optical illusion', to use the
words of Morlino (2011), a sort of temporary or transitional period. Ottaway (2003: 21) emphasizes their equi-
librium nature and Merkel (2004: 33) asserts that ‘they are often seen by considerable parts of the elites and
the population as an adequate institutional solution to the specific problems of governing effectively'.
Hybrid regimes deserve scientific scrutiny and are worth the effort of delving into complex intellectual chal-
lenges. In this regard, the April 2002 issue of the Journal of Democracy represents a turning point. It basically
sets the future research agenda. After this, publications increased significantly.1 Over the past two decades,
hybrid regimes have gained substantial attention.
This chapter offers an overview of conceptual and theoretical contributions in the subfield of hybrid regimes.
Concept describes a phenomenon and defines the boundaries of the object under study, which serves to
elaborate theories and develop explanations. It also briefly takes a macro perspective pointing to regional
trends and exploring international diffusion mechanisms. It ends with a discussion on future lines of research,
such as other sub-national politics and the impact of technologies on political regimes (see Schlumberger and
Schmitter, Chapter 42, this Handbook).
A Conceptualization
Concept formation, classification and generalization are all part of the scientific enquiry process. Concept for-
mation includes the need to differentiate hybrid regimes from democratic and autocratic regimes2 based on
specific dimensions and derivatives that come within the hybrid umbrella: that is, democracy and autocracy
with defects. It disaggregates the phenomenon and hopes to add increasing granularity to our understanding.
The typologies offer a tentative synthesis by proposing ways to classify hybrid regimes, and cross-national
time-series databases standardize and operationalize concepts on a large scale.
Describing the Regimes

A simple definition of hybrid regimes consists of a combination of democratic and autocratic features that per-
sists over time. Indeed, in order to be called a regime, the reproduction of some institutional arrangements
is a necessary condition. The conceptual frontier between an autocratic and a hybrid regime rests upon the
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absence or existence of frequent direct multiparty national elections with universal suffrage. In the autocrat-
ic category, we find the Middle East monarchies (e.g. Saudi Arabia), communist regimes (e.g. China, North
Korea) and military dictatorships (e.g. Myanmar, at least until 2010). The distinction between a hybrid and de-
mocratic regime converges toward the degree of political competition. In western countries, elections are for
the most part free and fair, which implies an environment conducive to respect for civil and political rights as
well as the rule of law. In hybrid regimes, the electoral process is skewed in favor of the incumbent. Beyond
this basic definition, the concept epitomizes a generic term, a class of phenomenon that encompasses a wide
variety of institutional arrangements in the developing world that regroups all types of intermediary regimes.
Each explores a specific dynamic related mainly to electoral institutions.
The arbitrariness in the application of democratic rules certainly touches upon a crucial dynamic found in hy-
brid regimes and reflects autocratic behavior. In hybrid regimes, ruling elites often instrumentalize legislative
provisions for political gain in electoral contest. Corruption charges against opposition leaders are a classic
example. Similarly, non-elected actors, such as the military, religious groups and oligarchs, possess some-
what discretionary powers. They see themselves as above the law and often interfere in elections to push
for their preferred candidate. The prevalence of powerful veto players refers to concepts such as protracted
democracy (Loveman, 1994).
Rules can be a priori democratic and their application relatively uniform, but if embedded in a specific context,
they can become problematic and reveal autocratic tendencies. For example, if the electoral law bans ethnic
parties to prevent polarization and foster national unity, it often de facto excludes many organizations in di-
vided countries. It imposes a high barrier to entry into the party system that deprives the opposition of legal
status and an ability to stand in elections. It indicates a form of restricted democracy (Waisman, 1989). In the-
ory, the rules look consistent with the democratic spirit, but in practice the design reveals an intent to contain
the political opposition.
Furthermore, depending on structural inequalities in society, electoral laws are not necessarily undemocratic,
but do not favor equal political participation. Although universal suffrage exists, and all citizens could register
on official lists, segments of the electorate are prevented from doing so for economic or security reasons. In
some countries, women are pressed to stay home or work for the survival of children. In other cases, wide-
spread illiteracy restrains mostly impoverished people from being able to cast their vote according to the fun-
damental secret ballot principle. They become subject to outside influence. This prospect is encapsulated in
concepts such as limited democracy (Archer, 1995).
A regime might be somewhat democratic during the election period, but manifest autocratic traits the rest
of the time. Political participation is a continuing process that requires the respect of civil liberties such as
freedom of expression, association and so on. If media coverage of opposition parties is only allowed during
elections, they enter the contest as unfamiliar candidates and most likely lose the election in anonymity. The
idea that elections are not the sole and only standard to judge whether a regime is democratic or not is con-
veyed by O'Donnell's (1994) concept of delegative democracy.
Zakaria (1997) used the concept of illiberal democracy to describe the imbalance between political rights and
civil liberties. He found that overall political rights such as free and fair elections as well as competitive and
representative parties are less respected than civil liberties, including the freedoms of expression, assembly,
association, education and religion. He suggests that this reveals a dangerous combination where the state
is weak and autocratic and the society is strong and democratic: a recipe for frequent electoral boycotts and
chronic political instability, as seen in many sub-Saharan African countries.
In addition, it can be helpful to focus briefly on authoritarianism with adjectives. In this vein, Schedler (2002),
who proposes the notion of electoral authoritarianism, also introduces a distinction between competitive elec-

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toral authoritarianism (i.e. hybrid regime) and uncompetitive (or hegemonic) electoral authoritarianism. Lev-
itsky and Way (2002, 2010) propose the concept of competitive authoritarianism, with detailed indications of
how to determine unfair elections, violations of civil liberties and the uneven playing field. For instance, in
some countries, the incumbent redirects state resources to partisan ends, such as buying media coverage.
It provides significant funds which procure unfair advantage to the dominant party. In this regard, Svein-Erik
Helle (2016: 54) develops additional criteria to assess the playing field – notably access to resources, which
includes not only public but also private, illicit and international funding. Thus, in competitive electoral au-
thoritarianism, political pluralism is effectively recognized and conflict about the rules is limited and regulated
by legislative institutions. The competitive dimension consists not only of the ability of opposition parties to
compete in elections, but foremost of the presence of opposition parties in political institutions. Hegemonic
authoritarianism denotes the absence of ‘suspense’ over the outcome of an election and stresses the system-
atic prevalence of extralegal activities (Howard and Roessler, 2006: 108; Simpser, 2013). The unusually high
voting percentage and equally high voter turnout signals that the electoral process was probably hampered in
some way. Disclosure of irregularities also increases thanks to monitoring from civil society and international
observers offering a better vantage point to gauge the fairness of elections. Finally, given that opposition par-
ties are de facto excluded from formal institutions, contestation moves to the streets and provides additional
information about the hegemonic nature of the electoral authoritarian regime.
We should add that hybrid regimes include various subtypes. Some argue that a point is reached at which
new concepts only add confusion instead of contributing to the accumulation of knowledge (Armony and
Schamis, 2005). Nevertheless, an effort should be made toward building consensus and concept classifica-
tion is a step in the right direction. Obviously, organizing these concepts within a coherent scheme represents
a significant challenge.
Classification
Where concept formation looks at the specific, concept classification takes a more inclusive approach. It in-
tends to make sense of an eclectic literature and enmeshes diverse concepts by creating typologies of politi-
cal regimes. On the one hand, typologies define the conceptual frontier of hybrid regimes compared to demo-
cratic and autocratic regimes; on the other, they untie the relation between various types of hybrid regimes.
Few studies cope with these twin objectives simultaneously.
Wigell (2008) constructs a framework with four main types of regime (i.e. democratic, constitutional oligarchic,
electoral autocratic and authoritarian), with detailed classification schemes and sixteen over fifteen criteria
along two axes: electoral and constitutional conditions. ‘Constitutional oligarchy’ and ‘electoral autocratic’
loosely correspond to hybrid regimes, although the author creates new concepts instead of concentrating
solely on classification objectives. He adds novel aspects such as electoral irreversibility and the complicated
issue of electoral boycott, as well as legal accountability of not only elected officials but all civil servants in the
public administration at local, regional and national levels.
Diamond (2002) offers a classification of hybrid regimes integrated into a typology of political regimes which
encompasses liberal democracy, electoral democracies, ambiguous regimes, electoral authoritarianism and
politically closed authoritarianism. He stresses that ‘the distinction between electoral democracy and electoral
authoritarianism turns crucially on the freedom, fairness, inclusiveness, and meaningfulness of elections’ (Di-
amond, 2002: 28). He further differentiates between two types of electoral authoritarianism: hegemonic and
competitive.
Merkel (2004) advances a typology of defective democracies. The article distinguishes between four subtypes
according to five partial regimes: the electoral regime at the core, surrounded by dimensions of political liber-
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ties, civil rights, horizontal accountability and effective power to govern. The subtypes are: exclusive democ-
racy with shortcomings on civil rights, mainly the absence of universal suffrage; domain democracy, limiting
the effective power to govern; illiberal democracy, emphasizing weak horizontal accountability based on a
lack of separation of powers; and finally, delegative democracy, combining complications connected to politi-
cal liberties, civil rights and horizontal accountability. Hence, defective democracies are all electoral regimes,
but show imperfection in one or more partial regimes.
Morlino (2011) adopts a novel approach. He stresses the importance of considering the legacy of previous
regimes. Hybrid regimes are a by-product not only of an authoritarian past, but also of a traditional or colonial
heritage and a mostly neglected instance of democratic backsliding. This leads to three different types of hy-
brid regimes: (i) protected democracy, with powerful veto players; (ii) limited democracy, with serious issues
pertaining to civil and political rights; and (iii) democracy without state, which reflects an inefficient democ-
racy or a democracy without law. Based on a factor analysis and country by country investigation, protected
democracy appears not to be an empirical reality. Furthermore, a new category emerges: quasi-democracy,
which combines obstacles to rights and the rule of law.
Gilbert and Mohseni (2011) create a typology more explicitly using the concept of hybrid regimes. They argue
that the competitive nature of multiparty elections sets hybrid regimes apart from other variants of authoritari-
anism because only then executive turnovers occur and in doing so change the distribution of power (Gilbert
and Mohseni, 2011: 285). Within the hybrid regimes category, they identify illiberal hybrid regimes, tutelary
hybrid regimes and illiberal tutelary hybrid regimes. ‘Illiberal’ refers to problems with civil liberties such as
freedom of speech and assembly, which create an unfair playing field for competing parties when it comes to
elections. ‘Tutelary’ points to non-elected actors meddling in elections for or against a candidate/party while
protecting their own ‘reserved’ domain from outside influence.
Overall, Bogaards (2009: 404) evokes the high degree of generality marked by the absence of clear indicators
(including sources of information) and aggregation rules. As a consequence, the operationalization gives
room for subjective interpretation of what hybrid regimes are and are not. The reproducibility of regime clas-
sification schemes over time and space is precisely the mission and mandate of large databases.
Generalizing
Only a few organizations are devoted to taking a cross-national and historical perspective on political regimes.
Presented as a non-partisan organization located in New York, Freedom House acts as a reference among
hybrid regimes experts. Regimes are catalogued as either free, partly free or not free.3 ‘Partly free’ symbol-
izes hybrid regimes. Criteria are grouped into two clusters: civil liberties and political rights. Freedom House
also introduced two more indexes: freedom of the press and freedom of the Internet.
In the United States, the NGO Center for Systemic Peace runs the Polity Project. It is a unique source of
information that covers more than two centuries of political development. It classifies polities as either democ-
racy or autocracy and more recently created an additional category: anocracy, which refers to hybrid regimes.
The database gives priority to executive recruitment procedures, the independence of executive authority and
political competition and opposition. It also produces an event analysis of regime change.
The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem.net) database is managed by the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. It
provides a very rich examination of political regimes in countries around the world going back to 1789. It gen-
erates indexes on electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative and egalitarian democracy based on more than
350 indicators, notably with information about the level of democracy in local and regional government as well
as gender issues. It classifies political regimes into four categories: liberal democracy, electoral democracy,
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electoral autocracy and closed autocracy. Within this perspective, electoral autocracy and electoral democra-
cy correspond to hybrid regimes.4
Finally, other databases deal with some aspects discussed in the section on definition, but do not offer a sys-
tematic approach to political regime classification. The World Bank Political Institutions database produces
detailed information on a wide range of institutional characteristics starting in 1975. The legislative and exec-
utive indicators of electoral competition help in determining the domination of the incumbent or party in power.
Variables include, notably, parties of the government or opposition coalition, as well as the degree of fragmen-
tation of legislatures. The Electoral Integrity Project is a joint program between Harvard University and the
University of Sydney. The database assesses the quality of elections worldwide since 2012 and makes avail-
able observations at country level, election level and, uniquely, expert level. The latter significantly improves
efforts toward increased reproducibility of the evaluation process. The Electoral Integrity Project is valuable to
gauge the playing field in elections, offering information, among others, about political funding.
These databases employ different criteria and weighting systems which generate estimations about the po-
litical regime of a given country in a given year. In many cases, the classification diverges, sometimes con-
siderably, among them, even if they do follow a similar evaluation process involving regional experts, career
analysts and academics. According to Lueders and Lust (2018), database assessment of political regimes is
overly sensitive to political events. For instance, a coup or an electoral turnover does not inevitably represent
a change of regime. They point to the necessity to differentiate between institutional rupture and reforms in
order to measure the actual impact of these events on the political regime. Indeed, this information is crucial
to explain the emergence and resilience of hybrid regimes.
Theory-Building
As demonstrated, a large part of the literature on hybrid regimes is devoted to conceptual and categorization
issues. In 2006, McMann emphasized that analysts dedicated more time to coining new expressions than to
determining the proliferation of hybrid regimes. Fortunately, this criticism holds less relevance today. For the
past 15 years, a rich corpus has yielded explanations for both the emergence and the resilience of hybrid
regimes.
Nonetheless, theory-building on those topics can appear limited and fragmented because not all authors use
the term hybrid regimes, relying instead on other categories and concepts. For instance, a growing area of re-
search is authoritarian resilience, which, despite its name, is overwhelmingly focused on electoral authoritar-
ianism. Explanations of the emergence and resilience of hybrid regimes are therefore intrinsically connected
to the conceptual issues we highlighted, and providing an overview of theory-building in this field sometimes
requires looking beyond the labels and mixing and matching research with very distinct starting points.
Explaining the Emergence of Such a Regime

The origin of political regimes is a well-explored topic in the social sciences, but few studies explicitly address
it in relation to hybrid regimes per se. To explain their emergence, it is necessary to borrow from the literature
on democratic transitions.
A first category of explanatory factors focuses on the impacts of the historical context, looking at external de-
terminants of the rise of hybrid regimes. Major global changes in the 1980s and 1990s posed a challenge
to autocrats. The economic crisis that affected many of them in the 1980s threatened their capacity to

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sustain patronage politics and a coercive apparatus. They also reduced their legitimacy, since plenty of those
regimes, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, were built during decolonization on the promise of development.
Simultaneously, the autocrats’ options had decreased by the end of the Cold War. They could no longer ben-
efit from superpower patronage and play out their opposition to increase the price of their alignment. Fur-
thermore, the end of the Cold War, with the ‘victory’ of the Western democratic model, opened an era of ac-
tive democracy promotion that came with the implementation of so-called democratic conditionality on foreign
aid, which was a lifeline for many autocrats. Of course, not all autocrats were subjected to the same level of
pressure. In their seminal work on competitive authoritarianism, Levitsky and Way (2010) demonstrate that
regimes with the most links – economic, social and intergovernmental – with the West were the ones that
democratized. They also find that leverage – that is, the pressure to democratize exercised by foreign powers
– does not have any effect without high linkage. This can explain why, contrary to the arguments of modern-
ization theory,5 poorer countries sometimes democratized – or, more exactly, hybridized – more than their
wealthier counterparts (Miller, 2017). Dependency on foreign aid provided by democratic states made those
countries more likely to reform.
Hybrid regimes consequently emerged because autocrats were able to face external pressures to democra-
tize by carrying out the minimal institutional reforms needed to satisfy foreign powers, while still preserving
– even prolonging – their rules and receiving financial aid. Many of them went for the ‘low hanging fruit’ of
multiparty elections. In countries where a majority of poor voters could be co-opted through clientelism, this
was an especially unthreatening change (Miller, 2017: 1), even more so because the conditionality was rarely
rigorously implemented.
But to better understand how hybrid regimes emerged from some transitional processes, internal factors also
need to be included. O'Donnell and Schmitter's seminal work (1986) emphasized the uncertainty of such pe-
riods by focusing on the games of actors, most notably the ruling elite. The strategies adopted depend on
the evaluated cost and availability of strategies and the balance of power within those elites – for instance
between softliners and hardliners – but also on their own appreciation of the situation. According to O'Donnell
and Schmitter, during the second period of the transition, when disorder and uncertainty are at their highest
level, conditions are favorable for a coup from the hardliners and/or they can also push softliners to join them
if they consider the opposition too menacing or realize they might lose control of the transition, which can lead
to moments of autocratic restoration. Of course, other actors, such as the opposition and the military, can play
a major role in determining the issue of the transition (Bratton, 1997).
In contrast with this approach, which underplays the role of structures in the emergence of various regime
types, other authors have looked into the impact of institutions, and, first of all, of the preceding regime type.
Hadenius and Teorell (2007) find that while monarchical regimes often transition to a highly restricted form
of electoral monarchism and never to democracy, one-party systems change at a similar frequency to domi-
nant multiparty systems, non-dominant multiparty systems and pure military regimes. Some past institutions
therefore shape the country's trajectory more than others. Gelman further argues that the legacy of the past
influences the path of the transition because it ‘defines the initial constellation of actors and the distribution
of their resources at the beginning of a regime change’ (2008: 160). It is part of ‘the initial political opportu-
nity structure’ (ibid). In situations where the cost of coercion is higher than the cost of cooperation, dominant
actors can compel the subordinated actors into a ‘cartel-like deal’ (Gelman, 2008: 162), where the dominant
shares some of his resources to co-opt the subordinate and retain control over major decisions. Those deals
result in hybrid regimes, either electoral authoritarianism or defective democracy.
The institutions adopted during the process of regime change can also decrease the likelihood of a demo-
cratic consolidation and push regimes onto the hybrid path. Notably, there is a long-standing debate on the
comparative dangers of presidential and parliamentary systems for young democracies (Linz, 1990; Mainwar-
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ing and Shugart, 1997). Lastly, informal institutions such as clientelism and patrimonialism can also disrupt
and distort the workings of formal democratic institutions to produce hybridity (Merkel, 2004: 54).
A third internal factor that has been abundantly studied is the impact of the modes of transition, defined ‘in
terms of the identity of the actors who drive the transition process and the strategies they employ’ (Munck and
Leff, 1997: 343). Munck and Leff (1997) identify five types of transition – reform from below, reform through
transaction, reform through extrication, reform through rupture and reform from above – and argue that the
latter is the mode of transition less likely to progress toward the consolidation of democracy, because there is
no counterbalance to the ruling elites who single-handedly set the transitional agenda. Reforms from below
are likely to give birth to a specific type of hybrid regime restricted democracy.
Quite clearly, most explanations concerning the origins of hybrid regimes are connected to the specific histor-
ical moment of the third wave of democratization. Lately, a new literature has started to investigate a different
dynamic: how hybrid regimes are born out of democracies. This refers to the notion of democratic backslid-
ing, a gradual intra-regime change conceptualized as a series of incremental actions that restrict competi-
tion, participation and accountability (Waldner and Lust, 2018: 95). Its explanations are mostly actor-centered,
though the impact of structural changes such as growing economic inequalities is acknowledged. Accord-
ing to Bermeo, the most common variety of backsliding ‘occurs when elected executives weaken checks on
executive power one by one, undertaking a series of institutional changes that hamper the power of opposi-
tion forces to challenge executive preferences’ (2016: 10). It is therefore often done through legal action and
formal institutions. Turkey's evolution under the rule of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) is an illus-
trative example, with autocratic changes enacted by ‘elected officials with a strong popular mandate to rule’
(Bermeo, 2016: 11).
Explaining the resilience

The increasing prevalence of a new road to hybridity starting in democracies demonstrates that hybrid
regimes are enduring types of political regimes, despite initial assessments emphasizing their transitional na-
ture and depicting them as a necessary step on the path to democracy.
The first to provide an analytical framework for this resilience were Levitsky and Way (2010), who discussed
competitive authoritarianism and highlighted the role of a mix of international and internal factors. In cases
where the organizational power of the incumbent, whether there was a cohesive or coercive party structure in
place, was high, opposition challenge was thwarted, and the regime remained stable authoritarianism. Stabil-
ity was enhanced by the support of a powerful authoritarian counterhegemonic force, such as China.
In contrast with this approach, recent works emphasize how the appropriation of democratic traits plays a
major role in the resilience and stability of hybrid regimes, challenging the theories arguing that the imple-
mentation of such institutions kick-starts a learning process, a gradualist path to democracy (Miller, 2015:
525; Lindberg, 2006: 139). Instead, formal and nominally democratic institutions, such as legislatures, elec-
toral processes and multiparty systems, are actually important tools in the management of the threats against
the incumbent coming from within the ruling elites or from outsiders. This would explain why regimes devoid
of those institutions, such as personalist and military ones, are more likely to be overthrown by successful
coups (Geddes, 2004: 19). To put it simply, those institutions enable durable and efficient co-optation because
without them transfers remain occasional and discretionary, and are consequently plagued by commitment
problems from both sides (Fjelde, 2010: 202). Formal institutions alleviate the moral hazard that characterizes
dictatorships, where the co-opted individuals are never sure the leader will not gather more power, to their
detriment (Magaloni, 2008; Svolik, 2009). By limiting their own action with institutions, autocrats increase the
credibility of their power-sharing agreements.
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Research on this topic focuses on three main institutions: legislatures, electoral processes and the party. Re-
garding the first of these, Gandhi (2008) argues that when facing significant threats, rulers need to make con-
cessions. Those take the shape of policy compromises devised through institutions. Indeed, ‘for incumbents,
these institutions are a way in which opposition demands can be contained and answered without appearing
weak’ (Gandhi, 2008: xviii). They enable the rulers to broaden their support base, integrating new segments
of the population of the regime's coalition and thus preventing the formation of rebellion from below, especially
when combined with elections. Elections allow popular discontent to be released in a controlled manner, but
also monitored. Regimes can gather information on the constituencies where they have weak support during
elections and then use it to develop their patronage system (Brancati, 2014).
Of course, in semi-authoritarian contexts elections are circumscribed and therefore provide little and low-qual-
ity information, but they have other important roles, such as contributing to the legitimacy of the regime, espe-
cially in the eye of the international community (Schedler, 2002). Organizing successful electoral processes is
also a device signaling the ruling party's strength, generating a public image of invincibility that discourages
potential opponents (Magaloni, 2006). Just as with legislatures, they are co-optation methods to share power
among party politicians and to manage conflict and moments where new elites and groups are recruited in
the ruling coalition (Gandhi and Przeworski, 2006). A well-structured and institutionalized party plays a simi-
lar role by providing explicit nomination procedures and rules for professional advancement. This makes the
elite's future less uncertain and consequently mitigates centrifugal forces by alleviating the arbitrariness of
autocratic power (Brownlee, 2007).
While those analyses provide a compelling narrative to explain the durability of hybrid regimes, they run the
risk of creating a ‘hybridity trap'. Indeed, if hybridity itself provides longevity and stability, then is it possible
to transition to something else? A major research avenue is therefore identification of the conditions under
which political institutions in hybrid regimes contribute to learning processes toward democratic consolidation
or autocratic resilience, keeping in mind that in most cases of regime change, countries transition from one
hybrid regime to the other (V-Dem Institute, 2018).
Regional Differentiation and International Diffusion

Hybrid regimes are common at the global level, and many share similar traits, like the implementation of elect-
ed legislatures. They nonetheless do not have the same prevalence in all regions of the world. Looking at the
global and regional averages of liberal democracy, defined as the most complete form of democracy, V-Dem
data shows that Western Europe and North America are at the highest level, far above the other regions.
Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Asia Pacific, sub-Saharan Africa and the
Middle East and North Africa region follow, in that order (V-Dem Institute, 2018: 17).
The data also enables us to identify more precisely which type of hybrid regimes dominate in those regions.
For instance, electoral authoritarianism is prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa, with 24 cases out of the 49 coun-
tries included in the dataset (V-Dem Institute, 2018: 94). Though most of these regimes find their roots in the
third wave, there are episodes of change within the past ten years. Comoros, Tanzania and Zambia back-
slid from elected democracy to electoral authoritarianism, and Mauritius and South Africa went from liberal to
electoral democracy. By contrast, hybridity in Latin America is more on the democratic side of the continuum,
with 16 electoral democracies out of 22 countries. Though the region's political regime and levels of democra-
cy have been relatively stable for the past 15 years, democracy has recently eroded in Venezuela, Honduras
and Nicaragua, which are all now categorized under electoral authoritarianism (V-Dem Institute, 2018: 94).
The data also shows that the two regions where waves of regime turmoil have recently taken place – with
the ‘color revolutions’ of 2000–5 and the 2011 ‘Arab Spring’ – remain overwhelmingly autocratic. In Ukraine
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and Kyrgyzstan, autocratic restorations followed the initial moment of political liberalization, while in the Mid-
dle East only Tunisia jumped from electoral authoritarianism to liberal democracy (V-Dem Institute, 2018: 20).
Consequently, those two waves of popular mobilization might have precipitated transitions, but this was usu-
ally from one autocratic regime to another. Furthermore, according to the V-Dem dataset, 6 out of 18 cases
of democratic backsliding have taken place in eastern Europe: Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Serbia
and Turkey (see Mainwaring and Bizzarro, Chapter 91, this Handbook).
The only region where democracy seems to advance is Asia Pacific, most notably Myanmar – which recently
transitioned to a form of electoral authoritarianism where the army still fulfills a central role – but also Sri Lan-
ka, Bangladesh and Bhutan. Yet, qualitative evidence about the Philippines and Thailand provides ground
for debate. In the Philippines, the election of President Rodrigo Duterte in 2016 and the development of his
strongman rhetoric and intransigent stance on drugs have eroded the rule of law. In Thailand, civilian rule
collapsed in 2006 and 2014 (Croissant and Lorenz, 2017: 8).
Attempting to clarify why specific types of hybrid regimes are prevalent in some regions and not others is
an ambitious endeavor, which is beyond the scope of the present overview. Here, we focus rather on inves-
tigating the processes of international diffusion that could explain this global trend of hybridization, both in
autocratic and democratic polities.
Brinks and Coppedge (2006) indeed find evidence for such processes, demonstrating that ‘countries tend to
become more like their immediate geographic neighbours over time’ (2006: 464), matching the average de-
gree of democracy or non-democracy of the other countries. However, this does not tell us how diffusion hap-
pens. One hypothesis, echoing Levitsky and Way's work, is the domination of a powerful autocratic neighbor.
It is, for instance, tempting to see Russia's influence behind processes of democratic backsliding in eastern
and central Europe, but there is no empirical evidence that linkage between electoral democracies and auto-
cratic regimes fosters such processes (Brownlee, 2017).
Latin America might be the sole region in which autocratization in different countries is clearly connected
to the presence of a regional power and model: Venezuela. President Rafael Correa in Ecuador and Evo
Morales in Bolivia followed Hugo Chávez's script of ‘convening constitutional assemblies to create new con-
stitutions that expanded rights while concentrating power in the executive, and his use of the state to control
economy, the media, and civil society’ (De la Torre, 2017: 1272). Chávez himself actively promoted his play-
book through mechanisms of economic support and soft power, for instance with the creation of the Bolivarian
Alliance for the Americas (ALBA). ALBA ‘provided the institutional space for populist leaders to meet, gather
information and devise common strategies’ (De la Torre, 2017: 1284). Nonetheless, the capacity of the other
leaders to emulate his Bolivarianism was dependent on domestic incentives, most notably the weakness of
democratic institutions, and on shared ideological goals. Many nations participated in ALBA only to guarantee
access to cheap oil (De la Torre, 2017: 1284).
Ironically, other recent cases of autocratization in the region are also connected to Chávez, but this time as
a reaction. It was fear of the implementation of a similar type of regime that pushed the Honduran opposition
‘to preemptively back the military ouster of President Manuel Zelaya in 2009 and the Paraguayan opposition
to impeach and remove from office President Fernando Lugo in 2012’ (Mainwaring and Pérez-Liñán, 2015:
116). Looking at their ways of ruling, however, those regimes are not so different from the Bolivarian ones:
they have hegemonic aspirations and popular legitimacy, derived from an electoral process organized on
a heavily tilted playing field, with malfunctioning horizontal accountability and intolerance toward opposition
(Mainwaring and Pérez-Liñán, 2015: 116). Ideology, it appears, does not necessarily and extensively shape
ruling practices.
Major Advances and Ongoing Debates

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The literature on hybrid regimes deepened our comprehension of the phenomenon both conceptually and
theoretically. Progress has been made on many fronts. We now have a better understanding of what hybrid
regimes are, as well as why and how some hybrid regimes remain stable while others quickly fall apart. The
concept has been dissected to cover a wide diversity of institutional arrangements. With more refined dimen-
sions and indicators, the internal validity and precision of hybrid regimes’ conceptualization improved. Simi-
larly, significant contributions on the theoretical front offer a comprehensive analysis of ruling elites’ strategies
to control political institutions and factors explaining hybrid regimes’ emergence and resilience.
Most of all, hybrid regimes foster a dialogue among scholars studying political regimes, a meeting point be-
tween two corpora that used to work in isolation: the literatures on democratic and autocratic regimes. This
is what makes work on hybrid regimes an exciting and creative endeavor: the propensity to borrow, merge,
bridge and (re) frame ideas. In the process, it fuels conceptual and theoretical innovation, focusing on ac-
tion and concrete events in the real world that the notion implies. What makes regimes hybrid is precisely
the intertwined ramifications of political praxis and formal institutions, which defy traditional categorizations.
Through the lens of hybridity, scholars can tackle the malleability of power practices in autocratic and demo-
cratic settings and question how it extends across time – with temporal processes of inter and intra-regime
changes – and space.
It is around this latter concept that recent debates on hybrid regimes have emerged. Looking at sub-national
politics, authors working on Latin America and Russia highlight how autocratic enclaves with clientelist and
repressive practices subsist in states that are democratizing at the national level (Gelman, 2010; Gibson,
2010). There is also the impact of the decentralization process in fragile democracies, which creates preda-
tory and kleptocratic behavior at the local level (Gervasoni, 2018). In autocratic settings, a growing literature
investigates how power can be contested or negotiated in cities and regions (Morelle and Planel, 2018). How
regimes at different levels interact remains understudied.
Outside of the electoral arena, government attempts to contain civil society have attracted greater attention
(Rutzen, 2015). Instead of focusing only on formal opposition parties and how the ruling elites deploy various
stratagems to control the political space in legislative institutions, the influence of non-governmental organiza-
tions is acknowledged, especially in creating new empowering and destabilizing social movements. Although
there exists a huge literature on social movements in democracies, far more research needs to be done to
understand under which conditions they have an impact on the emergence or resilience of hybrid regimes.
The role of information and communication technologies (ICT) in political regimes is yet another novel devel-
opment. The governance of ICT is in many ways the new frontier along which political regimes nurture hybrid-
ity. More and more evidence points to the effects of internet platforms in the pushback against democracy,
especially during elections, with propaganda tactics used by outside authoritarian regimes to influence voters
and manipulate results in democratic ones (Bennett and Livingston, 2018). Social media can also be a tool for
emancipation and liberalization by democratizing information, and enabling opponents to organize and mobi-
lize more efficiently against autocratic government, as the Arab Spring suggests (Rød and Weidmann, 2015:
340). At the same time, in a striking demonstration of how hybridity is produced even in the context of strong
authoritarianism (here China), MacKinnon (2011) shows how digital communication increases the regime's
responsiveness to its population, all the while enhancing its control over it. Finally, and ironically, many of the
practices used to contain cyberspace in autocratic regimes originate in democratic countries, where opaque
and secretive practices of surveillance are also at play (Glasius and Michaelsen, 2018).
Conclusion: Perspectives
More than two decades ago, the world seemed to have evolved into a hostile environment for authoritarian
regimes. There were strong incentives to mutate, and many autocrats successfully adapted to the new con-
text. It is by becoming hybrids that non-democratic polities guaranteed their survival. To recall Tomasi di
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Lampedusa (1960: 40), for things to remain the same, everything must change. Recent research shows that
even consolidated democracies are receding and developing autocratic features. Consequently, the question
is whether contemporary world developments favor hybridity instead.
A first answer looks at the evolution of the global context since the early 2000s. The growing economic and
political importance of autocratic counterhegemony, as in the rising international presence of China and Rus-
sia, and the switch away from democratization to security as a strategic priority for the United States and the
EU give weight to the hybrid scenario. The fight against terrorism that gained traction after 9/11 and more
recently with the rise of the Islamic State and terror attacks in Europe has pushed established democracies
to support semi-authoritarian regimes. But terrorism is also used at home to justify infringements to the rule of
law, extension of state surveillance and control over new technologies. In addition, as Bermeo (2016) points
out, it is harder to sanction those regimes because their leaders can claim that they are respecting the rule
of law and formal democratic institutions, acting within the confines of their popular and legal mandates. Pro-
cedural legitimacy, often sanctioned by international monitoring missions, has provided many hybrid regimes
with a veneer of democracy that can be used to counter internal and external criticisms.
There is, however, a second answer to this question, one that is critical and epistemological. It is to argue
that hybridity was always there and could even be the result of a change in our perspective rather than an
objective empirical transformation. Expanding our definitions of democracy to include equal access to pow-
er and the protection of the law reveals how large parts of the population have lived in hybrid regimes for
a long time, despite specialists labeling them liberal democracies (Brachet-Marquez, 2005: 481). Similarly,
some individuals or social groups had more freedom of speech than others in autocratic states. Hybridity, like
all social science concepts, is a conceptual construct that mirrors the bias and subjectivity of its designers.
Future research might therefore benefit from reflecting on hybrid regimes in everyday experience and from
incorporating a greater diversity of perspectives.
Notes
1 For instance, a citation search in Google Scholars with ‘hybrid regimes’ in the title or text and political
science as an additional criterion shows 141 results (1990–9), 1,890 results (2000–9) and 9,410 results
(2010–18).
2 In the following overview, autocratic regimes include dictatorship and authoritarianism.
3 It includes data starting in 1972.
4 Electoral democracy includes various forms of defective democracies as the threshold is ‘not exceedingly
demanding’ (V-Dem Institute, 2018: 19).
5 In its early form, modernization theory argued that the emergence of democracy was more likely in countries
with a certain level of development (Lipset, 1959). Later work by Przeworski and Limongi (1997), however,
finds no evidence of this causal relationship, though they did find support for the exogenous modernization
theory asserting that democracy is more likely to survive in a developed country.
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• hybrid regimes
• elections
• authoritarianism
• democracy
• regime
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n50

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Judicial Power
Contributors: Daniela Piana

Chapter Title: "Judicial Power"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Judicial Power
Daniela Piana
Introduction
The notion of judicial power refers to the decision-making processes enacted by a judge or by the system in
which the judge operates, notably the court. This concept comprises both the semantics of ‘courts’ and those
of ‘judiciary'. If ‘court’ is prevalently used to refer to the ‘agency’ dimension of the judicial power – under an
‘as if’ clause that assigns to the court the nature of a sole actor – the emphasis of the judiciary is on systems,
branches and structures, in which are embedded organizational, professional and institutional norms confer-
ring the authority to the agency – whether a single judge or a collective body, such as a court section – that
adjudicates a dispute between private interests or between private and public interests (Raz, 1979). While
there is a long tradition of scholarship addressing the ‘ought to be’ of a judicial branch in a constitutional State,
empirical (and behavioral) analysis of the functioning of the judiciary dates back to the early 1960s – especial-
ly in the United States, where courts have been innovatively framed in the broader spectrum of the political
institutions and, consequently, analyzed as actors (Dahl, 1957; Weingeist, 1997). Afterwards and later on, this
has been most prominent in the context of analysis of the supreme courts, interpreted as counter-majoritari-
an agents (Hirschl, 2004) or, in a different perspective, as devices adopted by political incumbents to secure
the protection of the fundamental guarantees of freedom and equal access to power in democratic regimes
(Ginsburg, 2003; Epstein et al., 2001). In the 1970s, and more widely in the 1980s, the judiciary began to be
observed as an arena in which social groups, especially disadvantaged ones, mobilize resources to put pres-
sure on rulers in a prospective way – as in pressure on the rule adoption of the legislative or the executive
branch – or, in a retrospective view, to revise and mitigate the effects of previously adopted legal provisions
(Epp, 1998; Commaille and Lacour, 2018). Comparative perspectives since then have cast light both on the
civil versus common law dichotomy – and the trespassing of its differences (Cappelletti, 1989) – and on the
different models of judicial procedures in the civil and criminal justice fields.
Several disciplines are interested in the behaviors, organization, institutional nature and cultural stances of
judicial actors and judicial institutions. Beyond the many varieties of approach, to project scholarly attention
toward the judiciary in the 21st century it is worth bearing in mind the following. The law and economics field
addresses the impact that legal provisions have on the behavior of social and economic actors and stems
from a rational choice model of agency (Posner, 1983); the law and society field – mostly developed in North
America up to the end of the 1990s – addresses the interplay between social forces, groups, values and
stakes within the law in action, that is, within the scope of action of the courts (Santos, 2006); and compar-
ative politics is interested in the evolving patterns of the interplay of the branches within a State, or in the
patterns of change featuring the judiciary as a system of multiple actors, such as prosecutors and judges, with
judges at different ranks. Alongside a variety of epistemological positions on the role played by norms in so-
ciopolitical systems and ultimately on the agency/norms matrix, all of these fields relate to legal scholarship,
which covers both ordinary courts and supreme courts, as well as what has been called political jurisprudence
(Shapiro, 1983).
One Principle, Many Institutional Designs

Judicial power stands as the safeguard of individual rights against the potential abuse of power: ‘Preventing
the abuses of powers means having in the legal system safeguards against arbitrariness; providing that the
discretionary power of the officials is not unlimited, and it is regulated by law.'1 This is to be taken as an ide-
al-typical position.2
Over the centuries, the development of modern States and the practices of Western liberal institutions gave
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birth to two different, but related, formal mechanisms to limit the power of the sovereign (and, broadly speak-
ing, to limit the power of the executive branch). These are, first, its subjection at an early stage to natural
law, and then afterward to parliament; and second, the separation of powers, based on the assumption that
the three branches of government (legislative, executive and judicial) handle three different kinds of power
(see Müller-Rommel and Vercesi, Chapter 45, and Patzelt, Chapter 49, this Handbook). These powers should
perform their functions under the control of inter-institutional (inter-branch) accountability mechanisms, which
ensure that no one power overrules the others. Independently of the way in which power has been bounded,
judicial institutions have always been placed in a critical position: on the one hand, courts are of paramount
importance in keeping public officials accountable to the law (Raz, 1979); on the other, the judicial branch is
crucial in implementing the principle of separation of powers (Waldron, 2008). Within the scope of the jurisdic-
tion, judicial functions interact with other key functions of the State, notably the prosecutorial function (Pakes,
2015).
Beyond the vast range of models and policies relating to the functioning of the judiciary, judicial independence
stands as the azimuth of all actions performed by the judicial function, either in discontinuing authoritarian
traditions (see the example of the Southern European or Latin countries) or in strengthening the capacity to
put into motion the principle of the rule of law (Larkins, 1996). In a way, the vast array of policies (setting
up a Council of the Judiciary, reforming the mechanisms of judicial appointment, revising the mechanisms of
judicial evaluation, incorporating into the court organization managerial tools optimizing resource allocation,
to offer just some examples) to structure or strengthen the judicial function are inspired by a clear desire for
an effective rule of law (Garoupa and Ginsburg, 2009). A lack of guarantee of judicial independence (JI) may
be fatal for the effectiveness of limitations of power and consequently the effective implementation of the rule
of law, as low guarantees of judicial independence may leave judges unprotected from external influences.
Judicial independence is, however, meant to refer to different aspects of the judiciary.
Scholarly doctrine and institutional practices advocating, elaborating and putting into motion JI have been also
extended to reflect upon the application of some key notions, such as external and internal independence of
the status of the prosecutor (see on authoritarian regimes Solomon, 2015). Scholars addressing the issue of
the status of prosecutorial functions within the scope of the liberal institutions have largely investigated the
role of these within the criminal procedure, having in mind a typology based on the degree of autonomy en-
joyed by public prosecutors in pursuing a crime and the structural stance public prosecutors take in relation
to the judicial function. In countries where judges and prosecutors belong to the same body, a number of oth-
er aspects – such as career paths, or common versus differential cultures – are considered by comparative
scholars (see Damaska, 2019).
When scholars investigate the legal conditions of JI they refer to de jure JI, which in many countries is en-
trenched in the constitutional architecture of the State. This is the case in continental European, North Amer-
ican and Latin American countries and has been seen in recent transitions to democracy such as those in
the Mediterranean region and in some of the MENA countries (Choudhry and Bass, 2014). De jure JI is the
primary goal for political regimes that shift from an authoritarian setting toward – even minimally – a set of
constitutional guarantees, such as civil and political freedoms. The example of the Balkan countries is telling
in this respect. Despite the varieties of path followed to reach the standards of the so-called European model
of rule of law, in all cases de jure JI was adopted in the constitutional setting of the State. The isolation of
the judiciary from undue influences marked the shift from authoritarian rules to democratic or hybrid regimes
during the Arab Spring.
JI applies to the judicial function at the macro and the micro levels. It refers to the status of the judiciary in
relation to the other branches of the State, and to the status of the individual judges within the judiciary, in re-
lation to the highest ranked justice, and in relation to the external environment. The first of these is external JI
(Russell and O'Brien, 2001), whereas the second is internal JI (Hayo and Voigt, 2003). We also need to refer
to de facto JI, which relates to the actual functioning of the judiciary and to the actual behaviors adopted by
judges. De facto JI is a category introduced into the scholarship to point to the gap between the guarantees

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entrenched in the legal systems and the contextual conditions where judges and judicial functions operate.
Moreover, and especially with reference to the most recent experiences, this category allows for explanation
of changes within the judiciary when formal norms do not change. The example of Italy is insightful. Without
changing the constitutional provisions that ensure de jure JI, the Italian judiciary underwent two major waves
of transformation, impinging upon the professional profile of judges – a de facto specialization – and the room
for maneuver which lower judges enjoy in innovating jurisprudence in key sectors of social and political life.
A survey of the models of judicial governance which coexist in Europe would reveal a spectacular variety of
institutional solutions. Each solution combines a formal organizational design (identifying who does what in
appointing, promoting, evaluating and checking judicial actors) with informal practices and ways of doing –
organizational and legal cultures which differ from one country to another. In the English system, legal norms
took the form of jurisprudential decisions, through which ordinary judges paved the way for modern English
law (Bell, 2006). Over the centuries, English lawyers have regularly been appointed as justices, whereas the
promotion of judges has always taken place in relationship with the reputation they gained at the bar. Usually
the English model is explained in terms of the persistence of a common law-based legal system. However,
a more attentive insight is that it is possible to point to other factors, including social pluralism, low fragmen-
tation in the political system and stability of the institutional framework. This has remained largely true after
the introduction of a new and highly significant institution, the supreme court, whose jurisdiction reproduces
within the British system the model of last resort adopted in the most of the Western countries and in several
countries that have moved from an authoritarian legacy toward the implementation of a minimum core of con-
stitutional guarantees of fundamental freedoms.
In continental Europe, due to the more straightforward importance of the sovereign State, it is possible to
identify two models – French and German (Guarnieri and Pederzoli, 2002). In the first model the main mech-
anism used to ensure that judicial decisions comply with the law is the creation of a bureaucratic model of
judicial governance. Judges are selected according to the same model of recruitment used for civil servants,
and so are driven to develop an esprit de corps (Troper, 1980). Both socialization and respect of seniority
guarantee the coherence of judicial decisions. Judicial interpretations should be strictly residual, not creative.
This model, which spread across Southern Europe and Belgium along with the establishment of Napoleonic
rule, underwent a process of radical change after the end of World War II. A pure model of self-government
has been adopted by Southern European countries throughout their democratic transitions. After the fall of
pre-war authoritarian regimes, High Judicial Councils were introduced in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece in
order to insulate judges from the influence of the executive (Toharia, 1975). In this model, the High Judicial
Council appoints, promotes, evaluates and trains judges. The model, of German tradition, relies on the idea
of the Rechtsstaat. It interprets the legitimacy of the law in terms of procedural correctness, which ultimate-
ly depends on the respect legal norms exhibit in terms of the Gründnorm, the fundamental rule of the State
(Kommers, 1997). The State, which is the depositary of the Gründnorm, is endowed with the power to issue
the norms of the legal system. The legal accountability of judges functions predominantly as a guarantee of
judicial independence. In this system, undue interference with the judiciary is not expected from the executive,
but rather from the legislative arm. The risk of an overwhelming majority which overrules the fundamental rule
of the constitutional State is avoided by adopting a strong constitutional mechanism of judicial review. The
review is operated by an ad hoc institution, specialized in monitoring the formal and substantial coherence of
the statutory law with the Gründnorm. This institution is the constitutional court.
The idea of a specialized court granted full and unique responsibility in reviewing the statutory laws and en-
suring the last resort to the protection of fundamental rights is the result of a historical process marked by
dramatic turning points, including World War II. If, along the centuries – from the introduction of the Magna
Carta onward – the judiciary was meant to work at the level of the ordinary courts and to act in a bounded
scope of action where the executive was not allowed to intervene, the 20th century saw growing distrust of
the legislative branch and the power of the majorities. Rules adopted in the parliaments were not automati-
cally legitimated by their democratic roots: citizens have seen concrete possibilities of falling victim to rules
adopted by oversized majorities subverting – under the label of democratic legitimacy – the rule of law (Fer-
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ejohn, 1998; Stone Sweet, 2000). This is the rationale inspiring the introduction of the constitutional courts.
The choice to give to the judge the ultimate protection of individuals’ rights is a mark of the democratization
processes unfolding in many different regions, from Central and Eastern Europe to Latin America.
Judicial Reforms beyond Judicial Independence

If we shift from a macro-systemic approach to a micro approach – that is, actor-centered – new and insightful
dimensions may be found, notably in relation to the organizational and professional accountability of the judi-
ciary. Once again, there are two models, all coexisting in the different continents. In one model, the appoint-
ment, selection and promotion of judges is based on (1) candidate justices’ general legal knowledge and (2)
seniority. This yields a strictly bureaucratic model of judicial governance. Throughout their processes of social-
ization judges learn to comply with the rule of law, which imposes a strictly transparent and equal application
of legal norms. In each model, ethical norms and legal ideologies are transmitted and enforced by different
institutions that correspond to different social groups (Damaska, 1986). Judicial actors adjudicate according
to the norms – interpretative principles and deontological standards – which they learn from senior judges,
legal actors and legal scholars. In the UK model, the bar is the source of the behavioral standards with which
justices comply. In the continental model, legal scholars and senior justices represent the group of reference
for ordinary judges, even if the introduction of the High Judicial Council unbalanced this delicate mechanism.
Indeed, the organizational innovation represented by the High Judicial Council carries a surreptitious change
in the allocation of power within the judicial branch. Whereas the High Judicial Council maximizes the external
independence of justices from the other branches of the State, it challenges and ultimately weakens the in-
ternal hierarchy of the judiciary through the introduction of a democratic principle into the judicial governance.
Members of the High Judicial Council are elected by ordinary judges. This undermines the cohesiveness of
the judicial hierarchy because of the equal status awarded to all judges on the basis of the principle ‘one man,
one vote’ (Volcansek, 1992).
If referred to the functioning of the supreme court, a rich scholarship has been developed on the conditions
that situate the supreme courts in the adequate position of exercising a proper review of the statutory laws.
These conditions, which are primarily (even if not exclusively) instantiated into the patterns of judicial appoint-
ment and judicial tenure, impinges upon the balance between elected actors and not elected actors in the
overall design of a constitutional democracy. A more specific but not less important dimension regards the
supreme court method of deliberation and decision making, where the device of the “dissenting opinion” in-
troduces into the supreme court an “arena” dimension where different visions and culture have an echo and
a visibility (Baum, 1990). This is a bridge between a comparative analysis of the supreme courts and analysis
of the dialogue among the courts (Dallara and Piana, 2015). Professional dialogue, reference to the exter-
nal public and internal interactions among justices serving within the same jurisdiction, whether ordinary or
supreme court, together belong to the field of judicial accountability.
Dimensions of judicial accountability have been investigated in both comparative political studies and organi-
zational analysis. The role played by the organizational dimension calls for a new scholarly approach which
has been reflected both in the policy discourse and in the judicial reforms. Speaking of the judiciary by refer-
ring to the concept of JI may lead scholars and practitioners to assess the way democracy and rule of law
are intertwined on a very superficial level. Formal institutional designs provide a fairly accurate view of how
the judicial branch is inserted in the broader context of a constitutional system, but they do not say that much
about how, in reality, courts hold rulers and ruled accountable, and about the ways in which courts are them-
selves subjected to mechanisms of control and accountability.
This point is strengthened further by empirical evidence provided by the processes of change triggered in
democratizing countries by the reforms that have set up JI guarantees. The democratization waves unfolding
in Southern Europe and Latin America represented a quasi-experimental context to assess the impact of the
JI guarantees on the judiciary's capacity to meet citizens’ demands. These countries opted for the capsula-
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tion of the judiciary in order to isolate it from potentially undue interferences, such as from former elites (not
fully gained to the democratic rule, O'Donnell and Schmitter, 1986) or from the army (Hilbnik, 2007) or from
clientelistic social groups (Couso, 2011). In Europe, this view has been supported by the Council of Europe
in particular. Furthermore, the European Commission endorsed the same approach and promoted a spectac-
ular range of policies within the pre-access strategy design to fill the institutional gap of the candidate coun-
tries to the membership from 1995 to 2007, all pivoting on the key idea that a self-governing judiciary may
be able to come to terms with the totalitarian or post-totalitarian rule in the Central Eastern European coun-
tries (Selznick, 1999; Schwartz, 2000). Outside the EU a wave of self-governing judiciaries traverses the Latin
American countries, imitating the models set up in Southern European countries such as Spain and Portugal.
Today, in the Balkans, the promotion of the rule of law incorporates sanguine prescriptions about the institu-
tional design to be followed by judicial governance. Yet, the evidence collected in the aftermath of the first
wave of judicial reforms adopted in homogeneous regions – Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Latin
America – revealed a relationship between JI and the rule of law less sanguine than had been expected or
promised. This evidence offers strong and compelling reasons to shift the focus from JI to judicial account-
ability (JA).
The idea underpinning this shift is that justice administration is a public sub-sector and should be held ac-
countable from the point of view of the capacity of delivering a good service to users – citizens – and that of
allocating money with a strict instrumental rationality.
Remedies suggested come from best practices experienced in more advanced countries – countries that rank
highly from the point of view of courts’ efficiency – and from the development of common standards which
serve as common transnational reference points to assess the quality of national and sub-national judicial of-
fices. Judicial offices respectful of the rule of law should be efficient in delivering judicial decisions in due time,
should be transparent in the way they manage their resources and should introduce IT instruments to facilitate
information processing and public communication. Innovation has become common sense when policy mak-
ers are being asked to resolve and remedy issues in the judicial sector, such as unreasonable timeframes,
uneasy or unfair access to the courts, lack of confidence in the bench on the part of the general public, and so
on. This has entailed a growing commitment to inject into the traditional systems of judicial governance new
organizational practices and policies originating in other systems or offices.
Having judicial accountability as an azimuth, the European member States underwent different waves of judi-
cial reform. First along this path were the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands. In the late 1990s and
in the early 2000s a number of reforms targeting the efficiency and transparency of the judicial systems were
enacted. In the Netherlands, for instance, comprehensive reform of the court system was adopted in 2002
and implemented through the decade 2002–12. This included the introduction of a completely new institution,
the Council for the Judiciary. In a completely different context, the Singapore Supreme Court played a lead-
ing role in persuading and advocating for an efficiency-oriented reform of both procedural and organizational
provisions structuring the civil justice system.
Even though it may appear a simplification, as a matter of fact, JA oriented measure seem to turn out into a
less effective and coherent result if measured in the entire domestic territory. The judicial offices that feature
more favorable conditions to implement new public management tools score higher in the performance than
offices where the lack of managerial capacity of the chief justice, the lack of specialized clerks, the lack of
robust daily work organization undermine the implementation of these tools. In this respect, the case of Italy
shows that governmental staff – at the level of ministerial officers – are transformed by the diffusion of a new
public management strategy to overcome resistance and inertial effects within the judiciary.
In the aftermath of these new waves of judicial reform, some key aspects have emerged. Efficiency-oriented
policies do not ensure equal treatment of citizens. In some countries, where local organizational contexts fea-
ture specific characteristics and retain a considerable degree of autonomy from the center, equal treatment
still seems to be a prospective goal rather than an achievement. In a way, the quality of justice policy stream

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aims to provide an answer to this question.
Scholars and practitioners have been discussing the quality of justice since the early 1990s. This has come
alongside the growing interest in court management and managerial and public accountability as they are
applied to the judicial sector (Voermans, 2007; Piana, 2010). The reasoning behind this new policy stream is
very simple. A fair trial is not only expected to be respectful of the procedural codes and fundamental rights,
but it should also comply with the standard of a reasonable timeframe. Moreover, it is desirable that a judicial
institution is not only independent, but also transparent and predictable in terms of results and resource man-
agement. This leads to the introduction of a conception of quality of justice that goes beyond the principle of
the rule of law, while still incorporating it. A further critical aspect calls for a comparative assessment. Beyond
the differential paths followed by judicial actors to interact with the sociopolitical systems where they operate,
including the transnational level (Epp, 1998), the growth of the judicial power has catalyzed a process of judi-
cialization of politics, which is mirrored in a vast and compelling variety of cases and examples, from settling
conflicts within judicial arenas rather than legislative or executive ones to shifting the bulk of the rule making
from statutory laws to case law and jurisprudence (Stone Sweet, 2000; Commaille and Dumoulin, 2010).
The Judiciary under Assessment: A Comparative and International Policy

Stream
Over the past decades, judiciaries have been experiencing recurrent and interlaced waves of reform (Vigour,
2018). There are a number of reasons for this. First and foremost, the scope of the judicial function has had to
expand. Increasingly complex and intensive litigations have demanded a deeper and wider response from ju-
dicial institutions in many countries and, with higher significance, in countries featuring high levels of fragmen-
tation or cultural polarization (Morlino and Sadurski, 2010). These phenomena have provoked overload of the
judicial institutions and have called for a reallocation of resources within the administrative services attached
to them. Second, the economic crisis which hit the eurozone in 2007 and 2008 forced public institutions to
rethink their human resources endowment and rationalize their expenditure schemes (Mascio and Natalini,
2014). The same is true of the judicial sector, which experienced a comprehensive process of rationalization
in the budget allocation scheme. In many countries the role played by IT-based tools in the improvement of
court management has been praised under the auspices of an efficiency-oriented approach (Frydman and
Jeuland, 2011) warmly welcomed as a reaction to the crisis. In regions where politics shifted from author-
itarian rule toward a hybrid regime (see Morlino, 2011: chapter 3, and Gagné and Mahé, Chapter 47, this
Handbook) the status of the judicial branch within the constitutional design of the State gained a spectacular
emphasis and ranked high among the priorities of the incumbent elites.
For all these reasons, combined with the streamlining effect entailed by the promotion of efficiency-oriented
policies and quantitative method of performance assessment, the current state of the art in terms of data and
information covering the judiciaries and the functioning of those is very promising and rich. Judiciaries got
ranked at the top of the international agenda on good governance, inclusive growth, poverty reduction, equal
treatment promotion.
This goes hand in hand with a comprehensive process of standard setting in the European area. For more
than two decades, a vast repertoire of instruments, such as checklists, recommendations, monitoring and as-
sessment tools, benchmarks and so on, has been developed and subsequently diffused across the countries
that adhere to the European institutions such as the EU and the Council of Europe. Judicial networks, particu-
larly those created in the frame of the Council of Europe and given the responsibility of discussing and setting
standards of rule of law, have been instrumental to this process. During the judicial networks’ meetings, do-
mestic representatives (in some cases appointed by the national governments, in others appointed by judicial
institutions, such as the judicial schools or Councils for the Judiciary) embark on a process of data collection,
benchmarking, assessment and standard setting with respect to several key dimensions of the judicial sys-
tems, such as trial timeframe, access courts, communication to the broad public and resource allocation per
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inhabitant.
The avenue taken by the European institutions in the judicial sector is not new for the international and
transnational setting. First of all, we observe a conceptual shift, from a policy discourse centered on exclusive-
ly JI toward a policy discourse centered on the quality of justice (Fabri et al., 2005). The latter seems to have
rephrased the concept of rule of law by adding to impartial and lawful adjudication other principles, such as
the actual possibility to access the court system, the transparency of the court management and the efficien-
cy of the resource management scheme adopted by courts. In short, the addition consists into the conditions
that ensure JA. A high number of non-legally binding norms has made its appearance in the EU as one of the
most path breaking outcome of a transnational standard setting process targeting the administration and the
organization of domestic courts and public prosecutor offices. Several types of standards have been put forth:
reasonable timeframe, equal access to justice, efficient financial management, effective public communica-
tion, and so on. In order to ensure both the measurement and (consequently) the quantitative assessment of
the judicial systems, concepts such as timeframe, delays and fair trial have been unpacked and translated
into indicators. The operationalization of the quality of justice was a new avenue to compare systems that
proved to be reluctant to mere integration or quite different and divergent in terms of their own strategies to go
about court overloading or challenging cases (involving children, refugees, or ethical and religious issues). In
general, if, by any chance, a European citizen had the opportunity to observe the European judicial systems
from an external point of view, she would be in a position to spot huge differences in the way trials take place
and surely in the way the law is used, applied and enforced. ‘Differences’ do not refer here to legal norms
(the European system is still a system of 28 national legal systems existing underneath the EU law). Rather,
‘differences’ refers to the organization, the staff, the services offered to users and the number of mechanisms
of public and social accountability under which judicial staff are held.
Despite the several different conceptions of rule of law that have been endorsed within these policies (Piana,
2010), the programs and projects financed by the World Bank, the Council of Europe, the European Commis-
sion, USAID and many other actors all converge on the pivotal roles played by the procedural dimension of
the rule of law, by the impact that the legal system may have on institutional stability and social prosperity and
by the entrenchment in constitutional or statutory laws of the guarantees of judicial independence.
Datasets available reflect the process of reframing that has been described so far. From early stage datasets
focusing on legal provisions of JI – both external and internal, but mostly de jure rather than de facto – inter-
national organizations moved toward a more comprehensive approach centered on the enforcement of the
right to a fair trial, measured in terms of trial timeframe, efficiency and effectiveness of the judiciaries. In the
second decade of the 21st century, a new approach has appeared, bridging the United Nations’ Agenda 2030
and the previous positions by pointing to the role played by access to justice or, in other words, by the barriers
encountered by citizens in their pathways toward justice. The engagement of the international organizations
has been relaunched at the aftermath of the Agenda 2030 adoption, which includes the purpose of increasing
the equality of everyone in accessing reliable, impartial, and accountable mechanisms of rights enforcement.
The combination of these factors impinged upon the design of the judicial reforms and demanded that the
national elites engage in long term agendas, a condition that has been fulfilled dependent on several factors,
closely related to the culture, the legacy and the veto players’ distribution in each country.
Four groups of assessment exercises are worth consideration for scholarly analysis:
• a) Datasets covering judicial reforms and structure. This first type includes the Consultative Commit-
tee of Judges in Europe, operating in the framework of the Council of Europe (CoE), which monitors
the 47 judiciaries of the CoE member States and the Commission of Venice dataset, where the offi-
cial documents of the reforms and the advisory body assessment reports are available for all 47 CoE
member States. Moreover, the dataset Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) includes a set of indicators
touching upon the balance of power – executive versus judiciary as well as legislative versus judicia-
ry – for all the States, and from 1900 up to today.

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• b) Datasets covering the organizational dimensions of the judiciary and the efficiency of the judicial
systems. Most prominent in this group is the example of the CEPEJ (Commission Européenne pour
la Evaluation des Judiciaires), once again framed under the rule of law program of the Council of
Europe and a frontrunner in quantitative analysis of the judiciary. Data are collected over two years
and are validated through a participative mechanism where domestic judicial institutions are directly
involved.
• c) Datasets addressing the key issue of fair trial protection with a comprehensive and context-sensi-
tive approach. The best case available today is the World Justice Project. Set up in the early 2000s
with the goal of assessing protection of the right to due process, it has become a leading voice in the
assessment of the quality of justice. Indicators cover both structural and functional dimensions for all
countries in the world.
• d) Datasets framing the justice institutions within the broader spectrum of the public institutions. This
shift has played a major role in extending analysis of the judiciary. The OECD has played and still is
playing the role of leader in this direction. Datasets focusing on the judiciary are therefore taken into
consideration in several outlook exercises carried out on a regular basis by the OECD. In the same
vein, the European Commission has launched a new exercise where the judiciaries are monitored.
This is the EU Justice Scoreboard, which combines data from the CEPEJ dataset and data provid-
ed by another important international platform, such as the World Economic Forum and the World
Bank.3
Pathways to Quality of Justice: Standards, Policy Transfers, Innovations

The avenue opted for in the judicial sector is not new for the international and transnational setting. The strat-
egy, which consists in governing courts by standards, is largely accepted in most international organizations,
such as the World Bank and the OECD (Genn, 1999). In Europe the development and the diffusion of stan-
dards of quality of justice has taken the shape of a cross borders and transnational policy operating with the
mechanisms of the horizontal learning. The concept of ‘quality of justice’ seems to have reshaped the notion
of rule of law by adding to the impartial and lawful adjudication other principles, such as the actual possibili-
ty to access the court system, the transparency of the court management and the efficiency of the resource
management scheme adopted by courts. A high number of non-legally binding norms has made its appear-
ance in the European Union as one of the most path breaking outcomes of a transnational standard setting
process targeting the administration and the organization of domestic courts and public prosecutor offices.
Several types of standards have been put forth, such as reasonable timeframe, equal access to justice, ef-
ficient financial management, effective public communication. The operationalization of the quality of justice
came as a new avenue to compare the domestic judicial systems. More prominently than in other sectors, the
interplay between ordinary courts and supranational courts performs differently and has a different impact on
the protection of fundamental rights of citizens. Comparison of the European Court of Human Rights and the
Inter-American Court of Human Rights operating in Latin America revealed that what matters for effective pro-
tection of rights beyond domestic borders is a combination of the institutional legacy and mutual trust among
the judiciaries.
In many cases differences in rights enforcement are not due to legal norms. Rather, they stem from the orga-
nization, the staff, the services offered to users and the number of mechanisms of public and social account-
ability with which the judicial staff has to comply. The quantitative turn went hand to hand with the managerial
turn in the international discourse about the judicial branch. This has allowed to address similar functional
problems arising in different countries despite the contexts might have been different, in terms of domestic
legal and political culture. In a way the core of the promotion of the rule of law shifted toward a more easily
measurable strategy, such as the promotion of the quality of justice (Hammergren, 1998; Albers, 2001; Piana,
2010).

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The shift from a judiciary functioning as a system to a judiciary that works as a policy arena entails several
important consequences. Among these there are the appearance and the empowerment of new policy actors
promoting judicial policies without creating pressure for any constitutional or statutory change. This holds also
in contexts where the rulers and the change agents are currently addressing the issue of reforming the judi-
ciary by referring to a multidimensional framework, such as the one adopted at the international level. This
is the case, for instance, in countries such as Georgia, Kazakhstan and Moldova, where legal and manage-
ment experts are supporting the agenda setting of the reforms under the auspices of the Council of Europe,
the OECD and the World Bank. The rise of a transnational policy discourse ensuring the quality of the jus-
tice system with a standardized set of notions paved the way toward what can be qualified as a process of
networking within the rule of law institutions – the ordinary and supreme courts (Ackerman, 1997; Tate and
Vallinder, 1995). Consequently, the judicial power displays the hallmarks of a closed system, characterized
by the boundaries and the authority of the legal system and the aspects of an arena where actors, notably
judges, promote organizational strategies of quality of justice, or engage in intensive dialogues with other
courts across domestic borders.
At the level of the ordinary court systems, the promotion of specific solutions is based on the endorsement
of a user-oriented approach that frames the judicial reforms and leads them in an output-oriented direction.
The actual entrepreneurship of the domestic institutions and the implementation of these types of normative
inputs – that is, non-legally binding norms – mainly depends on the availability of capable actors, of legitimate
and influential policy entrepreneurs, and of domestic facilitating conditions in terms of political competition
and the organizational forces at work in the judicial field. This is why analysis of a critical case, the Italian one,
may cast new light on the potential consequences – including the unintended effects – of the judicial reforms
driven by the quality of mainstream justice. And yet, beyond the different patterns of interaction entailed by
standards and legal provisions, the reasoning behind their implementation converges in at least one sense:
implementation processes are deployed on the basis of a deductive rationality, which goes from an abstract
principle – a norm – to a specific case – a practice or behavior that instantiates the norm. The largest part of
the standards is worded in abstract terms. For example, ‘budget transparency’ is a principle. How to imple-
ment it and turn it into a practice depends on a few factors that narrow progressively the possible behavioral
options that can be adopted coherently to the abstract principle, and possibly the specific context of applica-
tion. The same logic holds in the case of the principle of equal access to the judicial mechanisms of dispute
resolution. The term ‘equal access’ is abstract: this way of normative wording is suitable for a wide and dif-
ferential implementation. This principle is put into motion by means of a specific set of tools, mechanisms,
organizational solutions, and policy designs.
The judiciary as a policy arena represents more than a metaphor. Twinning and bilateral or multilateral co-
operation projects have entailed large-scale socialization activity (Dallara and Piana, 2015; Paine 2016). So-
cialization and training were thus not just specific objectives of cooperative projects, but also spill-over effects
of other projects, most of which were based on peer review, cross-border discussion or teaching. The role
played by experts in the standard-driven policy transfer experiences can be summarized in the following way.
Experts are expected to be aware of the standards and formulate an abstract model of what should be done
under general conditions. Moreover, they are selected and appointed in projects of judicial cooperation be-
cause of their knowledge of the system or of the organization from which the practice that should be trans-
ferred originates. They visit the beneficiary or the recipient organization and select those conditions that can
facilitate the transfer or/and address those barriers that can create obstacles to the transfer. The expert op-
erates during a short or medium timeframe in the recipient organization. A number of training sessions are
foreseen to create awareness and to train the staff of the organization, which, once the project reaches its
end, must be capable of managing and incorporating the new practice into their own way of doing things.
Despite the quality of the design of the transfer and the quality of the practices transferred, however, in a high
number of cases the a posteriori audit showed that the internalization of the norms and the translation into
routinized practices easily fails. In countries where old models have been transferred – such as the Albanian
case, where the Italian model of self-government has been adopted – the actual impact of the transfer re-
mains a subject for further empirical analysis.
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Perspectives
Patterns of change triggered by the processes of policy transfer and by the implementation of international
standards of quality of justice also characterize the interplay between justice and technology. The interaction
between technological innovation and the justice system is now an acquis for anyone working in the sector. At
different levels of jurisdiction, lawyers, magistrates and administrative staff have integrated the technological
component into the everyday functioning of the procedures and the organizations that respond to the need
to concretely implement the right to due process. Today, however, the reality – and, above all, the potential
for change linked to the diffusion of new technologies and instrumentation, both computational and digital –
goes far beyond the phenomenon of dematerialization of public administration, which has meant above all
the transformation of the civil procedure in the justice sector. From a general point of view, the introduction of
technological tools in this sector has been interpreted and supported as one of the most important paths to
ensure the efficiency of the system. On the demand side, technology meets the world of justice in terms of
the information available to the parties – for example, by making use of open government mechanisms that
also affect the content of judicial decisions or the contents of the implementation documents – and on the
plan of the representation of the problem – for example, the lawyer or the mediator can be assisted by the re-
sults of research undertaken with computational devices that analyze databases, so-called big data, massive
identifying trends, specificities and median points, in terms of jurisprudential orientations of the guidelines on
compensation. Again, on the demand side, but taking into account the first forms of interaction between the
demand and supply of justice, the flow of documents can be profoundly transformed by availability of the dig-
ital platforms and digital devices. For these reasons – among which the search for more efficiency and more
accessibility are prominently highlighted – digital devices for justice administration and justice delivering are
rapidly and relentlessly rising to the top of the rankings in the priority lists outlined by policy makers, domestic
and international institutions, regulators, legal experts and consultants.
Changes triggered by the encounter between technological tools and justice institutions are countless and
span a wide range of different dimensions – procedural, substantial, organizational, communicational – all
together impinging upon the way in which rights are protected and enforced. The technology has often been
welcomed by those who unveiled the failures of the State in providing timely and efficient responses to the
demands of services coming from citizens, social groups and companies. If we consider these new phenom-
ena in a comparative perspective, e-justice, cyber justice, digital justice and predictive justice encompass a
vast array of aspects, none of which stick to the perimeter of simple efficiency, as important as it might be.
Modernizing justice institutions, differentiating conflicts and settlement mechanisms, and redesigning the ma-
trices where demands and supplies of justice meet entails much more than simply increasing the speed of
case management, reducing the costs of access to justice and – inasmuch as it becomes readable and open
– making the justice system transparent to non-legal experts.
In the second decade of the 21st century, the Los Angeles Police Department adopted a method to predict
crime behavior propensity based on the inductive analytics from a massive dataset on individual behaviors,
typical situations and descriptive mindsets accounts for types of social actors. Back in 2013, Professor Joel
Caplan of Rutgers School of Criminal Justice highlighted that the approach described above keeps in mind
short term objectives. Police officers can stop criminal activities in a particular area, only to allow them to
occur elsewhere. Alternatively, the potential criminals may return once the police officers leave. Therefore, a
more sustainable method would be to perform risk terrain mapping. The crime history of a certain region is
merged with local behaviors to define crime-prone areas, thus considering the impact of the environment as
well. This goes far beyond the pure case management adopted by the courts to speed up the trial time frame,
or simply to ensure that this latter is kept under the control of quality (i.e. efficiency and effectiveness-orient-
ed) management.
In the UK and the Netherlands, online dispute resolution has been adopted, and many scholars and practi-
tioners are ready to argue for the great potential of these mechanisms. Once the documents associated with
a procedure of civil litigation are scanned and available in digital format, analysis of an infinitely large number
of documents may qualify as a case of data analytics. In 2017 the Court of the 9th Circuit of California raised
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a critical case seeking to define who is responsible for the final ruling with the support of both human and
artificial intelligence, human reasoning and big data analysis. The horizon prospected by the introduction of
the artificial intelligence into the courts offers empirical and theoretical reasons for scholars and practitioners
to revisit the traditional notion of power. A ruling elaborated on the basis of both legal and mathematical ele-
ments and contents, providing insights about the past trends in the jurisprudence for specific types of cases,
is still the instantiation of a judicial power? Whether this represents a new season for the judiciary or the first
embryonic age for a new paradigm in judicial politics, only will the time tell us.
Notes
1 https://www.venice.coe.int/WebForms/pages/?p=02_Rule_of_law&lang=EN
2 We refer to the Weberian notion of the ideal-type to disentangle the functional core of all judicial powers,
regardless of the context in which they operate, the structures they feature and the patterns of change they
experience.
3 See https://www.coe.int/en/web/cepej/dynamic-database-of-european-judicial-systems; https://ec.eu-

ropa.eu/info/policies/justice-and-fundamental-rights/effective-justice/eu-justice-scoreboard_en; https://world-
justiceproject.org/; https://www.v-dem.net/en/ https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2019/03/28/
world-economic-outlook-april-2019; http://www.oecd.org/gov/access-to-justice.htm
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• judicial power
• judiciary
• judicial independence
• courts
• rule of law
• Supreme Court
• law
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n51

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Legislative Power
Contributors: Werner J. Patzelt

Chapter Title: "Legislative Power"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Legislative Power
Werner J. Patzelt
Introduction
In a narrow sense, ‘legislative power’ may pass as the power of a legislature to legislate, or of a parliament
to exert control over a cabinet. Yet the formal power to legislate, or to oversee the executive, is only the tip
of an iceberg of institutional and material resources that can make an assembly powerful and give it ‘a sig-
nificant effect on policy’ (Arter, 2006b: 255). Therefore, we have to look at legislative or ‘parliamentary’ power
in a broad perspective. And although there is no unchallenged consensus on terms, we can safely use the
term ‘parliament’ for a legislature, which has the function of forming and sustaining a cabinet in addition to an
assembly's ‘classical’ functions to represent people, to control government and to legislate.
History of the Parliamentary Power

In the 20th century, a major topic of debates on assemblies has been the alleged ‘decline of parliaments’ (as
a classic SEE Bryce 1990 [1921]). In this view, legislatures have degraded from an – in fact only invented
– ‘golden age’ in the 19th century into something close to ‘rubber-stamp institutions’ that are controlled by
a cabinet or a party. According to that narrative, in the past, individually elected members of parliament en-
gaged in open-ended discussions, provided government with legislation, oversaw the budget and were not
affected by a ‘bounded mandate’ or any ‘imperative of party cohesion'. From the perspective of ‘liberal parlia-
mentary theory’ (see Schuett-Wetschky, 1984) it was an aberration from ‘parliamentarism proper', when party
machines came up due to periodic, competitive elections and started to influence parliament from outside.
Things allegedly became even worse when cabinet members came to be generally selected from the ranks
of parliamentarians, and when the need emerged for parliamentary majorities to support their ‘own’ cabinets
in a disciplined way. Such a victory of prime ministerial power, or of cabinet power, looked like the executive's
victory over an institution that had failed to stabilize itself as a counterweight.
Although there is more than a kernel of truth in this narrative, it is misleading. First, there has always been
much more variety among parliaments than can be covered by the story of steady decline. Second, this nar-
rative seems to reflect that period of rather stable small-n party systems in some Western countries when ma-
jority-building – usually by forming coalitions – was no major challenge, or when even minority cabinets had
expectable support. Under such circumstances, parliamentary party groups may bow down to energetic prime
ministers, or they may at least give the appearance of doing so. Yet today, with party systems splitting up and
a new cleavage emerging between well-established parties and populist movements, cabinet cohesion has
become vulnerable, because members of parliament try to avoid electoral defeat due to implausible policies
set out by party leaders or chief executives. Under such circumstances, assemblies have an incentive to re-
vitalize parliamentary power proper, unless they choose to fall back on authoritarian executive policy-making.
Yet the history of parliamentary power is much longer than this (see Patzelt, 2007). It is true that parliaments
in the modern understanding, namely institutions based on periodic and more or less free elections, have
not existed for longer than roughly 200 years. Yet much older, and unfortunately widely ignored by legislative
research, is the ‘institution type’ of an assembly with own authority in processes of deliberation and decision-
making, with the ‘power of the purse', and sometimes even with the ‘power of the sword'. Skipping the long
history of the ecclesiastic councils and of the chapters of religious orders, we have at least to look at the direct
predecessors of modern parliaments. These are the estate assemblies, typical of European history since the
14th century (Bosl, 1977). Originally they consisted of the politically, economically and militarily most impor-
tant nobles, present in person; later these were supplemented or replaced by representatives of the nobili-
ty, clergy and cities, and, in some rare cases, even farmers. Summoned by an overlord or monarch, these
assemblies convened not regularly but depending on need – usually for money or for troops. Their power
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increased in line with the growing intensity of a government's activities in terms of defense, maintenance of
public infrastructure and promotion of economic activities. Policies had to be enacted, and rules had to be
implemented, by the factual lords over territories and their inhabitants, since a civil service or public admin-
istration did not yet exist. Therefore, the consent and the resources of these lords were required whenever
issues such as security and justice, or commerce and infrastructure, needed common regulations.
As a result, assembly power waxed or waned depending on whether a prince or king needed resources from
the nobles or the wealthy in his territory. As a precondition for granting resources such as money and soldiers,
the key figures of estate assemblies could hold the overlord responsible for their interests and claims. Usually
he had to confirm, or even to extend, privileges or exemptions. Sometimes he had to agree on new rules, for-
mally issued by him but demanded by his vassals; on some occasions he even found himself confronted with
a ruling by the assembly that he was supposed to execute. The chances of imposing an assembly's will over
even a reluctant overlord were particularly good when he was no longer able to pay the debts he had accumu-
lated through warfare, buildings, bribery or a luxurious lifestyle, where only the estates might have remained
as trustworthy recipients of credit, or as payers stepping in for the monarch's liabilities. Then an assembly's
power could surpass the effective power of the nominal suzerain. The first stage of the French Revolution,
between the aristocratic revolt in 1787 and the self-declaration of the third estate as a ‘national assembly’ in
1789, is the most outstanding example of such a shift in power. Out of such processes emerged what now are
the ‘parliamentary functions’ of budget control and legislation. Representation itself, as an assembly's core
function, had already been put into effect by convening the holders of real power over territories and people,
or by summoning their representatives.
One initial and consequential modification of this institutional setting was a stepwise change in the mode of re-
cruitment of assembly members. Today, most representatives are elected, or re-elected, by those whom they
are meant to represent. What began in the 19th century with a class suffrage based on income and limited to
males, has ended in free and fair elections, open for participation for all citizens above a certain age, at least
in some dozens of democracies. This change provided a personal power base even to those representatives
who were lacking personal wealth – namely, support by voters or networks in civil society. And when parties
started to play a decisive role in elections during the 19th century, thereby serving as new linkage institutions
between society and government, they could hardly avoid becoming the central points of reference and polit-
ical orientation for the citizens of most democracies. As a result, party leaders on at least regional level used
to run for parliament, and party leaders on national level made it into cabinet after victorious elections. As a
result, the personal power and political influence of a member of parliament usually stems very much from
his or her position in a party, controlling it at least in the voting district, and – as a top politician – perhaps
throughout the country. Understanding parliamentary power, therefore, requires an understanding of the cre-
ation and social organization of party power.
The second major modification of an assembly's power position was whether it remained restricted to rep-
resentation, deciding on a budget and drafting or approving legislation. Under such restraints, assemblies
institutionalized themselves (as in Imperial Germany) as the ‘legislature’ of a constitutional monarchy, or (as
in the United States) as the ‘legislative branch’ in a presidential system of government. Alternatively, assem-
blies could gain direct influence over staffing the executive and selecting or overthrowing the prime minister
(as in the UK). In this way, a parliamentary system of government emerged. There, parliament as an institu-
tion – yet not necessarily any individual member of parliament, or each parliamentary party group – reaches
the peak of its possible power (cf. Lijphart, 1992). But due to the unavoidable oligarchical structure of par-
ties, their leaders – including the leaders of their parliamentary party groups – can become, and often are for
years, the main holders of a parliament's concrete political power (see, for instance, Keman and Müller-Rom-
mel, 2012). In a presidential system, their power can be balanced, or even surpassed, by presidential power.
Yet in a parliamentary system, the power of parliamentary party group leaders can actually be fused with the
institutional power of the executive branch of government, either by party leaders assuming the position of
prime minister or cabinet member, or by forging a coalition with subsequent party discipline. In this case, party
leaders – in their capacity as chief executive – may control the parliamentary agenda on a top-down basis
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(as in the UK), or can benefit from a euphemistically so-called ‘rationalized parliamentarism’ (which is in fact
a ‘curtailed’ parliamentarism, as in the French 5th Republic). Under such circumstances, a parliament mainly
serves as the institutional framework – or as the transmission belt – of party leaders’ policies, be the leaders
in their positions because of election by other party members, due to personal charisma or since they have
reached top positions in the hegemonic party of a dictatorial regime. The latter was true for the parliaments of
Europe's former socialist states.
The more – under the conditions of a coalition government in a parliamentary system – parliamentary power
is centralized around top parliamentarians and top executives, the more important is, at least normatively, the
role of a well-organized parliamentary opposition. Based on public support, such an opposition can become
the real counterpart for the usually well-integrated ‘action unit’ of coalition and cabinet. Thus, a power-limiting
‘new dualism’ is created and replaces that ‘old dualism’ between the legislative and the executive branches of
government which is so typical of presidential systems. Parliamentary minority power, then, stretches as far
as the opposition can effectively oversee governmental activities, can present plausible alternatives of poli-
cies suggested by the cabinet and of candidates presented by the governing coalition and can bring up own
issues for public debate on which the government would prefer to be silent or inactive. The rise of both the
idea and the practice of such parts of a parliament, and of parties outside parliament, that are loyal to the con-
stitutional order but effectively oppose those who are actually running a country is one of the best institutional
inventions of humankind and has been a decisive step in the history of parliamentary power.
On balance, there are ups and downs in that history. There has been neither a constant rise nor a constant
decline of parliamentary power. What really can be detected, are path-dependent developments into different
systems of government, bringing about assemblies in the forms of ‘legislatures’ or ‘parliaments’ with different
roles. In addition, we recognize periodic gains and losses in legislative or parliamentary power. These seem
to depend on time-specific circumstances, on politicians’ differing leadership skills and on the fact that insti-
tution-shaping leaders may have been made responsive to changing groups of politically relevant actors. As
soon as we analyze carefully such power relations and their evolution, we will easily recognize that the basic
institutional demarcation line is not that between ‘old-fashioned estate assemblies’ and ‘modern parliaments'.
Instead, the first and central difference is whether an assembly's practically relevant power base is or is not
created by a truly democratic political process. This means the use of periodic elections and the existence of
active parties, both of them linking an assembly to the people and making it ‘representative’ in a very strong
sense of that concept (see Pitkin, 1967 and Eulau and Karps, 1978). The second difference, then, originates
in whether an assembly is a mere ‘legislature’ without cabinet overthrowing capacity, or whether it is a full-
fledged ‘parliament’ with not only the authority but even the duty to create and to support a cabinet.
Basic Theories and Concepts for the Analysis of Parliamentary Power

A first set of analytical concepts comes from constitutional theory. One among them is ‘separation of powers'.
As to parliamentary power, such separation can be ‘horizontal', establishing a system of checks and balances
between the legislative and the executive branches of government. Yet ‘separation of powers’ can also be
‘temporal', meaning that elections need to be held after a formally or informally fixed period. If a member of
parliament can be re-elected and really desires re-election, he or she cannot act as he or she pleases during
the legislative term, but instead must cultivate trust on the part of the future voters. In this way, the ‘re-elec-
tion mechanism’ links democracy with representation. If, however, term limits are introduced, the re-election
mechanism loses its effectiveness for each parliamentarian's last term and loosens the ties between the elec-
torate and those elected. In addition, the personal power structures around the outgoing individual member
of parliament dissolve. As a result, fixed term limits seem to curtail parliamentary power.
Two other important concepts from constitutional theory depict the type, the scope and the limits of the man-
date of an assembly member. Is there, as stipulated by liberal theory, a legally – or at least a practically –
‘free mandate', allowing members of parliament to form teams among themselves – that is, ‘parliamentary
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party groups’ – along lines of political convictions? If so, the role of a possibly powerful ‘trustee’ is available to
members of parliament, who – benefiting from such a role – can accumulate power for one's party group and
may even be able to engage optimistically in conflicts with party leaders. Yet having only ‘trustees’ in a parlia-
ment, without any concern for party cohesion, hamper parliamentary team play, would thin out the chains of
personal accountability between members of parliament and their voters and could thereby erode the demo-
cratic base of the assembly. This, in consequence, could not avoid decreasing parliamentary power, at least
under cultural circumstances where political power is expected to stem from policy-shaping elections.
In contrast, the mandate of a parliamentarian may also be a legally – or practically – ‘binding’ one, making
the assembly member a ‘delegate’ of a constituency which, in an extreme case, may even be endowed with
imperative power (on trustees and delegates see Wahlke et al., 1962). The motivation for such a desire to
impose binding mandates on members of parliament from ‘bottom up’ is usually some version of democratic
theory, which calls for serious attempts to link members of parliament closely to those represented. A variant
is the binding ‘top-down’ mandate, which often follows from a party's claim to represent all legitimate con-
cerns of a society. This is how communist parties justified their taking control over all members of parliament.
In such a command system of parliamentary behavior, as practiced in most socialist states, an assembly be-
comes simply a ‘rubber-stamp institution'. Yet as soon as such an overarching role of a ‘leading party’ starts
to fade away, as was the case in most of Europe's socialist states in 1989, the power potential inherent in
the very form of an assembly is reinvigorated, sometimes even at an amazing pace (see Schirmer, 2005 as a
case study).
A second set of concepts for the analysis of parliamentary power stems from party system analysis and coali-
tion theory. In relation to parties, relevant concepts are ‘party system fragmentation’ (with its negative impact
on the possibilities of forming a stable majority in parliament), ‘party system polarization’ (having a damaging
impact on parliamentary culture and on the possibilities for compromising) and ‘electoral turnout’ (influenc-
ing debates on the legitimacy of coalitions, of cabinets and of non-majoritarian policy-making). In relation to
coalitions and cabinets, useful concepts include ‘minimal winning coalition', ‘oversized coalition’ and ‘minority
government’ (Strøm, 1990), all of which cover factors of intra-parliamentary stability and, hence, of the power
position of parliament as an institution. The notion of ‘consociational democracy’ needs to be added, since it
depicts practical rules and mutual understandings that allow – either in a whole society or in its parliament
– the building and maintenance of formal and informal alliances between social and political groups that are
deeply divided along ethnic, religious or linguistic lines (see Lijphart, 1984). Depending on the concrete power
distribution between an assembly – often split between a cabinet-supporting coalition and the parliamentary
opposition – and the executive branch of government, further notions such as the ‘inter-party mode’ of cabinet
control, as opposed to the ‘intra-party mode', are additional core concepts of legislative studies (for details
see King, 1976). In addition, the concepts with which electoral systems are classified (such as ‘proportional
representation’ or ‘winner takes it all') refer to immediate causal factors of concrete parliamentary power dis-
tributions and on possibilities to shape them at the discretion of power-holders.
A third set of relevant concepts for the analysis of legislative power is provided by theories of power at large
(see Patzelt et al., 2005; Patzelt, 2005a). Here, at least three basic forms of power need to be distinguished:
(a) the power to act momentously; (b) veto power (on veto players see Tsebelis, 1995, 2011); and (c) dis-
course-shaping power. Parliament's power to act momentously may be based on constitutional provisions,
its veto power on inter-institutional or intra-institutional majority requirement and its discourse-shaping pow-
er on parliament's effectiveness to get media coverage for its top politicians and their issues. In addition, a
distinction is needed between ‘gross’ power and ‘net’ power, with the latter concept meaning what is left from
the power potential of actor A as soon as the countervailing power of the actors B through F is taken into
account. The significant gross power of a parliament to overthrow a cabinet may be, for instance, significantly
diminished by a prime minister's right to dissolve the parliament in turn, thus stirring revolting parliamentar-
ians’ fear of losing their seats at the upcoming elections. We also need to look at the social organization of
power structures (see e.g. Krehbiel, 1991; Strøm, 1995). There may be ‘transitive’ power relations between
political players who can calculate their moves by reflecting their particular, yet intertwined, interests and re-
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sources, and thus use power ‘to do something'. This is typical of parliamentary decision-making based on the
rule of quid pro quo. Yet there are ‘intransitive’ power relations as well. These use to consist in – more or less
well-defended – rules for ‘correct thought, speech, and action', and they will be felt as collective expectancies
and judgments. Discrediting them may end with exclusion from the ranks of ‘honest politicians’ or of ‘good citi-
zens', and is better avoided even before entering into the phase of strategic political behavior inside or outside
parliament. Here we face ‘power over something', in particular over the communicative resources of behavior
and interaction. One more useful concept for power analysis is the ‘ex ante effect’ of power, which focuses on
those behavior-changing anticipations that usually go along with the observation or the ascription of an op-
ponent's power resources. This ‘ex ante effect’ works basically as an ‘anticipation loop', coming into effect by
taking into account that such resources might be mobilized against oneself as soon as one's opponent might
want to use them for ‘punishment’ or ‘gratification'. Such anticipation loops are quite usual in politics and in
no way restricted to the parliamentary arena. We notice them as evasive reactions to perceived veto power
(cf. Huber, 1992), and we recognize their deeply game-changing effects as soon as we look at one of the
most decisive turning points in legislative–executive relationships. This was the introduction of an obligatory
counter-signature of laws, still promulgated by a head of state, by a responsible parliamentary leader. Setting
up this rule, the developmental path toward parliamentary systems of government had been entered.
A fourth set of concepts for analyzing parliamentary power becomes available when we look systematically
at the sources of parliamentary power. Manifold as they are, they can be ordered conveniently by using Aris-
totle's typology of ‘four causes’ (Bastit, 2002). These include the causa materialis (‘material cause': out of
what is something made, and what are the consequences thereof?); the causa efficiens (‘efficient cause':
what makes something tick?); the causa finalis (‘purpose cause': what are the consequences of a goal to be
reached?); and the causa formalis (‘formal cause': what are the particular consequences of the structure or
form of a system?).
Four Sources of Parliamentary Power
‘Material Causes’ of Parliamentary Power

Through the lens of the causa materialis we recognize an assembly as the confluence of enormous social and
cultural capital. This basic understanding of parliamentary power can be elaborated in four directions. First,
an assembly possesses the more power the more powerful the persons are who are cooperating there. This
is why estate assemblies became such important political institutions in so many different places. Of course,
the concrete sources of personal power may vary widely. Today, an influential position in one's party or public
prestige serve as functional equivalents to, for instance, representing a wealthy territory ruled by oneself, as
was so important in estate assemblies. It is true that the process of democratic institutionalization has made
many parliaments rather independent of the individual personal resources of most of their members. Yet only
under the – quite exceptional – circumstances of undisputed parliamentary authority may we expect, as a
‘normality', an enormous asymmetry between the power of an assembly ‘as such’ and the average personal
power of each individual member. Although parliamentary power may be derived from constitutional rules and
a general respect for the assembly, the highly personal resources of members of parliament will make the
difference between the assembly's success and defeat when it comes to a serious conflict with the holder(s)
of executive power over enforcing rules or defending respect for the assembly's legitimate political role.
Second, the potential for creating and shaping politically relevant communication that is inherent in the insti-
tution type of an assembly can make a parliament powerful. After all, this institution bears the very charac-
teristic of talking (in French or Italian parler or parlare) already in its name. Many parliaments first became
places of fearless discussion about politics, and then a principal source of political information and of political
opinions that could be published freely. ‘Free speech in the chamber’ made parliaments influential vis-à-vis

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rulers, and the subsequent ‘free public discourse on parliamentary debates’ allowed assemblies to mobilize
public opinion. As a result, feedback loops emerged between intra-parliamentary and extra-parliamentary po-
litical discourse. This gave parliaments, still under pre-TV circumstances, the role of political ‘communication
hubs’ and provided them with additional, widely de-personalized and hence less attackable power. With ever
more mass media spreading what previously had been ‘secret topics’ of chamber debates, governments’ op-
portunities to withhold facts and political moves from the public were reduced. ‘Explaining policy’ became an
imperative for exerting political leadership, whereas concealing executive actions or obstructing their public
discussion started to pass as presumably or overtly illegitimate. As a result, the unchallenged maneuvering
space of the executive was restricted by the combined effects of parliamentary communication and its reso-
nance in the media. Yet with ‘the public’ separating – due to the multiplication of TV channels and the rise of
echo chambers and filtering bubbles on the internet – into many, barely interlinked ‘publics', the communica-
tion role of parliament as a whole, although not of some individual members of parliament, has been reduced.
In the meantime, it was possible to establish the political responsibility of the executive before parliament on a
routine basis, and even in the most concrete sense of the word ‘responsibility'. Questions to the government
by individual parliamentarians or by parliamentary groups, with subsequent parliamentary and public discus-
sions on the answers provided by cabinet members, brought almost the full range of executive actions under
parliamentary control (see Martin, 2011). Thereby, ‘political responsibility’ was established as a very effective
institutional mechanism, easily triggered by question time in the assembly (on institutional mechanisms see
Patzelt, 2003: 66–82). First, assemblies gained the right to do ‘interpellations', that is, to pause the process
of legislative deliberations in order to discuss ongoing policies. Then, the rule was established that ministers,
and even heads of government, had to answer even malicious questions in the assembly, thus making the
replies reportable to the public. Both supporters and opponents of the cabinet, and both journalists and the
broader public, were afterward free to evaluate these answers as they pleased, and to take action based on
their evaluations. Therefore, rationally acting leaders of the executive anticipated that they could not avoid
highly unwelcome reactions if they gave answers that could be considered insufficient or even implausible. As
a result, cabinet members better avoided political moves that looked unjustifiable or ‘hard to sell'. In this way,
the capacity to hold the executive accountable by organizing intra- and extra-parliamentary communication
became a very important source of additional parliamentary power.
Third, the infrastructure of a parliament is an obvious ‘material cause’ of its power. An assembly's capacity to
act influentially is greatly affected by whether it has qualified staff, disposes of enough office space and good
technical equipment and is in control of a budget of its own, or whether its ability to work depends on the
goodwill of the executive. After all, the government, with all its ministries and public agencies, has the best
access to information and can use many tools for influencing public opinion. In particular, the executive is able
to make – or hold – a parliament powerless for as long as it has the opportunity to decide on the assembly's
budget and infrastructure. Of course, parliamentary leaders such as committee and caucus chairs can do the
same with rank-and-file members if they are in a position to monopolize resources around themselves. There-
fore, strengthening the infrastructure of individual parliamentarians, and not only of parliamentary leaders, is
one further and important possibility to make parliament powerful as an institution, not only its elite.
Fourth, the organization of time is a very important material resource for parliamentary power (see the case
studies in Patzelt and Dreischer, 2009). It is obvious that rarely summoned estate assemblies could accumu-
late and exert much less power than those of today's parliaments that meet on an almost continuous basis,
with only a few off-weeks. After all, much power vis-à-vis the executive is created by interaction and net-
working activities going on between parliamentarians, interest groups and media. Another ‘temporal’ source
of parliamentary power is an assembly's success in synchronizing its own working cycles (gathering infor-
mation, deliberation, compromising, decision-making) with the work-flow within the government. Otherwise,
parliaments may find themselves reduced to the role of mere spectators of policy-making taking place in ex-
ecutive or international institutions that set their own rhythm and try to protect their procedures from early
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parliamentary interference. This is a particular challenge for national parliaments within a supra-national set-
ting like the EU.
‘Efficient Causes’ of Parliamentary Power

In self-recruited parliaments and among self-selecting parliamentarians, as are typical of democracies, people
will usually arrive who share, or develop, a certain degree of – even progressive – political ambition. Although
a feeling of duty may be another incentive for working as a member of parliament, ambition seems to be an
even more important causa efficiens. After all, considerable investments in time, energy and money are re-
quired to win a parliamentary seat. Successfully running for parliament is, therefore, highly selective for char-
acter traits. Only those with constant over-average capacity to work and to overcome manifold resistance,
including the willingness to complete even fatiguing work, will usually make it into parliament and stay there
for more than a single term. Many of them will then strive for more resources and seek influential offices, in-
cluding – in a parliamentary system of government – the position of a cabinet member. Consisting mainly of
people with such characteristics, a well-equipped parliament can hardly fail to acquire power up to its consti-
tutional limits, and to defend a power position once reached. Thus even parliamentary recruitment patterns
have significant influence on parliamentary power, at least with a certain time lag.
‘Purpose Causes’ of Parliamentary Power

Much power stems from well-coordinated activities of actors going after common goals. In the case of insti-
tutions, such coordination is usually provided by a ‘guiding idea', or by a set of guiding ideas, that expresses
the ‘mission’ and the self-understanding of that institution. For parliaments, this set of guiding ideas includes
the rendering of – single or combined – services (i.e. ‘functions') for the surrounding political system. Such
parliamentary functions typically include representing people, overseeing the government, setting out legisla-
tion or even staffing the executive. Having all or some of these functions in mind, this causa finalis motivates
actors to willfully and reliably serve their institution, and thereby helps to generate institutional power.
This growth of power along pre-defined purposes can be easily observed in the case of the European Par-
liament. In 1952, it came into being as the nameless ‘assembly’ of the European Coal and Steel Community
(ECSC), consisting of delegates from each parliament of the six initial member states. No duty was given to
this assembly other than discussing matters of the Community. Yet from the very beginning, the presidents of
that assembly – still without significant functions, let alone power – defined their situation as presiding over
a ‘real parliament in being’ (see Patzelt, 2004). Together with most of the members, they decided to behave
like the actors of a full-fledged parliament. Therefore, from the outset, they struggled for greater institutional
authority. In 1970, they named their institution – presumptuously – ‘The European Parliament'. Doing so, they
took a purely symbolic measure to legitimate further attempts at becoming a ‘real parliament’ one day. After-
ward, they worked for direct elections to this parliament, which were introduced in 1979. Next, the members of
the European Parliament successfully extended their powers in a series of conflicts with the European Com-
mission on budget issues. Today, the European Parliament has unchallenged legislation on European law,
shared only with the Council of the European Union, acting as something like a ‘federal first chamber'. The
European Parliament can even overthrow the European Commission, which – at present – is something close
to a cabinet drafting legislation and planning the budget. In addition, the European Parliament has veto power
as to the nomination of European Commissioners, elects the president of the commission, and now expects
the leaders of the EU member states to suggest no one other than the leader of the biggest party group, or of
a party coalition, in the European Parliament as a candidate for president of the European Commission. This
tremendous rise in parliamentary power was effectuated within a period of no more than roughly 60 years,

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and there are attempts to push it still further (see Garben, 2015; Garzón Clariana, 2015; Haroche, 2018).
It is easy to detect that ‘efficient secret’ of this impressive rise to power. At the beginning, the members of
parliament acted along the – still counterfactual – guiding idea of ‘being a real parliament', relying on the fact
that having parliaments on all levels of government passes as desirable throughout the Western world. Then
they made this idea attractive also for the national parliaments and governments of the European Community
member states. This could be achieved with the argument that extending the jurisdiction of Europe's supra-
national institutions would call for effective democratic control, which could be provided only by an additional
‘real parliament'. Along this claim the whole spectrum of parliamentary functions became normatively avail-
able for the formerly nameless assembly: legislation, budget control, even influencing the composition of the
Commission one day, and exactly this vision lent plausibility to the claim that the assembly should become a
‘truly representative’ assembly through direct elections as soon as possible. All these demands were gradual-
ly accepted by the member states of the emerging European Union, although it was absolutely clear that this
new parliament's rise to power would set ever closer limits on national policy-making. This, however, could
pass as legitimate and even desirable only as long as there was widely shared consensus on the ‘finality’ of
the whole enterprise, namely creating an ever ‘more perfect union'. With the waning of this ‘purpose cause',
first the ‘felt legitimacy’ of the Parliament would decrease, and afterward its real authority and power.
These observations can be generalized. Parliamentary power widely stems from emotional identification with
the institution type of a parliament in general, and with the mission of a specific parliament in particular. In
oligarchies, in most of which estate assemblies once blossomed, it may have sufficed to give credible expres-
sion to the shared interests of the most important actors in the assembly. In democracies, however, much
more is needed: plausibility of a parliament's claim to really represent the people; undoubted integrity of the
electoral process; a certain degree of fairness in intra-parliamentary behavior. Otherwise a democratic parlia-
ment falls short of its alleged purpose, can no longer count on institutional loyalty of its members and allows
an important source of power to dry out.
‘Formal Causes’ of Parliamentary Power

Referring to parliaments, the concept of causa formalis covers the written and unwritten rules of parliamentary
behavior, all the structures resulting therefrom, and the established procedures and intra- or inter-institutional
mechanisms of assemblies. Being the most easily visible and understood causes of parliamentary power,
most political and academic debates tend to focus on these. Research has shown that all of these ‘formal
causes’ have resulted from, and are time and again changed by, the results of political conflicts, by the pursuit
of constant interests on the part of steadily important actors, and by attempts at improvements of the status
quo in processes of trial and error.
First, whether an assembly usually meets only in plenary and acts as no more than a ‘debating parliament’
has a deep impact on parliamentary power (Steffani, 1979). This usually results in low parliamentary power
proper, in particular if the government succeeds in setting the parliamentary agenda. On the other side, a par-
liament may use quite a differentiated, hierarchic structure of specialized committees and sub-committees, is
thus able to practice detailed division of labor and subsequently can act as a real ‘working parliament'. In this
case, significant parliamentary power will be generated by accumulation of knowledge and experience in par-
liament itself, that is, by breaking down the former information monopoly of the executive, and can be used
for systematic oversight of government activities. Wherever parliamentary party groups become stable and
highly differentiated organizations, such parliamentary power is augmented by using the same organizational
pattern within the parliamentary party groups. Unfortunately, this structural source of parliamentary power is
widely unknown to citizens. Therefore they have distorted perceptions of the power distribution between par-
liament and government in liberal democracies, often underestimate parliamentary influence on policy-mak-
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ing, and call for reforms like term limits or banning parliamentary party discipline that would, different from
what is hoped for, not increase parliamentary power, but make it fade away.
Second, the power of a parliament depends on its ability to put energetic, power-hungry members of par-
liament in leadership positions such as chair of a parliamentary party group, committee or subcommittee. In
doing this, top-down nomination – so typical of patronage systems – is apparently inferior to bottom-up elec-
tions. Parliamentary office-seekers may even have to run for election twice during a legislative term that lasts
four years or longer, namely at the beginning and roughly halfway through the term. If so, they are under
continuous pressure to perform well in their positions, at least according to the evaluation of their colleagues.
Repeatedly achieving re-election provides them with a truly personal power base, and this will additionally
strengthen – for merely procedural reasons – the power position of the parliament as a whole.
Third, the availability and reliability of some historically detected intra- and inter-institutional mechanisms con-
fers power on a parliament. An institutional mechanism is a chain of strategic actions, triggered by an actor's
interests, patterned by formal and informal rules and running between institutional positions endowed with
specific power resources (see Patzelt, 2003: 66–82). Examples are the re-election mechanism (‘Whom do I
have to treat how well if I want his support in a fair competition for re-election?'), or the mechanism of counter-
signature (‘Whose support do I need to get a bill signed into law; on whom does this actor depend?; who –
therefore – actually sets the limits to my own power?'). Apart from being sources of power, institutional mech-
anisms are important because each parliamentary function is fulfilled by institutional mechanisms, working
seriatim or conjointly. Their operations give ‘practical answers’ to political questions like the following: How
can a parliament influence the composition of a cabinet? How can a parliament exert concrete control over
governmental activities with respect to both their general line and their specific details? What is the effective
role of an assembly in the legislative process? To what extent can a parliament influence the executive in
international negotiations? What possibilities of far-reaching communication has a parliament, in particular in
comparison – or competition – with the executive's channels of public communication?
For all of these questions, manifold practical answers have been found in a large variety of political systems,
depending on their individual experiences with institutional history, shaped by results of political conflicts and
rooted in cultural patterns. Some of the established institutional mechanisms are similar across countries
through adaptation to similar functional requirements on the part of political systems and their surrounding
societies; others are similar by common origin or by institutional dissemination; several are similar for both
reasons (see Patzelt, 2007, 2017). In addition, the same institutional mechanisms may differ in the degree
of their effectiveness or relevance across countries. All of them also have – depending on their institutional
environment – particular side-effects or even collateral damage. Comparative legislative research discloses
both their shaping factors and their advantages or disadvantages. Therefore, practical conclusions for parlia-
mentary reform can be drawn from such research.
Fourth, much parliamentary power stems from how an assembly is linked to society. In democracies, electoral
systems have a decisive effect on that. On average, the personal power of members of parliament seems to
be greater under the following conditions: they have to run, after short legislative terms, in one-person voting
districts, must cope with a first-past-the-post electoral system, and can enjoy – due to the lack of term limits
– an extended time horizon for creating and maintaining structures of personal influence. The main reason
for this combined effect seems to be that, under such circumstances, new candidates and incumbents have
a strong incentive to build up close contacts with the general citizenry and to maintain personal networks with
elite groups in their constituencies. Therefore, parliaments with many incumbents are usually more powerful
than assemblies with many novices.
Global Differentiation and Attempts at Typology

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Parliaments differ widely according to the sources of power they use and the different structures and institu-
tional mechanisms through which they generate or channel power. As to parliamentary power, their varieties
are neatly grasped in the well-known typologies of Blondel (1973), Polsby (1975) and Mezey (1979). Blondel
(1973) ranked parliaments according to the range and the degree to which they could fulfill (some of) a par-
liament's functions. ‘True legislatures’ are those that master legislation, oversee the government and practice
two-way communication with citizens. Building and supporting a cabinet, as is typical of parliamentary sys-
tems, is unfortunately omitted in this typology. Next come ‘inhibited legislatures', who may engage in political
debates, but have no chance of influencing the executive in issues deemed essential by it. Even worse is the
power position of those ‘truncated legislatures’ that, being embedded in dictatorships, are hindered even from
openly discussing important political issues. Ranked lowest are ‘nascent or inchoate legislatures’ that still are
‘in being', like the once nameless assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community in the 1950s.
Polsby (1975) went beyond that one-dimensional typology. First, he distinguished entire political systems de-
pending on their degree of political division of labor. On the one side, there may be so little structural differ-
entiation in a polity that no need for an integrating assembly has emerged as yet; or it may still suffice for
a country to be run by an autocratic leadership group without any support from a representative assembly.
On the other side, we can find much more structurally complex systems of government that make use of an
assembly. Among them, Polsby distinguished ‘closed’ and ‘open’ political systems. In closed political systems
we find ‘rubber stamp legislatures’ without a power base of their own, merely bringing into legal form such
more or less informal decisions as have been previously taken in the ranks of the ruling elite or oligarchy.
In open political systems, however, there are two types of legislature that are situated quite differently in the
policy process. On the one side, we find parliaments in the form of an ‘arena'. They are basically formalized
settings where the significant forces of a political system can interact. On the other side, we find assemblies
in the form of a ‘transformative’ legislature. Such parliaments have accumulated so much institutional power
that they can define their own agenda quite independently from actual external influences, and they are able
to transform the results of internal debates into laws or public policy at their own discretion. Apparently, this
distinction is quite close to that of Steffani (1979), where (less powerful) ‘debating parliaments’ are juxtaposed
with (more powerful) ‘working parliaments’ who have built up an organizational power base of their own.
Mezey (1979) has presented an even more differentiated, power-centered typology. In a two-way table, he
uses the ‘policy-making power’ of parliaments as the vertical axis, distinguishing between ‘strong', ‘modest',
and ‘little or none’ assembly power. He bases the ranking on constitutional regulations, mainly focusing on
the parliament's role in the legislative process, yet widely omitting any sources of power other than legal. In
the horizontal dimension, Mezey looks at ‘popular support’ for the assembly, referring basically to the political
culture of a society in which a parliament is playing its role. On the one side, there are societies where as-
semblies enjoy low esteem for whatever reason and, hence, get only little public support. If such a parliament
is given strong institutional power, it will be ‘vulnerable’ in the case of conflicts with other political actors such
as the executive. If a less supported legislature has only ‘modest’ power anyhow, it is nothing more than ‘mar-
ginal'. On the other side, there are countries with ‘more supported legislatures', where the support can stem
either from constitutional regulations and convictions, or from democratic procedures. Parliaments that are
‘supported’ in this sense may indeed have and exert strong power; then they are ‘active’ legislatures, setting
their own agenda. Yet parliaments may also have only modest power; then they are called ‘reactive’ legisla-
tures, since they must react to an agenda set by others, usually the executive. If, however, a parliament has
little or no real power, although it may be symbolically supported by constitutional regulations or by – possibly
even believed – political propaganda, then it is a ‘minimal’ legislature, just like all parliaments of the former
socialist states.
Mezey's typology is more complex than Polsby's, and it encompasses the assemblies of authoritarian regimes
as well. Thus, it allows for far-reaching, even historic comparisons. Unfortunately, this typology is not very pre-
cise in the measurement of ‘support for parliament', and it is not comprehensive when it comes to the forms
and sources of parliamentary policy-making power (on that see Arter, 2006a, 2006b). Arter (2006a: 426) tried
to move beyond that state of the art by offering an ‘anatomy of legislative influence’ driven by 15 questions
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that implicitly form a framework for comparative analysis. They run from ‘Do members of the legislature/com-
mittees of the legislature have the (unrestricted) right of legislative initiative?’ via ‘Do legislative and executive
leaders consult on strategic policy matters?’ and ‘Does the legislature convene regularly to engage in the
deliberation of legislation?’ to ‘Does the legislature deliberate along party lines?’ and ‘Does the legislature
oversee the executive along party lines?’ These questions operationalize what were discussed as some of
the sources of parliamentary power earlier in this chapter.
A very complex taxonomy – not typology – for parliamentary power analysis has been presented more re-
cently by Sebaldt (2009). Based on Patzelt (2005a) and on most of the concepts of power analysis introduced
already in this chapter, Sebaldt (2009: 26) provides no less than 96 cells in an analytically straightforward ma-
trix into which all the power phenomena of past and present assemblies can be entered. Afterward, patterns
of (joint) frequency distributions – if based on valid measurements, and if reliably detectable – can open a path
toward typology-building. In a first step, Sebaldt distinguishes power with respect to its purpose (thus defining
the rows of the matrix) and power with respect to its degree of effectiveness (thus defining the columns of
the matrix). As to the rows, there is a threefold purpose to using power: the power to act momentously, the
veto power and the discourse-shaping power. The mode in which power works for each of these purposes is
twofold: power can be used in a transitive way as ‘power to do something', or in an intransitive way as ‘power
over resources', the latter ones usually being resources of communicative (inter-) action. As a result, there
are three times two rows in this matrix, that is six. In the columns, Sebaldt distinguishes first ‘gross power’
and ‘net power', and then – as the point in time when power starts to work – ‘anticipated power’ and ‘actually
used power'. As a result, there are twice two columns. These four columns, together with six rows, create a
matrix consisting of 24 ‘basic cells'. This taxonomy, then, allows analyzing the power of every kind of actor.
In order to operationalize this general power matrix for the study of parliamentary power in particular, Sebaldt
finally suggests – just like Blondel (1973) – to focus on an assembly's right, and on its real capacity, to fulfill
the range of, basically, four parliamentary functions: representation/communication, overseeing the execu-
tive, legislation and electing/supporting/overthrowing a cabinet. Thus integrating constitutional provisions, the
rules of procedure and concrete political practice, finally these four times 24 cells of the matrix, in sum 96,
can now be filled with data on all assemblies chosen for a comparative analysis. Such a look at parliamentary
performance and its prerequisites connects – possibly also along the items of the interrogatory framework in
Arter (2006a) – parliamentary power analysis proper with both collecting new data and the many empirical
(case) studies of parliaments present and past. In addition, this matrix allows for widespread comparisons,
and it may stimulate theory-driven historical studies of how – and under what circumstances – parliamentary
power is generated, maintained, used, modified, curtailed or even annihilated. The findings of such research
could, in a next step, be integrated with the results of an evolutionary morphology of parliaments, comparing
the guiding ideas and power resources of assemblies in corporations, federations, estate-based systems, lib-
eral regimes and democracies (Patzelt, 2007; Patzelt, 2017).
Empirical Data Bases

Data on parliamentary power are available in publications by institutions such as the Inter-Parliamentary
Union or the International Centre for Parliamentary Documentation. More data can be found in encyclopedias,
such as Kurian (1998), or in monographs on parliaments and their legal foundations, structures, rules and be-
havioral patterns (such as Döring, 1995; Döring and Hallerberg, 2004; Strøm, 1990). Further data is available
in comparative volumes on parliaments in general (such as Arter, 2009; Loewenberg, et al. 2002; Norton,
1990, 2013; Olsen, 2008) or on single parliamentary functions (such as Rasch and Tsebelis, 2011). Additional
relevant information is contained in texts on such features of parliament that contribute to its power (such as
Bräuninger et al., 2017) and in comparative publications on parliamentary power (such as Patzelt, 2005; Fish,
2006; vol. 12/2006 of the Journal of Legislative Studies; Sebaldt, 2009). In addition, most parliaments now
have electronically accessible data bases on their own history, competences and performance.

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In one sense, parliamentary power is the best researched feature of parliaments. Ongoing research about
legislative–executive relations (see, for instance, the classics by King (1976) and Döring (1995)), about the
rise and fall of political parties at elections, about the effects of electoral systems on the composition and
behavioral patterns of parliaments and about the role of political communication and media is – by the very
nature of these topics – research of parliamentary power as well. The same is true for analyses of legisla-
tive efficiency and legislative autonomy, or of legislative capacity and legislative performance, with the latter
having a temporal, a quantitative and a qualitative dimension (see Arter, 2006b). Looking only at such work,
scientific progress may appear as providing ever more knowledge about ever more parliaments and about
their ongoing history. Yet such a definition of scientific progress would include no more than mere positivism.
Major advances, however, are achieved by the development of new theories that cover ever more cases and
features of parliaments, or that have more explanatory power. And even greater advance is made by setting
up such typologies that allow for ‘pattern recognition’ in the diverse world of assemblies of past and present
times, looking at their roles within surrounding political systems and at their institutional power potentials and
the manifold sources thereof.
For a long while, Mezey's typology was considered the last word in comparative parliamentary power analy-
sis. More recently, Sebaldt has shown how to move beyond Mezey if parliamentary power is the main topic
of analysis. In addition, the development of evolutionary institutionalism (Patzelt, 2012a) and its application to
comparative parliamentary history (see the case studies in Patzelt, 2012) has opened new perspectives on
the old topic of how, and why, parliaments have developed from modest origins into an institution type without
which nearly no contemporary political system is run.
Many debates in legislative research, however, are still reluctant to address such ‘big questions’ and prefer
focusing on smaller issues. Often arguing within the conceptual framework of new institutionalism (cf. North,
1990), they deal with modeling principal–agent relationships and their inherent power structures (see the clas-
sic by Kiewiet and McCubbins, 1991), or they further explore the potential of rational-choice models (including
spatial models) to gain a better understanding of how legislative power is organized and exerted (Shepsle,
1989; Shepsle and Weingast, 1994). Other studies look at the symbolic side of parliamentary representation
and at the power potential residing there (Patzelt, 2006). Other debates address the role of parliament in
(neo-) corporatist institutional settings or the reduced influence of national parliaments in multi-level systems
of supra-national government (Abels, 2016; Abels and Eppler, 2015). More classical debates still cover issues
of constitutional law and of its impact on parliamentary power (e.g. Shugart and Carey, 1992), or focus on
the behavior of individual members of parliament, or of parties, regarding political power structures. In doing
so, they give answers to David Arter's clear-cut question regarding parliamentary power: ‘How do legislators,
both severally and collectively, work to perform their legislative roles in the three phases of the policy process
– that is, in the formulation and deliberation of public policy and the oversight of the executive?’ (Arter, 2006b:
255).
Perspectives
What are the perspectives of parliamentary power? The growing literature on ‘post-parliamentarism', initiated
by Crouch (2004), suggests that parliaments and their machinery may be in a process toward becoming a
mere formal shell, with political energy and real policy-making moving away from them. Among the alleged
causes are the loosening ties between society and parties. This goes along with a loss of substance in po-
litical struggles, detaching many politically ‘fashionable’ debates from what, and how, ordinary people deal
with political issues in daily life and at home. Consequently, much professional political communication gets
quite close to either theatrical performance or mere advertising. All that leads to losses in political credibility
and, therefore, in parliamentary power. In addition, we observe growing tensions between the ‘internal logic’
of policy-making in complex institutions and the ‘external logic’ of attempts by their leaders at exerting insti-
tutional influence (Benz, 1998). This may hamper parliament's effectiveness and efficiency in policy-making,
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in particular if an assembly has to compete for attentiveness and support with organizations from the private
sector. Finally, it became apparent that the ‘de-nationalization’ of political decision-making in an era of global-
ization with ever more international regimes, or in the process of ‘Europeanization', will necessarily decrease
the power of national parliaments. At the same time, it is uncertain whether, or to what degree in terms of
power performance, new supra-national parliaments may develop, at least aside from the ‘success story’ of
the European Parliament.
As a result, there are some serious arguments inviting even further use of the narrative about a ‘decline of
parliaments'. Presumably, however, we should recognize no more than additional ages in the transformation
of parliament as a context-depending institution, and in the ups and downs of this type of institution. It is true
that the impressive evolution of parliaments since the late 18th century, and their successful spread around
the world in the 20th century, have been among the most impressive episodes of worldwide institutional his-
tory. Yet nevertheless there was no ‘golden age', nor is there a predetermined future – neither for parliaments
in general nor for their power.
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Werner J. Patzelt (ed.) Parlamente und ihre Evolution. Forschungskontext und Fallstudien [Parliaments and
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(2005) ‘Institutionelle Macht. Kategorien ihrer Analyse und Erklärung’ [Institutional power. Categories for
analysis and explanation], in Werner J. Patzelt (ed.) Parlamente und ihre Macht. Kategorien und Fallbeispiele
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http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n52

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Contributors: Hans-Joachim Lauth

Chapter Title: "Legitimacy and Legitimation"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
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Hans-Joachim Lauth
Introduction and Key Concepts

The concept of political legitimacy is of key importance to political science. Beetham (1991: 41) called it ‘the
central issue in social and political theory'. There are two basic questions associated with it: why should peo-
ple obey their rulers, and why do people obey a particular political system? These two questions need two
different types of answer, which has given rise to two distinct strands of research. A first step in explaining
these two variant approaches is to distinguish between the concepts of legitimacy and legitimation. While le-
gitimacy is a normative concept that evaluates grounds for acknowledging the authority of political systems
or regimes, rules of power and the actions of rulers, legitimation or belief in legitimacy is an empirical concept
that describes, rather than evaluates, the mechanisms by which a regime's authority is, or comes to be, per-
ceived as justified by its citizens. Hence, a dictatorship can possess legitimation despite lacking legitimacy
from a normative perspective. Although these approaches are sometimes said to reflect a shift from philoso-
phy to sociology (Heywood, 2013: 81), and with it a shift from legitimacy to legitimation, it can be shown that
both approaches remain current and operate in parallel.
The concept of legitimacy traces its origins back to the Latin ‘legitimus’ or ‘legitimare', meaning ‘rightfulness',
which thus only captures one aspect of the modern conception. The concept of legitimation/legitimization also
derives from this Latin term, but diverges still further because it implies a process. Let us begin here by con-
sidering Max Weber's seminal discussion of legitimacy, in which he considers several key aspects linked to
the maintenance and justification of political power. Weber (1921 [1978]) was one of the first to systematical-
ly explore the fact that regimes cannot sustain their rule over the long term solely on the basis of violence
and repression, but require acceptance from those over whom they rule. Only if the principles upholding a
regime's authority are shared by the people is that authority legitimate. Weber distinguishes three ideal types
of legitimate authority: traditional, charismatic and rational/legal. These three types are empirically based on
specific grounds of legitimation that are regarded positively by the governed subjects: specifically, esteem for
traditional authority; captivation with a ruler's fascinating personality; or respect for the rational, legal basis
underpinning a regime's rule. This typology does not make any normative judgements about the rightfulness
of the regime. Rather, Weber seeks to explain the reasons why governed subjects accept and support a
regime's authority.1 He therefore consistently speaks of belief in the legitimacy of political authority or, more
succinctly, of belief in legitimacy, which in this chapter I treat as synonymous with legitimation/legitimization.
This understanding of legitimation sees it as a process, acknowledging that empirical attitudes change.
Weber regards the rational/legal type of authority as one of the defining characteristics of modern societies.
We shall therefore consider it in more detail so as (inter alia) to clarify its relation to democratic legitimacy.
Legal authority is closely linked to rule of law, but presupposes special qualifications that not every system of
positive law will satisfy.
Legal authority is based on enacted laws obeyed by everyone; even a country's president is subject to the
impersonal order (Weber, 1978: 217). Impersonal orders of this sort are obeyed because they are understood
as an expression of rational authority. The fundamental categories of rational authority find their purest, ide-
al-typical form in bureaucracy, which is typified by a continuous, rule-bound, hierarchically ordered conduct,
precisely delineated spheres of competence and clearly defined and regulated means of compulsion (Weber,
1978: 218). Weber emphasizes the importance of technical knowledge in bureaucratic administration – de-
scribing it as the feature which makes it specifically rational (Weber, 1978: 225) – and the universal applica-
tion of bureaucratic procedures in everyday affairs (Weber, 1978: 220). This makes clear that acceptance is
based primarily not on the enactment of laws and constitutions, but on the character of social orders and their
rational procedures. Accordingly, Weber regards as merely relative the distinction between orders established

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on the basis of agreement (i.e. democratically) and ones that are imposed (Weber, 1978: 37).2
For Weber, legal orders are fundamentally based on rationality: specifically, instrumental rationality rather than
value-rationality. He is a proponent of legal positivism, which holds that no objective knowledge of moral val-
ues and norms is possible, and that law and morality should hence be considered independently (Baurmann,
1991: 113). In this tradition of jurisprudence, the source of legal norms is of secondary importance; the crucial
point is that they conform to procedures. The key feature of a legal order is that it is an internally consis-
tent, clearly structured system of rules, whose application in individual cases can be unambiguously deduced
from abstract norms. The rules are universally and continuously valid; although they must be adapted to any
changes in the environment, on the whole they remain fundamentally stable, so that their application remains
calculable. The legal order is underpinned by the state's monopoly on force. Legal certainty must also be
guaranteed, which is why modern legal systems need a highly professionalized jurisprudence that helps to
systematize the law and ensure consistent legal interpretation.
It is not difficult to discern in these features the form of a formal constitutional state (Rechtsstaat), which is ex-
plicitly distinguished from a material constitutional state (Baurmann, 1991: 123). According to Weber, a ‘social
law’ based on ethical postulates such as justice or human dignity would weaken the calculability of the law
or even lead to wholly arbitrary, ‘irrational adjudication’ (Weber, 1978: 886). Thus, for Weber, the purpose of
the system of positive law is not to safeguard human rights or justice; rather, its central function is to provide
a secure legal grounding for capitalism. The principle of legal authority eschews any normative foundation:
‘Today the most common form of legitimacy is the belief in legality, compliance with enactments which are
formally correct and which have been made in the accustomed manner’ (Weber, 1978: 37). This is legitima-
tion by way of procedures, an idea later taken up by Luhmann (1989), albeit reinterpreted in terms of decision
procedures.3 These procedures are not necessarily democratic, but correspond to the principles enshrined
in the constitution or fundamental legal order, which could also be, say, dynastic. This entails that law in the
sense of legal authority can serve to legitimize both democratic and authoritarian regimes. As a result of this
ambivalence, most political theorists regard it as insufficient to establish legitimacy solely on the basis of law
(belief in legality), even with the special qualification of a formal Rechtsstaat.
A strict distinction must be drawn between the legality principle and the Rawlsian constitutionality principle.
Rawls’ proposed ‘liberal principle of legitimacy’ is based on a specific conception of constitutionality: ‘political
power is legitimate only when it is exercised in accordance with a constitution (written or unwritten) the es-
sentials of which all citizens, as reasonable and rational, can endorse in the light of their common human
reason’ (Rawls, 2001: 41). A legitimate constitution not only rests on the rationality principle, but requires the
endorsement of all citizens. This endorsement is in turn qualified, with the citizens required to exhibit some-
thing akin to Dahl's ‘enlightened understanding’ (Dahl, 1989). This makes clear that for Rawls, the legitimation
of a state's authority requires a democratic regime form.
Legitimacy is distinguished not just from the concept of legality, but also from that of stability. As Beetham
correctly notes, the characteristics of legitimacy should not be conflated with its consequences.4 It can be
assumed (and has been empirically tested) that the stronger the belief in legitimacy, the more stable a regime
will be. But stability also depends on other factors, such as the general economic and social situation or al-
ternatives to the current regime, while a legitimation gap can be counteracted at least temporarily by other
mechanisms, such as repression. Stability could, therefore, be the result of non-normative acceptance, which
is distinct from legitimation. However, following Weber, belief in legitimacy is regarded as a significant contrib-
utor to the stability of political systems. Other functions are also attributed to it: for example, Scharpf (2004:
3) notes that the greater the compliance of citizens, the less disruption there will be and hence the more effi-
ciently a government can operate: ‘Legitimacy is, therefore, the functional prerequisite for governments which
aim to be simultaneously effective and liberal.'5
The two fundamental forms described here correspond to the terms ‘legitimacy’ and ‘legitimation’ (Garzón
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Valdés, 1988). Legitimacy is a normative category, referring to the justification of norms and the rightfulness
of regimes. The exercise of political authority and state power is justified if there are good reasons for it. Le-
gitimation – referred to by Weber as ‘belief in legitimacy’ and strictly distinguished from a normative sense –
refers to belief in the rightfulness of a regime. It is thus a descriptive category, which assesses the extent to
which rulers are accepted by the ruled. Do citizens believe in the rightfulness of their rulers’ authority? This
idea is not linked to any universal normative standard: a triumphant dictator is just as capable of experiencing
legitimation or acceptance as a traditional monarchy or constitutional democracy.
The term ‘legitimation’ will henceforth be used to refer to the second idea. It will be treated as synonymous
with ‘legitimization', with both terms describing the process or act of providing legitimacy (Gaus, 2011: 4). The
term ‘legitimacy’ is also used in this descriptive sense in the literature. However, in this chapter I shall reserve
‘legitimacy’ for the normative sense to make the distinction clearer and avoid further confusion. Alongside
these two main variants, some prominent theories also add a third alternative to the mix.6 Accordingly, le-
gitimacy, trust and confidence must be clearly separated. Trust is not an expression of moral quality, but in
its very essence refers to an interpersonal relationship (social trust). By contrast, the relationship between
legitimation and trust is closely interwoven. This is particularly true when trust in people as representatives of
political institutions is analysed. Here we can understand trust as an expression of legitimation. On the other
hand, it seems difficult to speak of social trust in a type of regime. However, by way of contrast with the first
form of trust, which is concrete and personalized, it is conceivable that there could be abstract institutional
trust, which could also exist towards courts or the civil service. This notion of institutional-based trust is in
essence very similar to the concept of ‘system trust’ (Luhmann, 1979) or ‘societal trust'. The term ‘confidence’
places the emphasis on the viability and functionality of organizations and institutions.
Legitimacy – The Normative Approach

In recent years, the question of the legitimacy of political action has been taken up with increasing intensity
and for a variety of different reasons. On the traditional view, political science is chiefly concerned with the le-
gitimacy of power/authority and different types of government/state (Connolly, 1984; Green, 1988).7 Who can
legitimately exercise power, including the use of coercion, and morally compel individuals to obey; what are
the limits to power? While political philosophy formerly concentrated on the justification of state power in gen-
eral, finer distinctions are now drawn according to different regime types and systems of rule. Researchers
have analysed the conditions for legitimate authority. Work in recent decades has increasingly incorporated
the supranational level: the European Union and advancing European integration, international organizations
and global governance structures. At the same time, attention has also been directed to the inner workings of
political systems, drawing distinctions between specific subdomains and individual decisions.
What provides normative justification for political authority? Political philosophers have argued for various dif-
ferent answers (Green, 1988): justice, stability and security, peacekeeping, promotion of the common good,
constitutional protection of individual rights. In recent debates, most of these goals are seen as integrally
linked to the democratic regime type, which provides the fundamental argument to justify state authority: par-
ticipatory processes that make citizens the ultimate authors of their own laws and guarantee them the ability
to participate in the exercise of power and decision-making. Procedural rules concerning both participation
and rule of law are seen as key foundations for legitimizing political authority. This creates pressure to justify
even individual decisions; democracy is a political system in which important (non-)decisions must always be
justified.
In relation to democratic legitimacy, two principles are of particular significance: responsibility and responsive-
ness. The former is a measure of how responsibly decisions are taken: are common interests, possible con-
sequences and fundamental rights taken into consideration? Weighing up such factors can lead to a decision
that goes against prevailing majority opinion. The second principle, responsiveness to citizens’ preferences,
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is intended to prevent precisely this possibility. It requires that a government's actions are suitably reflective
of citizens’ preferences.8 However, if these preferences go against the fundamental normative underpinnings
of democracy – for example, if they would involve discriminating against minorities – they cannot be satisfied
without violating the principle of responsibility. This potential for conflict between the principles shows the dif-
ficulty of setting a generally recognized standard for the legitimacy of democratic authority. The same conflict
can be seen elsewhere in the dispute over constitutionalism, in particular concerning the role of a supreme
court: should the supreme court protect constitutional rights, or should this be left to the people as the demo-
cratic sovereign?
The extensive scope of these requirements for justification makes the standards for legitimation far more
stringent and complex than in the three ideal types of Weberian provenance. In the contemporary debate,
democracy serves as a normative benchmark or gold standard for the legitimacy of political authority. How-
ever, there are significant differences in how democracy is conceived (Peter, 2008, 2017), most crucially with
respect to the status of participatory processes. Following Habermas (1996) and Bohman and Rehg (1997),
forms of deliberative democracy are ascribed greater legitimacy than conventional representative democracy.
This debate does not concern itself with the legitimacy of individual political decisions, but rather with whether
the procedures used in such decisions are suitable or could be improved. One particular focus is innovat-
ing new democratic procedures, a discussion which also draws on empirical research. Other topics that are
addressed are the limits of representative democracy and the opportunities offered by direct democracy and
related deliberative procedures. Brexit is a good example of a case where procedures, including the conduct
of the referendum itself, did not lead optimally to a deliberative solution. It is generally claimed that improv-
ing participatory and decision-making procedures increases the quality of decisions. Deliberative democracy
combines the idea of public reason with the element of democratic participation.
Although the legitimacy of individual decisions is not usually questioned by public actors in democracies, there
are exceptions to this rule. One such exception is the principle of civil disobedience, according to which illegal
actions can be justified (Brownlee, 2012; Perry, 2013). This idea underscores a fundamental tension between
legitimacy and legality: decisions that were properly reached in accordance with the law can be ruled illegit-
imate on the basis of overriding norms, which must themselves be compatible with democracy and cannot
be ideologically rooted in anti-democratic values. Since democratic decisions can generally be revised by de-
mocratic means, civil disobedience must be justified by the claim that revising the decision by these means
would take an unacceptably long time given the pressing nature of the issue.
Examples of civil disobedience include protests against the introduction of nuclear power, which was regarded
as posing incalculable risks with extremely long-term consequences, and the NATO Double-Track Decision
in the early 1980s, or the more recent phenomenon of ‘church asylum’ where churches offer sanctuary to
people threatened with deportation because they believe their cases have not been properly considered; if
all legal remedies have been exhausted or the deportation is scheduled to take place before an appeal has
concluded, civil disobedience is regarded as the only alternative. The aim of civil disobedience is not to resist
democracy, but to improve its procedures and decisions.
Another, competing principle for evaluating the legitimacy of political systems appeals to the concept of justice
(Buchanan, 2002): only political systems that are also just can legitimately exercise power, and since democ-
racies are not automatically just, their legitimacy must also be scrutinized. Rawls (1993), by contrast, opposes
conflating the concepts of authority and justice, arguing that the exercise of political power can be unjust yet
legitimate, though the illegitimate exercise of power cannot be just. Regardless of how the relation between
justice and legitimacy is conceived, the definition of justice itself remains a subject of dispute. Ultimately, bas-
ing legitimacy on justice would require combining a procedural with a substantive understanding of democra-
cy. But there are good reasons for rejecting a substantive conception, according to which the quality or even
the existence of a democracy can be discerned from its performance. Ultimately, what performance is called
for is a matter for the democratic sovereign, meaning the outcome will be historically contingent and impos-
sible to formulate in universal terms. By contrast, suitable procedures can be expressed in universal form,
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though it should be noted that it is not only the procedures themselves that are relevant, but also the possi-
bility of using them appropriately. They are thus linked not just to certain minimum social standards, but also
to cognitive capacities (‘enlightened understanding'; Dahl, 1989: 307). A number of other conditions and ca-
pacities have also been considered in studies on innovative procedures in democracies (Mayne and Geissel,
2018).
Another intriguing question concerns the legitimacy of the European Union and its predecessors (Schmidt,
2013). How is the union legitimized if – as it is claimed – it lacks adequate democratic legitimacy? Various
arguments have been made for this lack of legitimacy. One argument points to the long legitimation chains:
members of key decision-making bodies such as the European Commission, European Court of Justice and
European Central Bank are not directly elected, despite having more powers than the directly elected Euro-
pean Parliament. Critics also claim that there is an imbalance in favour of the executive, and that there is
no collective European demos as the democratic sovereign. Although the Treaty of Lisbon has made the EU
more democratic, many of the criticisms remain.
Another alternative to legitimation based on democratic procedures is legitimation based on utilitarian con-
siderations. On this view, it is not the input processes that legitimize the political system of the EU but its
performance, that is, the output side. Fritz Scharpf (2004) takes a position of this sort in his evaluation of
the legitimacy of European integration, which he believes is not guaranteed on the input side. However, he
also considers the possibility for output-based legitimacy in the EU to be limited to allocation decisions that
satisfy the Pareto criterion: decisions that benefit one party at the expense of another lack legitimacy in the
absence of a solidary community (though such decisions are, he concedes, unlikely given that the EU's scope
for decision-making is constrained by many layers of checks and balances9 ). Others, however, are critical of
the possibility of utilitarian justification even in the case of solidary national communities. Peter (2017) sum-
marizes the argument thus: ‘Rawls (1971: 175f.) and Jeremy Waldron (1987: 143f.) object that the utilitarian
approach will ultimately only convince those who stand to benefit from the felicific calculus, and that it lacks
an argument to convince those who stand to lose.'
There is also the question of whether the EU needs the same level of legitimacy as nation-states. Scharpf
(2004) makes the case for a notion of gradated legitimacy, whereby the level of required legitimacy depends
on the depth and significance of the decision in question. In positive-sum games with distribution conflicts or
pure coordination games, the need for legitimacy is, he says, significantly lower than when dealing with zero-
sum conflicts where the solution that satisfies the interest of one group will be at the expense of another. This
criterion is particularly relevant to evaluating the legitimacy of international institutions.
In recent years, the scope of the debate about legitimacy has expanded to include the international order
(Hurrelmann et al., 2007; Zaum, 2013). What legitimacy is possessed by the United Nations and its bodies,
or by special organizations such as the IMF? What decisions, and with what consequences, can be legit-
imized? How far can such institutions intervene in the sovereignty of national governments (e.g. by imposing
austerity programmes)? At a very general level, there is the question of what form the international order
should take: should it be conceived as a global state, and/or what minimum democratic requirements should
be established (Höffe, 2007; Nullmeier and Pritzlaff, 2010)? Many commentators are extremely sceptical of
the possibility of an international or even global democracy, as there is no demos with a well-defined collec-
tive identity.10 In the absence of such an identity, however, it is difficult to acceptably set rules that impose
special sacrifices on individual states or treat them worse than others. This does not exclude the possibility of
international solidarity agreements, commendable examples of which exist between Scandinavian states and
poorer countries. However, these agreements are not based on a communicatively formed global society, but
on voluntary national decisions underpinned by public discourse in the countries in question; the legitimacy of
governance at a level beyond the nation-state requires an influx of legitimacy from national societies. As well
as governments, civil society organizations can also play a key role in this transformation. Hence, the legiti-
macy of international political structures and decisions remains closely interwoven with the national sphere.

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This is also evident in discussions on specific questions of international policy, which always touch on issues
of legitimacy. When is it right or necessary to intervene by force in another country (Merkel and Grimm, 2009)?
What kinds of emergency can only be dealt with in this way without incalculable risks? Questions are also
asked about the economic activities of individual countries: how justified is the considerable global variation
in resource consumption (Dobson, 1999; Agyeman et al., 2002)? The many different issues linked to sustain-
ability can be boiled down to a single question: is economic activity at the expense of other nations and/or
future generations normatively justified? As these questions show, it is not just procedures but also concrete
decisions whose legitimacy comes in for scrutiny; there has been a noticeable expansion in the focus of the
normative legitimacy debate.
A comparison of normative justificatory structures reveals a pattern that is also observable in the development
of human rights. Originally, security and the guarantee of civil liberties were regarded as the central criterion
of legitimacy; rights to political participation then became increasingly important, as can be seen in the nor-
mative standard of democratic authority; this was followed by a gradual increase in the significance of social
rights, the interpretation of which is reflected in the wide-ranging discussion on justice and inclusion as foun-
dations of legitimacy. Internationally, the progression through these three stages has been accompanied by a
growth in the importance of human rights in general. Protecting human rights is now used to justify interven-
ing in states’ domestic affairs, thus imposing limits on the centuries-old principle of the inviolability of national
sovereignty.
Research on Legitimation
Concepts
Alongside studies of normative justificatory procedures, another strand that has established itself in political
science is empirical research on legitimation. This empirical research investigates the legitimation possessed
by the rulers in a political system, looking at the factors that ground belief in legitimacy and support for
regimes. It focuses on different sources of legitimation and their ability to sustain stable systems of rule. With-
in political science, this strand of research is situated in the fields of political culture research and political
sociology. The focal point is the relation between rulers and ruled, and the extent to which the latter regard
the former's authority as justified. This issue is relevant to all regime types and has been studied in relation to
both democracies and autocracies. Even more so than the normative variant, this strand of research focuses
on the stability of political systems. A high level of belief in legitimacy or legitimation is seen as key to stability.
Originally, the empirical frame of reference for studies on legitimation mainly comprised democracies. The col-
lapse of various democracies in the first and second waves of democratization made clear the importance of
the role played by citizens’ attitudes. If they lack democratic beliefs or do not support the political system and
its actors, there is a danger that democracy will collapse. This line of research was also motivated by the in-
creasing democratization of states in the third wave. The focus on democracies has impacted significantly on
the selection of investigative criteria. The sources of legitimation described by Weber have been restructured
and expanded, with citizens’ attitudes becoming central objects of study. Almond and Verba (1965) investi-
gated different objects and modes of political orientation. They began by distinguishing four objects of political
orientation: the political system as a whole and its fundamental values and institutions; participatory process-
es (input objects); the performance of the political system (output objects); and the self as political actor. The
attitudes towards these objects are broken down into cognitive, affective and evaluative modes of orientation.
By combining these different dimensions, Almond and Verba categorized different types of political cultures,
with the mixed type of civic culture considered the most conducive to democracy. In a civic culture, the citi-
zens’ attitudes and value orientation help support the functioning and stability of a democracy. The study has
a clear functional emphasis, with the congruence of political culture and political structure regarded as critical

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for the stability of a political system. Lipset (1960) also considers the issue of stability, but with the focus on
legitimation and effectiveness now taking stronger account of economic performance.
Building on these ideas, mainstream research follows David Easton's 1965 theory that the degree of legitima-
tion depends on how closely the political order and the values inherent to it correspond to citizens’ personal
moral principles and beliefs. Another of Easton's ideas that has proved influential is his distinction between dif-
fuse support, which is based on approval of political authorities’ fundamental principles, and specific support,
which is based on these authorities’ performance. This model continues to be applied in empirical research to
this day, though it has been supplemented by additional distinctions (Easton, 1975). Norris (1999) developed
a fivefold classification of political support, which draws a line between political community, regime principles,
regime performance, regime institutions and political actors. This approach enables a systematic analysis of
different functional areas. Fuchs (2007) established a hierarchical model of democratic orientations towards
regime type/democratic system, type of democratic regime/governmental system and specific governments.
This differentiation is helpful in identifying the level of support. Distrusting government officials while believing
that it is right to obey the state is not, as McMann (2016: 555) suggests, evidence that trust and legitimation
are distinct, but rather that different political objects can achieve divergent degrees of support.
Weatherford (1992) developed a broad theory of legitimacy orientations, which includes views from ‘above’
and ‘below’ and attempts to integrate the micro and macro levels of investigation. However, this distinction
only applies to the object level (political versus personal). The data is still based on surveys. Gilley (2006)
focuses only on the ‘diffuse’ support dimension by measuring state legitimacy. He excludes government and
other actors from the analysis. His theory distinguishes three subtypes of legitimacy. While the first two cover
the legitimacy of the legal and normative side (justification), the third subtype (act of consent) concerns the
degree of mere acceptance. In addition to surveys, this theory also includes patterns of behaviour.
According to the examples, the following categories of items are typically distinguished: at the level of the gen-
eral political system, identification with the political community, support for central democratic values (such as
freedom, equality and the separation of powers); at the level of actors and performance, trust or confidence
in key political actors (government, parliament, parties) and state institutions (civil service, courts, military).
When measuring these attitudes, an attempt is made to separate general trust in political institutions from
specific trust based on concrete everyday practice, though clearly this categorical distinction is not always
straightforward to define. It might make sense to distinguish between concrete trust in political organizations
(parties, government) represented by public persons as an expression of specific support and abstract trust
in ‘faceless’ organizations (courts, civil service) or institutions as an expression of diffuse support. Attitudes
are measured using representative surveys. There are now many datasets that also record developments in
support over time.11 The analysis of legitimation in these studies appears to reduce it to the factor of support,
though different subtypes of support are distinguished (Klingemann, 1999). One key assumption is that deep-
rooted democratic values are more important for stability than high approval based on output performance,
which can rapidly change.
Despite the widespread use and high acceptance of survey research, the method has been subjected to a
range of criticisms that put the validity of the measurements into question. They include the difficulty of pre-
cisely measuring short-term attitudes and long-term beliefs, and of controlling for distortion resulting from re-
spondents’ seeing things in accordance with the desires and expectations around them.12 There are also a
number of pragmatic issues, such as how to properly translate question items into different cultural contexts
or how to actually achieve representativity, as well as criticisms at the level of principle concerning the closed
nature of the questionnaires and the neglect of historical context:
In survey research, respondents only react to stimuli provided by questionnaires that offer respon-

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dents a preselection of political institutions to be assessed and of evaluative benchmarks to be com-

mented on. This approach is unlikely to shed much light on the actual contours of legitimacy beliefs.
Even more importantly, it neglects the context-bound nature of legitimation processes. (Hurrelmann
et al., 2005: 4)
Another problem consists in the selection of items and categories which are useful in comparative research.
Findings may therefore be inaccurate because they ignore aspects relevant to legitimization in one case,
while not in others. The criteria by which governments are legitimated may vary on a case by case basis.13
Therefore, to obtain a full picture of a single case, it is necessary to include all relevant aspects of legitimation
in the study.
One contrasting or complementary way of measuring political support or its decline consists in documenting
political action such as protest. A distinction is drawn between active protest, expressed in conventional and
unconventional forms of participation, and passive protest, such as voter abstention (Rucht et al., 1999).14
Active protest involves the dimension of action, thus expanding the scope of investigation. Through partici-
patory behaviours, citizens can withdraw legitimation both from political actors and their decisions as well as
from the current form or general idea of democracy. The same applies to the passive behaviour of non-voting,
the study of which relies more strongly on survey research, though it needs to be assessed on a case by
case basis whether non-voting is actually a form of protest and loss of legitimation, or whether there are other
reasons (e.g. because it is expected that the person's preferred party will win, or due to generalized political
apathy). Other categories of actions and behaviour highlight support measures such as tax payments or legal
compliance, which are often measured by the degree of corruption. Nearly all these studies of political actions
underscore the relevance of social interaction and collective action. They should be understood as calling for
the inclusion of the intermediary level.
This short overview underscores one problem which results from the different definitions. It is not always clear
whether legitimation and support or mere acceptance are being measured. While the subjects are always
the citizens, the selection of objects varies significantly (state, regime type, government, parties, civil service,
courts, etc.), as do other aspects (trust, alienation, accountability, responsiveness, procedural and distributive
fairness, efficacy and efficiency). Likewise, some concepts conflate the measurement of legitimacy with the
identification of its causes and consequences. Sound empirical research would need to analyse orientations
(attitudes at the micro level) as well as patterns of behaviour at the meso level. One should add, however, a
further intermediate dimension, which is embedded in the public debate that is often dominated by the media.
Citizens’ evaluations are always shaped by the framing of public arguments and issues. Thus, it is possible
that very similar performances by governments will be judged differently depending on the communicative
framing. In addition to different public relations strategies, the credibility of the actors (messengers) and the
utility of the ideas play a significant role in this process. The degree of legitimacy thus also depends signifi-
cantly on the ability of political elites or the opposition to introduce their own legitimacy criteria into the com-
munication process. The analysis of legitimation is therefore always an empirical–hermeneutical task, too.
Strategies of Legitimation
Forms of legitimation can vary over the course of time and between different cases. This raises some crucial
questions: Why do the findings differ? What reasons can be adduced for this variation? What effects does
a loss or crisis of legitimation have on a political system, and how can such a loss or crisis be prevented?
These questions are interrelated. For example, actions taken to prevent legitimation crises are also factors
that help to explain the variation in the findings. Causes can be broken down into actor-specific factors (which
usually form part of legitimation strategies) and structural, systematic factors. In the former case, the relevant
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legitimation strategies need to be identified and investigated. What strategies are distinguished and are they
dependent on regime type? Let us first consider this aspect, which leads on to the idea of the politics of le-
gitimacy and prompts the general question: ‘What are governments doing when they spend time, resources
and energy legitimating themselves?’ (Barker, 2001: 2). Barker is assuming here that legitimation begins with
rulers’ legitimation of themselves, but in democracies the chain of legitimation starts from below. Accordingly,
we can ask: what can a government do to generate support and thus legitimation? Following Nullmeier et al.
(2012: 24), I understand the politics of legitimacy as all efforts that are undertaken to produce and secure the
normative worthiness of a political order, decision or actor to be recognized. These efforts are distinguished
from those that are being directed purely at generating acceptance with no reference to normativity.
A first legitimation strategy in democracies is based on performance. Lipset (1960: 77) argues that political
systems can actively contribute to their being recognized as legitimate. He believes that the political system's
performance plays a key role: the more highly citizens rate the output, the higher their specific support. The
longer this specific support lasts, the more likely it is to transform into robust, diffuse support: West Germany
in the 1950s and 1960s is one example of such a transformation. Legitimation qua output or performance is
in principle also possible in authoritarian regimes, but in democracies this legitimation strategy utilizes the de-
mocratic principle of responsiveness, whereby citizens view outcomes more positively the more closely they
correspond to their preferences. This brings about an alignment between the moral principles and values of
citizens and rulers. Political parties attempt to formulate policies that reflect citizens’ preferences. Elections
are the true testing grounds for these efforts to bolster legitimation; the success of these efforts is measured
by the election results and turnout, though the latter can be distorted by various factors (such as compulsory
voting).
A second strategy is based on the appeal of political actors, and is distantly related to notions of charismatic
authority. Surveys of politicians’ popularity attempt to measure this aspect, though it is difficult to predict what
factors will affect popularity ratings; even scandals do not always have a negative effect, but can actually in-
crease approval. However, falling approval ratings are often attributed to politicians. Anti-politician attitudes
are based on a negative view of politicians’ conduct and character; they are seen as only interested in looking
after themselves and their careers.
A third variant is institutional legitimation strategies, by means of which changes are made to a political sys-
tem's institutional framework. Such strategies can be applied to various building blocks of democracy: for
example, opportunities for participation can be increased by introducing direct democracy procedures, the
political process can be made more transparent and open to scrutiny, or quotas can be used to address is-
sues of equality. The use of mediation and other deliberative procedures also falls within the scope of these
strategies.
A fourth legitimation strategy is based in the realm of political discourse and relies on a government's capacity
for communication: not just letting the public know what it is doing, but providing comprehensible justifications
for its decisions, either by drawing on existing normative standards or else by reinterpreting or replacing them.
This is not a simple strategy, since in pluralistic media landscapes the government does not have a dominant
role and must compete against alternative narratives. Coming across too slick, by acting in a way that bears
the clear hallmark of spin doctors, can actually prove counterproductive as it can damage the credibility of
politics. The growth of social media is also making it increasingly hard to manage public perception. It seems
easier to spread fake news and mistrust than nuanced, rational arguments.
A final category that should be mentioned is symbolic politics, which can arouse or reinforce positive attitudes.
Little research has been carried out on this category; the studies that do exist are primarily in the fields of
sociology and ethnology (Schlichte, 2018).

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Autocracies also make use of a diverse array of legitimation strategies. One reason for this is that they lack
democracy as a key normative source of legitimacy, and thus need to draw on many different sources to
achieve legitimation (Burnell, 2006; Gerschewski, 2013). It should be noted that although repression and oth-
er coercive measures can contribute to stability, they are not forms of legitimation: ‘the acceptance of a justi-
fication does not count if the acceptance itself is produced by the coercive power which is supposedly being
justified’ (Williams, 2005: 6). In his analysis of autocracies’ stabilization mechanisms, Gerschewski (2013)
specifically notes the wide range of legitimation strategies that are used alongside measures such as repres-
sion and co-option. These legitimation strategies are mainly structured around categories of diffuse and spe-
cific support. Specific support is operationalized primarily in terms of economic and social indicators, as well
as the aspects of corruption, law and order and quality of bureaucracy. Law is interpreted with a focus on
its contribution to domestic security; its other functions and qualities are ignored. The law thus plays only a
limited role in the legitimation of authoritarian regimes, even though they are structured by legal systems and
despite the centrality of legal authority in Weber's (1921 [1978]) account of ‘types of legitimate domination'.
Unlike in democracies, autocracies’ legitimation strategies are strongly tied to the type of autocracy in ques-
tion. Classifications of autocratic systems of rule (or dictatorships) need to distinguish between authoritarian
and totalitarian regimes, since the two types are based on different fundamental principles that mean it is not
possible to regard one ‘merely’ as a subtype of the other.15 One key strategy of totalitarian regimes is to le-
gitimize their authority through the use of ideologies; these ideologies can be fascist/National Socialist, com-
munist or theocratic, according to the nature of the regime in question. By contrast with the communicative
strategies used in democracies, totalitarian regimes operate with methods of indoctrination and manipulation.
There are also subtypes of autocratic regime with specific legitimation strategies. Modernizing regimes base
their legitimation on their output performance; military regimes on creating security and order; dynastic
regimes on the legitimation patterns of traditional authority; post-colonial dictatorships and one-party regimes
on their performance in the war for liberation or on claims that they are warding off imperialist domination or
some other external threat. Individuals, such as Fidel Castro, are also able to draw on charismatic resources.
Personality cults, by contrast, are an institutionalized form of charismatic authority that go to great lengths in
trying to imitate the real thing (as seen, for example, in North Korea). Due to the rising global acceptance of
democracy as a system of rule, authoritarian governments imitate democratic elements (electoral autocracies
or competitive authoritarianism: Schedler, 2006; Bogaards and Elischer, 2015) or even attempt a redefinition
that presents their own authoritarian regime as the true democracy.16 In some of these forms of legitima-
tion, a significant role is played by the use of symbols and national myths. Dukalskis and Gerschewski (2017)
argue that depoliticization measures should also be understood as legitimation strategies, but this is unper-
suasive; such measures are clear-cut cases of attempts to generate non-normative acceptance.
The main way in which authoritarian regimes can legitimize themselves based on what Weber called legal
authority is by reference to a specific legal structure: the formal constitutional state. Historical examples of this
are Prussia or the German Empire, while a modern-day example is Singapore, though these regimes also
made or make reference to their modernizing reforms. Other legal structures can also serve in various ways
to support and legitimize authoritarian regimes. One strategy seeks to win support from elites who benefit
from flawed constitutional states or hybrid legal systems. Perverting the rule of law through corruption, clien-
telism and state capture can provide a stabilization mechanism specifically geared towards regime-supporting
elites, who are more important for stability in autocracies than in democracies.
Another legally based legitimation strategy tries to win support from other sections of the population by ex-
plicitly utilizing traditional systems of norms and rules that enjoy high acceptance. Using these two categories
could also help to give structure to the diverse findings in the context of legal pluralism (Shah, 2014). Em-
pirical research on the dynamics and stability of authoritarian regimes should take greater account of these

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multilayered, formal and informal interactions between law and governance (Lauth, 2017).
This brief outline of legitimation strategies in autocracies has shown that these regimes attempt to legitimize
themselves by a diverse range of different means, since they lack democracies’ fundamental input legitima-
tion. The considerable effort autocracies put into legitimizing themselves further underscores the importance
of legitimation in order to maintain power. Empirical studies of legitimation in democracies and autocracies
concentrate on different aspects. Research in autocracies is less able to rely on survey methods than compa-
rable studies in democracies and also refers to legitimation strategies that capture different groups: they are
not only directed at all citizens but also at regime-supporting elites.
To respond to the diverse range of legitimation strategies found in different types of regimes, it is necessary
to draw on an equally diverse methodological repertoire that goes far beyond the methods used in traditional
research on legitimation in democracies: first, inductive survey approaches; second, discourse analysis meth-
ods, for studying public communication; third, methods that take account of the dimension of action, which
allows the empirical legitimacy puzzle to be resolved (Booth and Seligson, 2009).
Legitimation Crises in Democracies

Although nowadays autocratic regimes generally need to compensate for a legitimacy deficit that does not
affect democracies, it is democratic regimes that appear to be particularly prone to legitimation crises. There
is a wealth of literature on legitimation crises in democracies. Two fundamental patterns can be distinguished,
both of which are primarily based on systemic factors and can manifest in a variety of forms. First, the problem
is seen in the excessive expectations that democracy itself generates (King, 1975; Rose, 1980). During elec-
tion campaigns, parties attempt to outdo each other with promises that, once in government, they can only
deliver with difficulty or by taking on ever increasing debts. At the same time, citizens expect more and more
of the political system, and it becomes less and less possible to satisfy these expectations. The result is an
immanent legitimation crisis. Second, legitimation crises are understood as expressions of capitalist dynam-
ics (Habermas, 1973). According to this view, in order to maintain acceptance from citizens a political system
must make concessions to them, most notably by expanding the welfare state. However, this curbs the free
market and redirects profit from companies to the state, which dampens capitalist dynamism. But in the face
of growing pressure from globalization, this dynamism needs to be sustained, which in turn forces cuts in state
benefits. Over time, it becomes increasingly difficult for capitalist states or democracies to maintain a balance
between these antagonistic interests, resulting in a legitimation crisis. In certain respects, Colin Crouch's the-
ory of post-democracy can be seen as a continuation of this idea (Crouch, 2004).
No general empirical confirmation has yet been found for either of these two crisis theories. State spending
generally remains high, even if small reductions have been made in some countries. Nor is a rejection of
democracy discernible; rather, support for democracy as a general regime type is high in all established
democracies. However, in many countries approval is dramatically lower when it comes to specific political
institutions and actors. Recent decades have seen trust in governments and parliaments declining in many
democracies. Election turnout has also fallen. Political parties have suffered a particularly sharp loss of trust,
with membership numbers collapsing almost everywhere. This is undoubtedly a legitimation crisis.
In terms of political sociology, the loss of trust in politics is based on exogenous factors. Central to this crisis
is the transformation of society, manifested in the breakdown of overarching unities and social differentiation.
This dynamic is driven by economic factors that emerge from global markets, and is linked to a decline of
traditional worldviews and shift in values that has been described – not without basis – as the ‘silent revolu-
tion’ (Inglehart, 1977). The consequences for the legitimation of democracies are considerable, complex and
contradictory. Various different interpretations have been put forward. On Dalton and Welzel's (2014) positive
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account, the result of the changes has been not a rejection of politics, but rather a move towards new forms of
political participation. The authors argue that although there is a continued trend of dealignment and a decline
in support for mainstream political parties, people are engaging in non-electoral forms of participation and as-
suming greater political responsibility. Other authors also allow for the possibility of a modified realignment.
Negative interpretations come in a number of variants. According to one of them, neoliberalism's permeation
of society is reinforcing a focus on individual benefits and consumption. This is fuelling the above noted rise
in expectations, but without people being willing to contribute themselves (something known as the free-rider
problem). Another variant holds that in an increasingly pluralistic society, individual groups are rarely able to
satisfy their interests in undiluted form; in a culture of compromise, everyone is ultimately dissatisfied. What is
interesting about this interpretation is that one of democracy's greatest achievements – resolving conflicting
interests without violence by means of compromises – is now undergoing a negative reinterpretation that can-
not be resolved within the system. The ancient cynical argument, which is undergoing something of a revival,
runs along similar lines. Politicians are now commonly lumped together as a self-interested political class that
exists separately from ordinary people (Allen and Cairney, 2017). The difficulty of finding adequate political
solutions in globalized contexts is conceived in terms of the ineffectiveness of this caste. There is widespread
discontent with the transformation of society, which is understood as the result of failed politics. Visions of the
future therefore reach back to the national past, in line with the programmes of right-wing populist parties,
which are regarded as a clear expression of the political system's legitimation problems.
What all this makes clear is that modern democracies face myriad legitimation problems that are difficult to
resolve, for two main reasons: first, because they are rooted in systemic, structural factors that can only be
changed slowly, if at all, by political means; second, because they are based on different constructions of so-
cial reality that it is increasingly difficult to mediate between, as evidenced by the increasing polarization of
political culture in countries such as the UK and, especially, the United States. Though it is not possible to
explore this topic in depth here, it is clear that there remains a pressing need for research on the legitimacy
of political systems. Moreover, there has thus far been no discussion of what happens if the legitimation prob-
lems persist or grow. Although some plausible, reasonable suggestions have been made based on facilitating
and expanding political participation and education, it is an open question how effective these would be.
Conclusion: Open Questions and Avenues for Future Research

Research on legitimacy is divided into two main strands: a normative one based on the concept of legitimacy,
and an empirical one based on the concept of legitimation. The normative strand is a vibrant field of study,
whose scope has significantly broadened from the original focus on the justification of national governments
to also include international institutions and actors. Furthermore, research on legitimacy is no longer confined
to the political and social spheres, but also encompasses the capitalist economic order, its actors (banks, cor-
porations and trusts) and their activities. Consequently, the number of grounds and motives for legitimacy has
increased. Finer-grained distinctions are also drawn between different aspects of democracy – not just the
overall concept but individual elements of it, such as participation, transparency and separation of powers,
are used for purposes of justification.
The reasons for this vast proliferation may lie outside political science: it can perhaps be attributed to the
rising standards of justification demanded in modern enlightened societies, which has given rise to a need for
a more systematic approach to the topic of legitimacy. One idea that merits further exploration is that of gra-
dated legitimacy, according to which standards for the justification and grounding of legitimacy become higher
in proportion to the scope of an institution's or actor's powers and its ability to impose sanctions; nation-states
would thus have to satisfy higher standards of justification than, say, international organizations. However,
this idea cannot be used to develop a materially coherent theory of legitimacy, as it does not take account of
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the logic of different fields. For example, ideas about how the market can be justified according to criteria of
efficiency and effectiveness cannot simply be transposed to the political domain, although there are attempts
to establish relations between different subsystems (for example, the social market economy or public and
private regulation (Wolf et al., 2017)). It would therefore make sense to initially concentrate on developing a
theory of political legitimacy, even if merely clarifying the concept ‘political’ would raise fresh controversies.
Extensive, wide-ranging work has also been carried out within the empirical strand of research on legitimation.
Although this field was long dominated by Almond and Verba's theory of political culture, their approach has
been supplemented by some significant additions, including more inductive survey methods (instruments with
open questions), constructivist and discursive approaches specifically designed to identify patterns of legiti-
mation in the public sphere, and perspectives and methods from media sociology. One productive approach
is the research being carried out into the politics of legitimacy, which draws on some of the distinctions from
the normative debate to identify the different legitimation strategies used in national and international contexts
and in democracies and autocracies.
The discussion of the two strands should have made clear that, despite their difference of emphasis, they
both involve empirical and normative elements. The normative debate reflects empirical changes, while the
empirical studies focus on the normative grounds for recognizing political authority. Would it therefore make
sense to try to integrate the two strands? This would certainly require more than simply adding them together.
The impulse to integrate is inherent to politics itself: ‘politics is a matter of establishing relations of justification
in which those who were subjected to rule can be the justification authorities of this rule’ (Forst, 2014: 674).
It is not just philosophers and theorists who engage in the justification of political authority, but also rulers
and ruled themselves. Any adequate study of legitimacy will be conscious of this dual construction of reality
and combine the different aspects in a logical manner. It will also link universally justifiable norms to concrete
manifestations in specific historical situations.
To conclude, more realism in the study of legitimacy means – somewhat counter-intuitively – to over-
come the empirical focus on beliefs, attitudes and compliant behaviour. It means to understand po-
litical legitimacy as a dynamic concept referring to a normatively structured societal practice of le-
gitimation, the analysis of which requires the systematic combination of the perspectives of political
theory, sociology and the history of ideas. (Gaus, 2011: 17–18)
Notes
1 ‘A populace's belief in legitimacy is not based on an absolute normative standard, but pluralistically on het-
erogeneous worlds of meaning [Sinnwelte] and relationally by comparison with historical or contemporary so-
cial realities’ (Nohlen, 1998: 352). Easton's definition of legitimacy also belongs to this tradition (1965: 278).
2 The relativization of types of regime is also evident in Weber's remark on how the ‘supreme chief’ of an
organization acquires their position: either through appropriation, an election or being designated as a suc-
cessor (Weber, 1978: 220).
3 Luhmann understands legitimation as ‘the general willingness to accept substantially still undetermined de-
cisions within certain limits of tolerance’ (Luhmann, 1989: 28; italics in original; translation from Gaus, 2011:
3). While Luhmann thus rejects a normative definition, Habermas conceives of legitimacy in explicitly norma-
tive terms: ‘Legitimacy means that there are good arguments for a political order's claim to be recognized as
right and just; a legitimate order deserves recognition. Legitimacy means a political order's worthiness to be
recognized’ (Habermas, 1976: 178; italics in original; cited in Gaus, 2011: 3).
4 ‘Against those who equate legitimacy with stability or efficiency, I argue that legitimacy should not be con-
fused with the effects it produces on a system of power through the enhanced obedience of its subordinates’
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(Beetham, 2013: 38).
5 Translation adapted from Scharpf (2009).
6 Beetham (2013: 37) distinguishes two central dimensions or axes of legitimacy: the justificatory principles
and the conventions of consent embodied in different rules or systems of power. He thereby incorporates the
normative variant into empirical research. Habermas (1973) also combines the two main strands.
7 Given this narrowness of focus in the discipline, it might be more accurate to speak of political legitimacy
and political legitimation. However, this more precise way of speaking is not adopted in the literature, and so
that is the convention I follow in this chapter, in the knowledge that the adjectives are tacitly implied.
8 Dahl (1989) and Lijphart (1984) go so far as to regard responsiveness as the core of democracy. On prob-
lems with this position, see Lauth (2013).
9 He regards the cases of the ECJ and ECB as more problematic, since their power is relatively unconstrained
by treaties.
10 Scharpf (2004: 6) is sceptical of the possibility of democratic orders at a level beyond the nation-state: ‘the
condition of a real and robust collective identity [is] the Achilles’ heel of attempts to apply input-based legiti-
mation arguments to governance structures “beyond the nation-state”.'
11 Examples include the World Values Survey and similar regional survey instruments.
12 Carrying out empirical research on legitimation in autocracies poses certain additional problems, including
difficulties in gaining access to the field and methodological issues that affect the validity of the research.
There is also the possibility of distorted response behaviour or a distorted understanding of key concepts
such as democracy (Welzel and Kirsch, 2017).
13 Empirical research indicates that corruption of political elites can either decrease or increase their legiti-
mation, even in democracies, depending on the evaluative standards that prevail in public debate.
14 Some studies combine the different approaches into a complex measure. For example, Gilley (2006: 510)
considers not just support and protest, but also normative concepts: ‘As both Beetham (1991) and Habermas
(1975) have argued, the moral justification of state power (as opposed to its legality or consent) is particularly
important because that power underwrites the laws and rules that govern so much of the rest of social and
economic life. It is, so to speak, the uber-power and without moral justification, its negative consequences
are just too hard to bear. I thus believe that justification should be weighted more heavily for a fully theorized
measure of legitimacy.'
15 Totalitarian regimes are characterized by the complete absence of political freedoms and political equality,
with power concentrated in the hands of a small elite so that the vast majority of citizens are utterly powerless
and have no control over how they are governed. Authoritarian regimes, by contrast, do afford some limited
political freedoms and power to their citizens, though not to the full extent of democracies.
16 Attempts at such redefinitions were observable in ‘real socialist’ regimes such as the German Democratic
Republic, and are now appearing in China (Lu and Shi, 2015).
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• legitimacy
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• authority
• regime
• law
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n53

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Political Competition
Contributors: Jennifer Cyr & Alexis Work

Chapter Title: "Political Competition"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Political Competition
Jennifer Cyr Alexis Work
Studies across comparative politics address political competition as a central factor in their theories. Referred
to in myriad ways, the phenomenon plays a role in many processes, from the more obvious ones such as de-
mocratization to less intuitive areas, including in autocratic regimes. This review characterizes political com-
petition as that which occurs among political parties within a system of governance, where parties vie to place
candidates in positions of political power. With political parties at the center, competition can be evaluated
from different angles and at different levels of analysis.
In this overview, we first outline how the concept has been treated historically. We then address, in a non-
exhaustive way, research that treats competition as both an outcome to explain and as an explanans in its
own right. Following this, we review more recent veins of research that consider political competition. We look
first at the nuances of the relationship between competition, representation and democracy. Competition, we
show, need not necessarily bolster representation or the quality of a democratic regime. Among other things,
it can drown out minoritized voices. Competition has also become a near sine qua non of non-democracy,
and can even help in sustaining an authoritarian regime.
We then examine different heuristics for political competition, including political fragmentation and electoral
volatility. We use the latter to show how competition varies across the globe. Finally, we review some of the
empirical databases that provide us with the metrics for assessing political competition. In all, we acknowl-
edge that competition is fundamental to our understanding of regimes and probably one of the most studied
phenomena in the political sciences. Yet, one overwhelming conclusion of this overview is that we still have
much to learn about how it operates and what are its consequences.
A (Brief) History of Political Competition

Scholars of democracy began making reference to political competition in their efforts to conceptualize vari-
ous features of democratic and democratizing societies. The first accounts provide the foundation of the con-
temporary study of political competition, and later works have successfully built upon those original theories.
We focus here on early, and perhaps some of the most prominent, understandings of political competition and
its relationship, in particular, to democracy.
Some of the most influential early texts on democracy considered competition as fundamental to the regime.
Schumpeter (1942) and Dahl (1971) viewed competition as necessary for democracy, although only the for-
mer considered it sufficient. Indeed, Schumpeter's theory of democracy challenged prior accounts by empha-
sizing that citizens need not always agree on a common good. In doing this, he locates a ‘competitive struggle
for the people's vote’ at the center of democratic governance. Dahl also values competition, making it one of
two dimensions whose variation helps to distinguish partial from full polyarchies (for Dahl, democracy was an
unattainable ideal).
If competition is the foundation of democracy, then the question we must ask is: Who contests power? In
modern-day regimes, there is one predominant institution that both constitutes and channels competition: the
political party. Given this, scholars of competition typically focus on political parties, including what they are
and how they are constituted.
Duverger's classic book (1954), for example, viewed parties as reflections of the social structures present in
society and a nation's political and institutional history. Sartori (1976) built on Duverger in important ways,
presenting a more straightforward idea of the party as an organization with predefined values that posts can-
didates for election. His definition required that parties be ‘relevant', that is, that they have an effect on political
competition. (Today, this distinction is often made quantitatively, by considering only those parties that achieve

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some electoral threshold.) Schattschneider (1960) noted that political competition was crucial for ensuring the
stability of a ruling party; without party pluralism, divisions within the ruling party could destabilize democratic
governance.
A focus on political parties drove early scholars to study their nature. These works focused initially on party
development in Western Europe and the United States (e.g. Ostrogorski, 1910; Michels, 1911; Duverger,
1954; Kirchheimer, 1990). One major tendency from these texts was to interrogate the inherent tensions be-
tween political parties as institutions that seek power while also existing to (democratically) represent and
govern. The oligarchic (Michels, 1911) nature of the internal dynamics of the party itself inevitably contradict-
ed its democratic function. Indeed, Ostrogorski, an early analyst of these tensions, noted that ‘As soon as a
party, even if created for the noblest object, perpetuates itself, it tends to degeneration’ (1910: 441). These
early works identified a recurring contradiction inherent to party politics: that one's private goals (e.g. re-elec-
tion, a longstanding career in politics, party longevity) might clash with the very public end of serving one's
constituents.
Second, scholars sought to analyze how political party structures changed over time and in response to struc-
tural changes, including, for example, suffrage extension and economic crisis. Parties were founded initially
as cadres of elites. With the expansion of voting rights, however, mass-based parties emerged to capture the
support of recently politicized groups (Duverger, 1972). The scramble for votes over time transformed parties
into catch-all organizations (Kirchheimer, 1990). Finally, as membership and citizen participation generally de-
clined, parties became increasingly dependent upon state resources and patronage for survival, leading to
cartelization (Katz and Mair, 1995). In this (largely European-centric) view, party structure evolved as ties to
society changed.
Parties gained prominence elsewhere in the world as countries transitioned to democracy in the mid to late
20th century. Yet, the ties binding citizens to parties – to the extent that they did at all – tended to be more
diverse (Roberts, 2002) and, in some cases, much more fragile than in the early European context (see, e.g.,
Mainwaring and Torcal, 2006). Consequently, successful adaptation and survival (e.g. Ishiyama and Quinn,
2006; Cyr, 2017) required parties to adopt unique strategies and rely on a diverse set of resources.
Discussions of political competition emerged as scholars cited it as a key factor in democratic governance.
Since then, political competition has grown into a key concept of its own. To explore this, in the next two sec-
tions we ask: What explains political competition, and what outcomes does it help to explain?
Explaining Political Competition

Competition manifests in democratic settings primarily as competition among political parties. Party systems
vary in terms of the number of parties and their degree of fragmentation (Sartori, 1976). What accounts for
these variations? Scholars have explained the dynamics of party competition using a variety of perspectives.
We examine each of these here to understand why political competition looks like it does across space and
time.
One longstanding take on competition views it from the lens of the institutional environment in which political
parties operate. Most famously, perhaps, Duverger argued that electoral institutions shape party systems.
Single-member plurality districts, he found, tended to produce two-party systems, whereas proportional repre-
sentation was more likely to generate multi-party systems. His so-called law evoked multiple reactions, spark-
ing a longstanding debate – one that we still consider today – on what factors shape the dynamics of party
competition.
Some authors, in effect, built upon and further specified Duverger's Law. Rae (1967), for example, found that
different electoral institutions – including, as per Duverger, the average district magnitude, but also the elec-
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toral formula and the ballot structure – worked together to shape the degree of multi-partyism. Some decades
later, Cox (1997) re-assessed Duverger's Law, taking as a point of departure that citizens will not waste their
votes on parties that are unlikely to win. Given this, Cox re-affirmed the impact of district magnitude on the
effective number of parties. His ‘rule’ asserts that the number of parties will tend to be one greater than the
district magnitude in single-member plurality and proportional representation systems, or one greater than the
number of candidates that advance in contests with runoffs (Cox, 1997: 271). Strom (1989) finds that, while
proportional representation fosters lower levels of disproportionality, two-party systems have greater govern-
ment responsiveness.
A second approach to competition finds that party systems are more likely to embody the structural dynamics
of the societies they represent. Spatial theories of political competition (e.g. Downs, 1957; Adams, 2001), for
example, contend that the number and positions of parties on an ideological continuum will broadly reflect
the distribution of the public along that continuum. For Downs (1957), party competition could be explained
in great part by simply looking at the left–right dispersion of the voting population. In two-party systems, both
party platforms would converge to the position of the median voter. This ‘median voter theorem’ concluded,
therefore, that policy platforms would be quite similar, yet unstable, as voting predispositions vacillated among
different party alternatives.
Adams (2001), in turn, noticed that, despite Downsian incentives for similarity and instability, political parties
in practice often held divergent and quite stable policy positions. Why, he asks, is this the case? The author
finds that voters are motivated by policy concerns and also by their (partisan) preference toward one versus
all other parties. Parties therefore direct their policy appeals to partisans whose support is grounded in non-
policy concerns. Party systems, as a consequence, include parties with stable and distinct platforms.
To be sure, voters care about much more than their policy or ideological predispositions. They exhibit differ-
ences along ethnic, religious and regional lines. For many, these social cleavages leave a lasting impact on
the dynamics of party systems. For Lipset and Rokkan (1967), for example, parties give voice to and crystal-
lize social conflicts. What matters, then, is which cleavages gain political salience in any given place. Once
parties emerge to politicize a cleavage, however, Lipset and Rokkan find that the resulting party system is
unlikely to change. Their ‘freezing’ hypothesis applied to early to mid 20th-century patterns of party system
development in Western Europe. Later research (Bartolini and Mair, 1990) extended the finding through much
of the century.
Later research added nuance to the relationship between social diversity and political competition. The extent
of party system fragmentation, that is, the number of parties in a party system, is shaped by the interaction of
societal heterogeneity and the permissiveness of the electoral rules. Systems where smaller parties are more
likely to win seats, such as proportional representation, will increase fragmentation; more restrictive systems,
such as first past the post (FPTP), will constrain party competition (Amorim Neto and Cox, 1997). Milazzo et
al. (2018), however, use district-level data to problematize this finding. They argue that greater social diver-
sity leads to more fragmentation even under FPTP. As data access improves and our methodological toolkit
becomes more extensive, the nuances of these relationships will continue to be fleshed out.
The research evaluated thus far tends to be rooted in studies of developed countries, and especially Western
Europe and the United States. Research on other global regions further problematizes the relationship be-
tween diversity and political competition. Madrid (2005: 3), for example, has found that social cleavages have
not translated into salient political dimensions in much of Latin America. The presence of the former does
not, therefore, necessarily imply the existence of the latter. Roberts concurred, noting that ‘the incongruence
between the social “fault lines” of Latin American societies and their institutionalized forms of political rep-
resentation is unusually pronounced, and it appears to be growing’ (Roberts, 2002: 3). What, then, explains
patterns of political competition outside of Europe?
Here, of course, the literature is too varied and extensive to properly summarize. Often, however, the re-

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sponse includes an interaction of multiple different factors. Party systems embody, for example, social cleav-
ages as a function of institutional constraints and other barriers to representation (e.g. Birnir, 2007; Madrid,
2005). Some authors find that the incentives to create parties can be non-institutional and derived, for ex-
ample, from expectations regarding how government is formed (Zeigfield, 2012). Indeed, incentive structures
and structural constraints should be distinct in countries where the extension of the suffrage (Dahl's [1971]
participation dimension) and the liberalization of competition (Dahl's contestation dimension) occur simultane-
ously. Pre-authoritarian party systems may condition post-authoritarian patterns of competition. The strength
of authoritarian incumbents (Riedl, 2014), and their ability to adapt to the new democratic context, can shape
the opportunity structure for new party entrants.
What does Political Competition Help Explain?

At the same time as different factors shape political competition within a polity, the nature of political com-
petition imparts effects of its own. Theoretical and empirical work alike posits strong relationships between
political competition and governance that is both more responsive to voters and representative of their in-
terests. Scholars have long argued that competition has a positive impact on the quality of democracy and
the integrity of democratic institutions. More recently, however, and perhaps paradoxically, research has also
highlighted the potentially stabilizing role of competition in non-democratic settings.
By offering more than one political platform to choose from, competition engenders responsiveness both from
politicians in office and from voters themselves. When different political parties have a reasonable chance of
winning elections, voters are less likely to waste their vote (Cox, 1997). Supporters are more likely to seat
‘their’ representatives. Citizens in general are more likely to expect governance that caters to what they per-
ceive is best for the public (Aldrich and Griffin, 2018). Generally, where party competition is open and effec-
tive, citizens are more likely to feel enfranchised.Incumbents, for their part, will understand that they can lose
elections. Consequently, their responsiveness to the public should increase in kind (Bartolini, 1999).
In addition to a political process that is more responsive, voter representation should increase where competi-
tion reflects the level of societal diversity in a polity. When, for example, voters are presented with candidates
and party platforms that reflect their political views, they are more likely to vote than is the case when they do
not recognize any such political party. They are also more likely to generate stronger affinities with a particular
party. It follows that citizens who are able to vote for a candidate that represents them will afford a higher level
of legitimacy to government institutions, suggesting that they feel represented (Morlino, 2011; see Bingham
Powell Jr, 2004 for a comprehensive review). By contrast, bias toward whiter, richer, male leaders has histor-
ically resulted in a political discourse that is exclusive of the poor and minoritized (Schattschneider, 1960).
With regard to democratic quality, researchers credit political competition with the production of more effective
governance. Morlino (2011) uses ‘democratic deepening’ to evaluate the normative goodness of democra-
cies. Political competition is a core feature of this. Indeed, competition is interrelated with other aspects of
governance, including the rule of law and electoral accountability. As a result, higher quality competition is
typically associated with overall quality of governance. Other authors (Aldrich and Griffin, 2018) highlight the
role of strong opposition parties in particular on effective governance. Opposition parties pressure incumbent
parties to perform or risk being voted out of office. Incumbent parties, as a consequence, are more likely to
deliver both in terms of general public goods and also on those issues related to their political platform.
Competition also has a hand in keeping political parties in check. For example, given the possibility of voter
defection, incumbent parties should be more inclined to adhere to a set of ideological preferences that fos-
ter a loyal voting base (Aldrich and Griffin, 2018). Relatedly, party scholars emphasize the ineffectiveness
of intra-party competition as a substitute for inter-party competition, especially when it comes to single-party
regimes. Even if competition exists within the party in single-party systems, the voters’ inability to defect from
that particular party precludes actual competition (Sartori, 1976; Bartolini, 1999). Intra-party competition is
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not necessarily sufficient for partisans either. Leadership positions are singularly filled. Intra-party competition
over a particular post will only satisfy a fraction of the party is represented (Rahat et al., 2008). It is important
that competition exist outside of political parties, where democracy provides some guarantee of procedural
fairness (Bartolini, 1999).
Other institutions also benefit as a result of increased political competition. Studies of federal court behavior,
for example, demonstrate that political competition leads to increased judicial independence (Helmke, 2002).
As competition increases the uncertainty of future political leadership, judges alter their strategies so as not to
appear loyal to any particular party. Competition may also increase governmental transparency. Higher party
competition translates into more competitive, and therefore more democratic, public procurement processes
(Broms et al., 2019). In this last example, less party competition makes government vulnerable to corruption,
even in ‘old democrac[ies] with a meritocratic bureaucracy’ (Broms et al., 2019: 1).
Greater competition can also translate into policy outcomes that benefit a broader sector of the population.
More highly contested elections are also associated with a higher level of capital investment and lower tax-
ation (Besley et al., 2010) and less bloat in government salaries (Chamon et al., 2018). These results hold
in terms of economic development as well; Indian states with higher political participation and competition
typically have higher Human Development Index (HDI) scores (Dash and Mukherjee, 2015). These studies
provide evidence that political leaders in competitive situations are more likely to invest in broad social devel-
opment in an effort to garner the support of a larger electorate.
To be sure, the positive effects of political competition that these studies elucidate are not seen everywhere
in practice. Earlier theorists, for example, did not fully anticipate the unique challenges faced by developing
countries or, as we will consider later, the more recent proliferation of hybrid regimes. Where democratic in-
stitutions are newer or weaker, additional variables, such as economic crisis (Pacek and Radcliff, 1995), in-
equality (Rueschemeyer, 2004) and natural resource dependence (Jensen and Wantchekon, 2004), have al-
tered the presumed effects of competition on governance, representation and institutional stability. Moreover,
from the fledgling Weimar Republic to Venezuela at the turn of the 21st century, populism, nationalism and
fascism have derailed competition.
More recent research has found, perhaps paradoxically, that party competition can have a negative impact
on democracy under certain circumstances. For example, in countries with a strong presence of organized
crime, party competition and electoral turnover can result in more violence. In Mexico, regional victories by
the Partido de Acción Nacional (PAN) increased the violence between drug cartels by interrupting government
complicity in the dominant cartel's dealings (Snyder and Duran-Martinez, 2009). Furthermore, when compe-
tition becomes polarized, people may begin to favor partisan goals over democratic principles. Svolik (2018)
recognizes this as a potentially significant threat to democracy in the post-Cold War era. Using survey data
from Venezuela, his study finds that the more intense a respondent's partisan views are, the more likely that
respondent is to trade democratic principles for policy concessions.
Recent Advances, Ongoing Debates and Critical Assessments

The knowledge on political competition is in no way complete or even settled. Our understanding of even the
most primary relationships – such as that between political competition and democracy – is constantly being
challenged. The more we research, it seems, the less we know conclusively. Recent works on competition
reflect this conundrum, suggesting that, despite its importance to the study of politics, political competition
remains an elusive topic of investigation.
For example, recent works suggest that there is still much to learn about how parties emerge and how they
function internally, especially in the global South. A new research agenda highlights the role that resources
play in, first, the successful emergence of parties (e.g. Tavits, 2013) and, second, their survival over time (e.g.
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LeBas, 2013; Cyr, 2017). Organizationally strong parties, or parties with active members, a widespread set
of branches and a professional central bureaucracy, have the people and the places necessary to successful
coordinate elections across a territory. The role of organizational resources has been correlated with success-
ful party formation in post-Communist democracies in Russia, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. They
have also been correlated with electoral survival even in the absence of other, more conventional material
resources, such as money and patronage (Cyr, 2017).
Although scholars have long purported that democracy is unthinkable without political parties, it is not the
case that competition is necessarily or inherently beneficial to voters. Indeed, one concern is that party com-
petition disproportionately favors certain sectors over others. Economic elites and prominent interest groups
are more effective at shaping policy in the United States, even when their preferences contradict that of the
majority of voters (e.g. Page et al., 2013). Furthermore, individuals who make larger campaign donations are
more likely to be granted access to their representatives (Kalla and Broockman, 2016). Ultimately, unless rep-
resentation directly includes disadvantaged or minoritized groups, competition can drown out the voices of
resource-poor but vote-rich factions.
In all, one major point of this burgeoning research agenda is that representation is not guaranteed by effective
competition (Rahat et al., 2008). Indeed, in countries marked by high levels of difference and inequality, the
two objectives may actually work at cross-purposes, leading countries to ‘careen’ (Slater, 2013) between dif-
ferent modes of politics. This is especially the case when national debates center on conflicts over liberal
constraints and inclusion. Democratic quality need not, therefore, necessarily follow from increased competi-
tion and representation. Democracy may be unthinkable without competition, but competition alone, however
effective or stable, is not sufficient for the stability of democracy.
Still, a new set of works finds renewed importance for the role of competition, and elite-centered organizations
in particular, in stimulating a country's turn to democracy. Weyland (2017) compares waves of democratization
and asks why some periods of democratic diffusion were more successful than others. The answer lies in the
nature of political organization at the time of the wave. Where the political agents charged with channeling
societal momentum for change were tied to well-developed political organizations, then they had access to
information and institutional support that enabled rational decision-making processes. These, in turn, were
more likely to lead to successful democratization than transitions grounded in snap decisions. Ziblatt (2017)
returns to democracy's origins in Western Europe. He posits a newly important role for conservative parties
in orchestrating successful democratic transitions. Where these could re-define themselves as mass democ-
ratic parties, then liberal democracy was more likely to take root. He compares the UK's success story to the
failure of Germany.
Madrid (2019) re-examines the earliest democratic reforms in Latin America. He finds that, against the exist-
ing literature's expectations, pressures from below did not instigate early turns to liberalization. Instead, it was
the presence of opposition parties that, accompanied with key fissures within the ruling party, turned the tide
and allowed for the implementation of liberalizing measures. Bernhard et al. (2019) examine more contempo-
rary concerns of democratic backsliding. They find that organized groups, including political parties, are able
to ‘credibly threaten sanctions against anti-system behavior', shoring up democracy even in periods where
backsliding seems likely (Bernhard et al., 2019: 5). Each of these studies revitalizes the role that political
parties have in institutionalizing uncertainty and channeling key, strategic interests. The presence of (certain
types of) competition in key moments, such as elections, suffrage expansion, and when there are threats to
the regime can bolster democracy over other regime types.
While one stream of literature has dived deeper into the relationship between competition and democracy,
another contemplates the role of competition in democracy's absence. The recent literature on hybrid regimes
throws a wrench into the Schumpeterian idea that competition is a necessary and sufficient condition for
democracy. Indeed, elections have become an ostensible sine que non of any regime. As Schedler notes,
rather wryly, ‘The modal dictator in the contemporary world holds multiparty elections’ (2015: 1). In other

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words, the relationship between competition and democracy is not necessarily linear or straightforward.
Levitsky and Way (2010) develop the notion of competitive authoritarianism to consider the hybrid regimes
that emerged after the end of the Cold War. Competitive authoritarian regimes are host to formal democratic
institutions. Yet, incumbents exploit their power to garner significant advantage when elections are held.
This literature notes that elections can be an important tool for authoritarian incumbents. They are key
sources of information on incumbent legitimacy (Slater and Wong, 2013). Incumbents can bargain with op-
position elites in authoritarian legislatures, trading spoils and concessions for support and resources (Svolik,
2012). An entire literature on authoritarian legislatures (see Schuler and Malesky, 2014 for a review) posits
that, even under autocratic rule, certain advantages can be gained by allowing legislators to publicly debate
policy, even as the presence of opposition views poses a risk to the incumbent. Competition may be restricted
in these circumstances. Still, just as authoritarian legislatures can lead to contested dictatorships, they can
also help bolster the authoritarian regime.
These new research agendas cohere with and challenge our normative understanding of the role that com-
petition plays in promoting plurality, checks and balances and democratization in general. Undoubtedly, they
reinforce the notion that we still have much to learn about political competition and its relationship to gov-
ernmental outcomes and regime endurance. Happily, data on political competition are constantly evolving,
allowing us to answer older questions in new and different ways. The next two sections examine the empirical
data on competition, discussing, first, how metrics of competition change across the globe, and, second, the
sources that exist for measuring competition.
Political Competition around the Globe

Common measures of competition examine the nature of inter-party competition in a polity. Most prominently,
scholars ask: How many competitors are there? How steady is competition? To what extent do competitors in-
teract in stable ways? Metrics to help answer these questions exist. Research on the nature, causes and con-
sequences of competition has proliferated as a result of the development of these measures. In what follows,
we examine three different measures of competition: party system fragmentation, party system institutional-
ization and electoral volatility. We examine this last measure of electoral volatility in great detail, exploring the
(wealth of) literature that has flourished across the globe.
Party System Fragmentation

A party system is fragmented if it contains more than two parties and none of these captures an absolute
majority in the representative assembly. Fragmentation is, thus, a result of both the number of parties in the
system and their relative size (Karvonen, 2011: 1822). The Laakso–Taagepera Index of the Effective Number
of Parties is typically used to measure fragmentation.
Broadly speaking, fragmentation shapes how governing coalitions are formed, including whether coalitions
are necessary at all. It also affects the nature and quality of representation. Where governments are consti-
tuted by many parties, the capacity to hold officials accountable becomes increasingly complex. In all, frag-
mentation has long been seen as one marker of the potential strength and success of government (Karvonen,
2011).
Recent studies on party fragmentation typically adopt either a cross-national (e.g. Lublin, 2017) or a sub-
national approach (e.g. Rozenas and Sadanandan, 2018) and seek to evaluate the role that different social
cleavages (e.g. ethnicity or religion), or social heterogeneity more generally, might have on driving up the
number of viable parties in a country. Theoretical innovations suggest that the relationship between diversity
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and fragmentation may not be linear: greater social diversity tends to correlate, at more moderate stages,
with greater party system fragmentation. At more extreme levels of diversity, however, that positive, linear re-
lationship disappears (Raymond, 2015).
Party System Institutionalization and Electoral Volatility

A party system is institutionalized when it is composed of a ‘stable set of parties’ that ‘interacts regularly in
stable ways’ (Mainwaring et al., 2018: 19). Institutionalized party systems allow agents to develop expecta-
tions about the nature of competition in a particular polity, including their likelihood to endure into the future.
Although the concept has been around since the 1990s, party system institutionalization has increasingly be-
come tied conceptually to the stability of competition among different political parties (see, e.g., Mainwaring et
al., 2018). In practice, this stability has most typically been denoted through the metric of electoral volatility.1
Electoral volatility is typically measured as a change in vote shares obtained by individual political parties in
a given political system across consecutive elections (Roberts and Wibbels, 1999: 576). Where these vote
shares are relatively consistent across time, then a party system exhibits low electoral volatility. Party sys-
tems with consistently low electoral volatility are viewed as highly institutionalized (Kuenzi et al., 2017: 1).
The same set of parties are, by and large, governing over time, allowing actors to draw reasonably valid con-
clusions and expectations regarding coordination and policy-making. Higher levels of electoral volatility, by
contrast, are markers of a weakly institutionalized party system.
Electoral volatility has typically been measured using Pedersen's index of volatility (1979), which captures the
percentage change in either vote or (legislative) seat shares between parties from one election to the next.
More recently, scholars have differentiated between two types of volatility: one that captures the emergence
of new parties and, consequently, votes away from incumbent parties (called Type A volatility), and a second
that measures vote shifts between existing parties (called Type B volatility) (Powell and Tucker, 2014). Type
A volatility in particular is a sign of lower party system institutionalization. In this case, voters are not simply
changing their vote from one (existing) party to another. Instead, they are choosing to defect from all existing
parties and vote for something new (Powell and Tucker, 2014).
Scholars rely heavily on electoral data, based at the country, regional or cross-national level (see, e.g., the
IPU Parline Database on National Parliaments) to measure electoral volatility. Some scholars have examined
trends in volatility across the globe (see, e.g., Mainwaring and Zoco, 2007). Most typically, however, volatility
is examined at the regional level. Electoral volatility is, in practice, highly volatile. Not only does it vary across
regions; it also varies considerably within and across the countries that constitute regions.
Table 51.1 General trends in electoral volatility in different regions

Region Period Mean volatility Type
Western Europe 1885–1995 8.6 Vote
Southern Europe 1970s 16.3 Vote
Latin America 1980s 19.6 Seat
Balkans 1990s 20.3 Vote
East Central Europe 1990s 20.5 Vote
Post-Communist Europe 1989–2002 25.6 Vote

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Sub-Saharan Africa 1990s 28 Seat

Sub-Saharan Africa 1960s–2007 26.0 Seat
Latin America 1980s and 1990s 28.1 Seat
Latin America 1990s 28.2 Vote
Baltic States 1990s 31.4 Vote
Post-Communist Europe 1989-2006 37.0 Seat
Former USSR 1990s 41.9 Vote
Source: Weghorst and Bernhard (2014: 1710).
Table 51.1 provides an overview of volatility trends across several different regions toward the end of the 20th
century. Western Europe, perhaps not surprisingly, has the lowest electoral volatility of any region under in-
vestigation. Its average score is just about half that of Southern Europe, which has the second lowest volatility
score. In general, scholars have underscored the relative stability of party competition across time in Europe
(see, e.g., Bartolini and Mair, 1990).
The post-Communist countries, alternatively, exhibit volatility scores that are higher than other regions, includ-
ing Latin America and Africa. Powell and Tucker (2014) find that Type A volatility, that is, switching votes from
incumbent to new parties, drives overall volatility in post-Communist countries. This differs from, for example,
Western Europe, where a great majority of volatility is driven by changes of votes within the same group of
parties (p. 131).
Some of the earliest works on volatility outside of the global West examined electoral volatility in Latin America
(see, e.g., Roberts and Wibbels, 1999; Madrid, 2005). Decades into the study of volatility in the region, schol-
ars have noted that volatility across time has remained, by and large, quite stable. That is, higher levels of
volatility that marked the post-transition period (1980s–1990s) remain relatively high well into the 21st cen-
tury (Mainwaring et al., 2018). Research on Asian countries shows that volatility levels trend, on average,
alongside those in Latin America. They also tend to be considerably lower than in post-Communist countries,
although there is considerable variation across Asian regions (Hicken and Kuhonta, 2011: 581).
African scholars note that volatility is a problem in much of the African continent, although here too the within-
region variance is significant. The region includes some of the most volatile party systems ever recorded
(Weghorst and Bernhard, 2014: 1707), even as, on average, it fares better than the Baltic states, post-Com-
munist Europe and Latin America during certain decades (Table 51.1). More recent work has broken down
the study of volatility into its Type A and B forms, with some discrepancy on how these distinct measures of
volatility have evolved. While Weghorst and Bernhard (2014) find that type A volatility has decreased with
time – a marker of growing party system institutionalization – Kuenzi et al. (2017) conclude that both types of
volatility (i.e. A and B) remain quite high over time, with little indication of institutionalization (p. 6).
In all, there are notable differences between older party systems, such as those in Europe, and newer ones,
such as those in the global South, with respect to overall volatility trends. Mainwaring and Zoco (2007) con-
firm this pattern and find that the age of democracy is an important predictor of levels of electoral volatility.
Older democracies tend to have party systems that are less volatile than newer democracies. Sequentially,
where parties formed before the onset of mass media, then linkages between parties and citizens tended to
be stronger. But there is also a period effect, wherein parties become less central for integrating citizens into
politics as time passes (Mainwaring and Zoco, 2007: 166–7).

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Additionally, the authors find that, in line with empirical trends noted above, the duration of a democratic (‘com-
petitive') regime has little to no impact on the stabilization of electoral competition (Mainwaring and Zoco,
2007: 169). They attribute this to the generally low levels of confidence that post-1978 democracies inspire
with respect to their party systems. Where ‘citizen disgruntlement with parties is rampant', then one can hardly
expect that the utility of party labels will grow (Mainwaring and Zoco, 2007: 169). This means that, empirically,
we do not see volatility trends decreasing over time. In all, the age of a democracy seems to determine a
volatility baseline that, thereafter, party systems struggle to improve.
Political competition in the form of inter-party competition is incredibly important for shaping the quality of the
democratic regime. Research on volatility suggests that structural factors, and in particular world-historical
time, may delimit the capacity of parties to perform that job effectively. On this point, citizen confidence clearly
matters. Luckily for scholars of political competition, ample public opinion databases exist to explore this rela-
tionship. We turn to these sources now.
Empirical Databases
There are two types of empirical data that are more salient for understanding the nature, causes and conse-
quences of political competition. First, electoral databases provide the vote counts and seat shares necessary
to determine, for example, the effective number of parties or the level of electoral volatility. Often, countries
will make their own electoral data available, although whether these online sources are complete and fully
up to date tends to vary – at times quite widely – from country to country. Institutions such as the Inter-Par-
liamentary Union (IPU, https://data.ipu.org/), and even individual scholars (e.g. Boorman and Golder, 2013,
http://mattgolder.com/elections), also help to make electoral data publicly available.
A second set of databases address political competition indirectly, through surveys with country experts or
a representative sample of citizens. Here, individuals are asked to provide their opinion on a wide range of
questions associated with party politics and, in the case of citizens, their own political and voting behavior. To
what extent are political parties organized subnationally? What is the ideology, if any, of a political party? How
disciplined are parties in government? These are the kinds of questions that expert surveys seek to answer.
Varieties of Democracy (https://www.v-dem.net/en/) makes its data publicly available and allows individuals
to compare the nature of party politics across countries and across time.
With respect to, for example, the reception of parties by the citizenry, their perceived effectiveness and their
strength of ties, nationally representative surveys can be extremely valuable. Additionally, certain clearing-
houses of regional data are available, including the Global Barometer Surveys (GBS, https://www.global-
barometer.net/), which carries out nationally representative surveys in six different regions of the world: Africa
(Afrobarometer), East and Southeast Asia (Asian Barometer), South Asia (South Asia Barometer), Central
and South America (Latinobarómetro), the Middle East (Arab Barometer) and countries of the former Soviet
Union (Eurasia Barometer). There is a paywall attached to this service, and so publicly available options are
becoming increasingly available, including, for example, the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP,
https://www.vanderbilt.edu/lapop/).
Conclusion
While our study of competition has a long and distinguished trajectory, it is nonetheless the case that we lack
clear systematic conclusions regarding the nature, causes and consequences of party competition. This is
true even for one of the oldest posited relationships: that of competition and democratic regimes. Our brief

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review of the state of the literature suggests that context matters when it comes to understanding how compe-
tition shapes (and is shaped by) political institutions and the quality of regimes. Timing also seems to matter,
including, in particular, when competitive institutions emerge.
Moving forward, scholars will likely exploit increasingly more and better data on elections, public opinion and
experts’ considerations, as well as increasingly sophisticated methods, to better understand political compe-
tition and how it operates across space and time. On this point, a turn to the subnational, and the dynamics
of competition across local or regional levels of government, may help elucidate nuances while controlling
for country effects. Moreover, continued research on competition in non-democratic regimes – especially as
these endure over time – may help to establish the relationship between competition and regime type.
If nothing else, this overview demonstrates that competition remains a variable worthy of interrogation. In-
deed, we must not take competition for granted. This is true even in the United States, where new research
has belied the oligarchic nature of the country's stable, two-party system (Bartels, 2016). Competition has
been, and will continue to be, vital to our understanding of how politics operates and evolves in the real world.
Note
1 This tendency has not gone without criticism. Indeed, in his most recent operationalization of party system
institutionalization, Mainwaring supplements the measure of electoral volatility with two additional metrics: cu-
mulative electoral volatility, or a comparison of recent electoral results with those from 1990, and the vote
share in the most recent election of those parties that existed in 1990 (Mainwaring et al., 2018: 5). His goal is
to capture stability over time with these additional measures, since electoral volatility is essentially a snapshot
view of electoral shifts from one election to the next.
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• political competition
• political party
• democracy
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n54

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Regime Change
Contributors: Laurence Whitehead

Chapter Title: "Regime Change"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Regime Change
Laurence Whitehead
A Foundational Topic
The study of regime structures and regime types, and therefore also of regime change, is an essential theme
within the field of comparative politics. Such basic normative categories as despotism, oligarchy, dictatorship,
democracy and mixed constitutionalism (see Schlumberger and Schedler, Chapter 42; Gagné and Mahé,
Chapter 47 this Handbook) can be traced over millenia to the very begin-ning of theorizing about politics. Aris-
totle also originated the comparative empirical analysis of the Greek polities of his time. Since then both nor-
mative and empirical comparisons of varieties of political rule extended from city states to agrarian empires,
pre-industrial civilizations, European colonial systems and eventually modern nation states. After the end of
the Cold War the metrics of regime classifications became much more refined, while on the normative side
there was increased celebration of liberal democracy as the superior model. Contemporary political science
therefore draws upon a deep reservoir of prior scholarship informed not just by the rich and diverse array of
political regimes currently in existence, but also by an even wider and more heterogeneous set of historical
experiences.
In the 21st century, however, more (allegedly scientific) work on regime change has narrowed the focus of
comparative analysis to the study of a small set of precisely defined regime types, and in particular to the
binary and normative comparison of democracies (understood in a very different way from those of classical
Greece) and authoritarian regimes (conflating all the many variants of non-democratic rule). The normative
connotations of this binary schema are also quite recent, since order had traditionally been valued above mob
rule. In the post-1989 setting liberal democracy gained normative ascendancy on the grounds that with good
institutional design strong rule of law and accountability procedures could generate legitimate leadership and
public choice outcomes that were also flexible and grounded on spontaneous citizen consent. By contrast
authoritarian regimes were too rigid and would periodically resort to coercion to cover up their lack of citizen
legitimacy.
In practice, however, ‘really existing’ regimes are never as neatly conformed as these idealized normative
terms would require, with the result that students of comparative politics have invoked a variety of interme-
diate possibilities, including ‘illiberal democracies', hybrid regimes, electoral authoritarianism, and so forth. In
response to recent experiences empirically minded scholars have also reintroduced other transversal con-
siderations such as the wide sub-national variations in political rule that can be experienced by citizens with-
in a single regime and the strong distortions that can arise from systemic corruption, organized crime and
even state failure in a considerable range of national cases. At the normative level, the superiority of liber-
al democracy has been challenged by growing evidence of short-termism, gridlock and kleptocratic capture
in even the most longstanding and well regarded of democratic regimes, while certain authoritarian regimes
have wrapped themselves in nationalist justifications and have sometimes achieved considerable degrees of
performance legitimacy.
Notwithstanding such real life complications, mainstream political science continues an intense research pro-
gram to generate measurements, indicators and rankings that reconcile the complexities of national political
structures with the parsimony of available categorizations. Such scientific regime type analysis is supposed
to explain (perhaps even predict) not just cross-national similarities and differences but also pathways and
the outcomes of processes of regime change to an improbable degree of mechanical necessity and statistical
accuracy. The provisional assessments and tentative generalizations of previous scholarly generations have
been considered too hesitant and fuzzy, since modern techniques can establish such strong and categorical
findings as that democracies do not go to war with each other, and that above some threshold level of income
per capita once a nation has democratized it will not backslide. In the light of such recently discovered acade-
mic truths it became easy to justify the adoption of more insistent and even interventionist methods to replace
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those regimes classified as non-democracies. The expectation both of political science and of the self-pro-
claimed leading world democracies was that the resulting substitute regimes would be more peaceful, more
stable and in every way more desirable to their citizens and to the international community of democracies. In
this way the venerable concept of regime change was transformed from a provisional category of observation
into an instrument of great power imposition.
A Recently Contaminated Concept

Since the Iraq invasion and overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003 the term regime change has acquired
notoriety as code word for a controversial and perhaps extra-legal variant of great power interventionism.
Dan Reiter (2017) calls this FIRC (foreign-imposed regime change) and provides both a general definition
and a measure of its frequency. O'Rourke (2018) opts for the alternative designation, covert regime change,
in his historical account of all such episodes by the US government during the Cold War.1 But in many of
these cases the United States did not act alone, and in some it was not even the dominant player, while oth-
er prominent western powers also promoted regime change by coercive and/or covert means, notably the
British and the French. In addition, over the course of the 20th century a range of other leading powers (in-
cluding some authoritarian regimes) engaged in more undisguised but still FIRC-like activities, including the
Nazis in Czechoslovakia and Norway before World War, and the USSR in Eastern Europe after 1945. There
have followed a miscellany of further episodes since the Cold War that might be considered either FIRCs or
attempts at covert regime change, for example in Afghanistan, Bolivia, Georgia, Haiti, Iraq, Libya, Panama,
Somalia, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela and Yemen. As this illustrative list indicates, a great variety of regimes are
involved, and the possible sources of external intervention are multiple and diverse. Moreover, the coding of
these cases is imprecise, and still subject to conflicting expert interpretations of key issues. Thus, the bound-
ary between foreign influenced and foreign imposed cases can be elastic, and where covert action is involved
the scope for mis-specification is magnified. Polemical features of 21st-century political turbulence have thus
contaminated popular understandings of the meaning of ‘regime change'.
Standing Back
The post-Cold War experience shows we need a more disaggregated and nuanced grid of ‘regime change’
trajectories. Explanations need to distinguish between internal regime features and external drivers of regime
change. Some of these drivers are applicable in both directions; others are unilinear. Early literature recog-
nized the possibilities for regime type overlap, as evidenced by the concepts of democradura and dictablan-
da. Since then, more sophisticated classifications of contemporary ‘really existing’ regimes highlight the per-
sistence of intermediate or ‘hybrid’ categories. The major national ranking and rating indicators tend to work
with continuums rather than dichotomies. Multi-dimensional mapping indicates that many regimes evolve
gradually over extended periods, often in an unbalanced manner. Tracking changes over time indicate as
much evidence of ‘oscillation’ and ‘backsliding', contradicting early assumptions of ‘irreversible’ one-step
regime change. Sub-national studies have contributed to uncover large territorial variance within many na-
tional regimes.
The drivers of change are likely to vary between different subsets of a regime type (e.g. absolute monarchy,
theocracy, military rule and one-party systems, may all be counted as autocracies, but change according to
distinctive logics). Another step is to separate out structural forces that may precipitate regime change over
the long run (generational change, economic decline, or demographic shifts) from more short-term factors
(external military defeat, succession crisis or ideological polarization). The trajectory of the change process
will depend in part upon the time horizon under consideration. A third aspect concerns the isolated or region-
wide scope of the destabilizing impulse (most regime changes affect neighboring states, rather than being
confined to one country). Finally, there is a broader set of contextual factors that have sometimes been in-
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voked as causally determinant (state ‘failure’ or religious dogma or post-conflict memories and legacies).
With these considerations in mind, and in order to decontaminate the concept, and to return it to use as an
academic tool in the study of comparative politics, this chapter first examines the two component parts –
‘regime’ and ‘change’ – before combining them and focusing in on the scope conditions required to make
political ‘regime change’ an effective analytical instrument. Much of the contemporary usage of the term con-
cerns change from authoritarian rule to democracy (i.e. democratization), but as a general concept in compar-
ative politics it cannot be restricted to that fashionable area alone. It must also apply to change in the reverse
direction, and if the artificial assumption of a binary divide in regime types is relaxed it should also extend to
changes between multiple variants (e.g. from ruling monarchy to constitutional theocracy in Iran in 1979, or
from totalitarian communism to one-party authoritarianism in China in the same period). While externally im-
posed change requires attention (and the international relations literature on this aspect is highly developed),
internal regime dynamics can never be disregarded, and in most cases occupy the center stage.
Regimes
Our first step should be to specify what is meant by a political regime, and how this relates to adjoining con-
cepts. How do contemporary scholars use the term? A political regime is a durable and coherent system or
structure of rules and norms (both formal and conventional) regulating the relations between the rulers and
their subjects in a given jurisdiction (normally, but not necessarily, a recognized sovereign state). If so, a num-
ber of distinctions follow. If the core matrix of rules is too ephemeral or unstable there is no regime (as in
Somalia, perhaps). When considering only formal and explicit regulations, one is dealing with a ‘constitution’
rather than a whole regime (which can be highly arbitrary, corrupt or personalist so long as informal norms
support such features). ‘Government’ is another category that overlaps with ‘regime', without equating to it,
since governments are not necessarily durable or coherent, and they may relate to their subjects in an erratic
and transactional manner. A regime is typically lodged within a state, but state formation is a separate and
often a very long-term process that precedes and underpins regime formation, which tends to persist even
when major regime change occurs (Fishman, 1990). So, in standard social science parlance, a regime out-
lasts successive governments but is less durable than a state. At the margin, this schema may not always
hold (Prince Sihanouk's government in Cambodia persisted through several changes of regime, at least nom-
inally, and the Saudi regime seems to have preceded the Saudi state). Steven Krasner has argued that it
is principles and values, rather than rules and norms, which best distinguish one regime type from the next.
Stephanie Lawson (1993) adds the suggestion that the more democratic the regime, the sharper its differenti-
ation both from government and from state. Conversely, in a deeply authoritarian regime neither government
nor state can be strongly separated out. Note that all this discussion concerns national ‘political’ regimes – not
to be confused with international regimes, or various other orders where the word is also applied (electoral,
party, even dietary regimes).
Genealogy
The past three decades have seen an explosion of regime typologies and empirical indicators that purport
to measure and rank nations according to these criteria. All member states of the United Nations qualify for
consideration under this rubric, but in practice it is the post-colonial states of the ‘global south’ that provide
the bulk of the evidence reviewed here. Contemporary usage of the term is reasonably clear and stable, but
it is also instructive for the purposes of this chapter to delve back into the genealogy of ‘regime’ as a concept
derived from the history of European political thought. So for the genealogy of the concept it is worth reaching
back to the ancien régime prevailing in France until 1789, and, although there are problems involved in trac-
ing genealogical traditions too far back, comparing what the leading thinkers of Florence said about the shift
from a Medici-dominated ‘narrow’ regime to a more ‘open’ regime in their city state in 1494.2
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France
References to the ancien régime in France appeared as early as 1789, but they initially concerned fairly pre-
cise and narrow aspects of the previous dispensation, such as the old fiscal rules. Once the national assembly
claimed full and indivisible sovereignty the meaning of the term broadened to encompass monarchical rule
as a system, but even then, the divide between past and future forms of government was soft-edged. It was
not until the following year that the wholesale ‘abolition’ of the Old Regime came to embody the purpose of
the Revolution, making way for a tabula rasa with all the resulting radical consequences. The elasticity of the
term ‘regime’ ended in the crystallization of an all-encompassing concept of a ‘Regime', identified with all the
negative practices, assumptions and values that the revolutionaries were sworn to uproot forever. The poly-
semy of the term was thereby ‘decontested’ (Freeden, 2013: chapter 2) by the imposition of its strongest and
most emotionally polarizing variant, with consequences that have divided French politics (and have structured
European political thought) ever since.3 Even today, much of the contemporary regime change literature rests
on a moralizing and totalizing binary model of reasoning that reflects similar tabula rasa assumptions. But this
is not the only way that regime discontinuities can be (or always have been) modeled.
Florence
The perspective of Guiccardini's 15th-century Dialogue offers a sharp contrast to the binary outlook of 19th-
century French analysts of regime change, and this goes far to explain their very different standpoints.4 The
Dialogue opens with an airing of the case for the departed regime of Piero de Medici before his expulsion
from Florence. As the exchanges unfold the Dialogue contains more arguments supportive of a cautious ver-
sion of the incoming republican form of government. But taken as a whole, the debate is unresolved, with the
drift of the argument pointing rather toward a hardheaded realism about the problems of both alternatives, as
compared to the severe challenges facing rulers of whichever type. On this reading, whatever the theoretical
merits of one regime or another, the greater need is to find a practical way of managing political dangers, with
voluntaristic regime change pictured more of a risk than a remedy. The lived experience of Florence in the
four decades after 1494 lends extra authority to this line of argument.
A comparison between the texts of Guiccardini and Furet points to a more general lesson about perspectival-
ism in the selection and deployment of concepts used to compare complex historical processes. Retrospec-
tion (France after the Revolution) generates a different angle of vision from prospection (Florence ahead of
the last Medici experiment). This is so even when the cases under study are very similar. For example, when
the ‘transitions’ project studied prospective transitions to democracy in the 1980s we already had access to
substantial research on, say, post-Franco Spain, but in advance of what was about to take place, we were
bound to adopt a more tentative position (O'Donnell et al., 1986). But the lesson is not confined to differen-
tial judgments separating known past outcomes from uncertain future ones. Perspectives on future regime
changes can range from hubristic confidence that an eventual success is predetermined (Blair and Bush on
Iraq) to implacable division between those favoring the outcome (regardless of the drawbacks) and those
opposed (whatever the merits), as in the current British divide over exiting the European Union. When polar-
ization of this kind takes hold it can divide and distort expert and academic opinion as well as broader public
views, not only in the near term but also for generations to come, as the ideological impact of 1789 on French
political culture demonstrates so clearly.
But how relevant are such country specific debates from centuries long past for the study of regime changes
in current comparative politics? The negative view would be that they are only single country episodes; they
may not really resemble 20th and 21st-century conditions; they are hard to code; and the material presented
here is subjective and impressionistic. On the other hand, the alternative case is that they are central to the
process tracing of our concept formation; they alert us to the perspectival distortions that can enter into all
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case studies (modern quite as much as historical); and they demonstrate that the topic of regime change is
inherently value-laden. To establish and compare narratives of this kind, observers should be aware of the
background ‘framing’ that provides a good part of their meaning, both to the actors involved and to the schol-
ars aiming to explain them.
Three Dimensions of Regime Change

These glimpses of the genealogy of thinking about ‘regimes’ also introduce the term ‘change’ – the second we
must define and deconstruct. In the French case the relevant master concept is ‘revolution', whereas in the
Florentine example there are two key words: alterazione and mutazione. A further Italian contribution, named
after the 1958 novel and referring to Garibaldi's arrival in Sicily, is gattopardismo.5 The classical Chinese con-
cept of tianming is translated as ‘losing the Mandate of Heaven'.6 Standard terms in the modern literature
on comparative democratization include liberalization, transition, consolidation, backsliding, degeneration and
‘careening’ (Slater, 2013). All refer to change of a single regime, but there are also collective linear processes
(such as modernization) and cyclical movements. For example, many authors still lazily invoke the metaphor
of ‘waves’ – more accurately thought of as ‘clusters'. And I have recently proposed ‘oscillations’ (Whitehead,
2018), which could apply both to single regime changes and to wider demonstration effects. The most ambi-
tious (and misguided) conceptualization of global change was a once-and-for-all liberal democratic terminus
as presented in Fukuyama's The End of History (1992).
In short, the scholarly literature contains an embarras de richesses as regards terms available to categorize
macro-political processes of regime change. Although the main focus of all these alternative phrases is to
characterize discontinuities between successive political orders within a given sovereign territory, regimes can
also change through secession (South Sudan's independence in 2011) or incorporation (annexation of Goa
by India in 1961); decolonization or military incursion – either successful (Russia and Crimea) or thwarted
(the Greek attempt to seize Cyprus or Argentina's Falkland invasion). In short, both internal and international
routes to political regime change can come in many variants, and the concept therefore encompasses a wide
diversity of processes. Depending on the issue under consideration, various strategies of disaggregation may
therefore be required. Alternatively, taking all versions of regime change as a set, separate dimensions of
these processes may be distinguished.
In what follows, all such processes can be analyzed and classified along three basic dimensions: the direction
of change, the scale of change and the duration of the changes in question.
Direction of Change
For a couple of decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, regime change was a term generally equated
with transitions to democracy (Rustow,1970). This was the dominant direction of movement in the 1990s and
was still assumed by many academics to be the natural or underlying tendency in the new millennium, giv-
en the assumed dominance of democratic polities in the post-communist world system. But as contrary ex-
perience accumulated, scholarly opinion began to shift (albeit with a time-lag), and by the end of the Oba-
ma administration not only the resilience but also even the resurgence of ‘authoritarian’ regimes became an
academic growth industry. Thereafter, a new priority abruptly gained prominence in the comparative politics
literature: the perceived vulnerability of even the most secure and long-established democratic regimes to
destabilization by their undemocratic rivals. Thus uni-directional models of change gave way to bi-directional
thinking. In practice this was really a return to an older tradition of analysis: the ‘breakdown’ of democracy
studies of the early 1970s, which drew lessons from Weimar and reflected on the South American experi-
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ences of that period (Linz and Stepan, 1978).
At a more theoretical level, it should have been obvious that so long as there are multiple regime types in
operation in world politics, analysis must contemplate the possibility that changes between them might go in
any direction.7 In a world with only two regime types the directional possibilities are binary, but as we shall
see below, both theory and measurement of 21st-century experience has shifted the discussion toward more
plural typologies, with various intermediate or mixed possibilities that are proving sufficiently stable and coher-
ent to count as hybrid ‘regimes’ (electoral authoritarianism, etc.). The essential point for comparative theory is
that three regime types require the examination of 6 possible directions of change, while four types generate
12 possible pathways, five types raise the theoretical options to 24 possible routes between any one and any
other, and so on. For that reason, any refinement of the initial binary schema generates much larger shifts in
the content and dynamics of regime change theory.
In practice, the norm is regime continuity rather than change, and where multiple shift options become avail-
able in theory, in reality most are ‘empty box’ hypotheticals. For example, it is hard to imagine any contem-
porary case of migration from liberal democracy to royal absolutism,8 whereas movement in the opposite
direction is fairly standard (recently in Bhutan and Nepal, for example). But royal absolutism can equally well
transition to electoral authoritarianism (Kuwait), or to military rule (Libya), or to theocracy (Iran), or to a one-
party state (Iraq), rather than to a constitutional democracy. And if all these alternatives are recognized as
variants of regime change, one must also entertain the possibility that one such transition may also belong in
a sequence (such as from royal absolutism to hybrid constitutionalism to military rule to liberal democracy –
and, perhaps, back again).
But with multiple regime options one also needs to keep in mind that our definition of the term includes the
attribute of durability. That can be reconciled with the idea of sequential regime changes, but only if they are
major discontinuities that must also be spaced out over a considerable period of time. With that caveat it
becomes logical to model regime changes as not only bi-directional but also potentially reversible, and as
sometimes involving intermediate stages and at other times including the possibility of skipping stages (mov-
ing from one pole of a continuum directly to the opposite pole, for instance). For example, France in 1789 can
be considered to have transited within three years directly from royal absolutism to constitutional republican-
ism, and thereafter for two centuries to have shifted back and forth between various intermediate (but less
categorical) versions of these two pure types. The UK, over the same period, can be seen as pursuing a more
linear and gradualist progression, as the franchise was extended step by step, and as more inclusionary and
egalitarian features were added on incrementally. This contrast leads us to the second dimension of regime
change.
Scale of Change
Two centuries ago the UK was not a democracy. Today (by general consent) it is. If so, when did Britain's
political regime change from constitutional oligarchy to democracy? Was it at the time of the 1832 Reform Act
(Ertman, 2010), the Second Reform Act of 1867, the showdown over the House of Lords in 1910, the granting
of universal suffrage in 1928, the defeat of the old order in 1945 or ‘UK Independence’ from the anti-democ-
ratic shackles of the EU in the referendum of 2016? Or will it not be accomplished until the hereditary element
of the House of Lords is eliminated, and Britain acquires its own written constitution? These are all valid steps
that, when taken together, could be counted as democratic ‘regime change’ in standard coding exercises in
comparative politics. But they were not taken together in this case – they were conceded bit by bit over almost
two centuries. So what scale of discontinuity is required for political scientists to authorize the use of the term
‘regime change'?
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Perhaps the UK's three centuries of constitutional monarchy and continuity make it a case apart, outside the
classifications that encompass all other political systems? Not really, for gradual evolution is a more general
feature of regime trajectories. Hence, in 2004 the Democracy Coalition Project compared ten new democra-
cies under the heading ‘regime change by the book'. The study concerned four categories of what it called
‘legal regime change’ outside of national elections that might serve to ensure democratic continuity and avoid
backsliding. These changes within a democratic regime (recall and votes of no confidence, impeachment,
succession and criminalization of unconstitutional power seizures) were all visualized as partial legal regime
changes that might reinforce regime development in a democratic direction (Piccone, 2004). So although
some (probably most) regime changes can be dated precisely as total systemic transformations, it is also nec-
essary to contemplate the possibility of smaller scale but linked innovations stretching out over generations,
or even centuries, that can cumulatively and incrementally give rise to long run system change. If so, we need
some criteria to identify which smaller scale but linked innovations should be included under this rubric, since
there are also many examples of partial and potentially incremental measures that do not culminate in full
spectrum regime change. Indeed, a majority of such reforms may more plausibly be understood as attempts
to pre-empt and indeed avert ‘real’ democratization. Temporality enters in here as well: how long is it possible
to delay before the next step in the sequence confirms that the real direction is cumulative?
Even when the formal institutions of a regime are of sufficient scale and cohesion to guide a systemic change,
the ‘informal’ institutions that can also regulate political behavior may well thwart this objective, in particular
at the local and community levels. For example, some of the Arab Spring initiatives to introduce more demo-
cratic politics to the Middle East after 2011 were blocked in part by informal and traditional power structures
that operated most strongly away from the main cities, and especially in many rural areas (as in Egypt). More
generally, recent scholarship on regime change has shifted from an initial focus on questions of institution-
al design toward paying more attention to ‘informality’ and formal institutional weaknesses as major factors
shaping trajectories of political change (Levitsky and Murillo, 2009).9 There is also more scholarly attention
paid to various sectoral components of regime resilience or instability, such as the role of youth organizations
(see, for example, Krawatzek, 2018).
The dimension of scale not only relates to sectoral and informal responses to a given institutional innovation; it
can also concern the geographical scope of intentional regime change: for example, the establishment of the
Scottish Assembly may only directly affect one-tenth of the UK's citizenry, but even so it could prove a critical
step in the democratization of Scotland (possibly in contradistinction to its impact on the other 90%). Direct
election to the European Parliament (also connected with other provisions granting it budgetary, legislative,
treaty approving and supervisory functions) can be regarded as a significant step toward the establishment
of a more pooled sovereignty regime in the great mass of continental Europe as a whole. Thus, in addition
to steps taken at the nation-state level, both sub-national and supra-national power transfers can qualify as
features of incremental regime change.10 This does not only apply to peaceful change in democratic regimes
– the secession of South Sudan or the incorporation of Zanzibar into Tanzania were also ‘regime changes’ on
a regional scale in non-democratic contexts. The same may apply to Hong Kong's gradual absorption into the
PRC. These examples serve as a lead-in to the third dimension of regime change to be considered here.
Duration of Change
A good starting point here is the step-change model of regime transition, well exemplified by the case of
Spain. For four decades Franco and his military imposed a brutally repressive and centralized authoritarian
regime, until the caudillo's death from natural causes in 1976. There followed a brief and intense process of
transition, but then from the constitution of 1978 (approved by 92% of the votes cast in a referendum), for a
further four decades Spain was governed as a standard liberal democracy. Here we have one durable regime
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succeeded by a very different type of successor of at least equal durability, with only the briefest of intervals
separating the two. This experience provided an influential model for many other countries to replicate and
has captured the scholarly and public imagination as a ‘normal’ pattern of democratization.
Even so, closer inspection of the Spanish case raises a few complications. In 1981 a military contingent
seized the Cortes with the evident intention of restoring a Franquista-style system. It was promptly sup-
pressed owing to the action of the king, but the fragility of the new disposition had been exposed to public
view. For the first three decades of the democratic regime an armed resistance operated in the Basque coun-
try, led by ETA, the regional separatist movement that in some ways had precipitated the transition when it
assassinated General Franco's chosen successor and thereby opened the way for monarchical arbitrage. In
the fourth decade, as the 1978 regime overcame the armed opposition of some Basques, a (bare) majority of
Catalan voters migrated to support for independence under a separatist republic. In a similar vein, Franco's
authoritarian rule encompassed an early period of utter ruthlessness, but also a final two decades of relative
pluralism (within some strict limits). Moreover, before the civil war of 1936–9 a variety of more short-lived and
partial regime forms had succeeded one another in dizzying succession – absolute monarchy, constitution-
al monarchy, first republic, monarchical restoration, but with a military interlude (the dictablanda of Gener-
al Berenguer and Admiral Aznar in 1930–1, contrasting with the previous dictadura of Primo de Rivera), a
second republic (including a democradura episode during the 1930s depression) and then the election of a
Popular Front government. Taking all these features into consideration, a heroic degree of schematization is
required to picture Spain's experiences of regime change simply in terms of a single step-change between
two very durable and opposed regime types.
At the other extreme in terms of duration are those fleeting political experiments that do not last long enough
to qualify as regimes (Chile's hundred-day first ‘socialist republic’ only lasted from June 4 to September
13, 1932, for example). Four decades later, Juan Linz (1975) suggested that some South American mili-
tary takeovers were to be understood as corrective interludes rather than permanent power seizures, and so
coined a distinction between authoritarian ‘situations’ and more durable ‘regimes'.
In synthesis, models of regime change are only usable within certain ‘scope conditions’ that do not apply to
all cases in all time periods. The scale of the political system can be too small/too subordinate; its duration
can be too brief; its internal coherence can be too unstable (causing directional unpredictability); the territory
in question may contain too many ‘ungoverned’ spaces; and so on.
In addition to these three general dimensions of regime change (direction, scale and duration) there are,
of course, other useful sub-classifications to consider. One transversal category of particular interest is the
speed of the relevant change or changes. From the fall of the Bastille to Ten Days that Shook the World or
certain episodes within the Arab Spring sequence, we know that intensely drastic, comprehensive and unex-
pected political changes can be compressed into extremely short time spans. (This can apply regardless of
the direction, scale or eventual duration of the regime change in question.) On the other hand, a slow buildup
of relentlessly advancing pressures can also exert such pressure for change that even a very robust regime
will be compelled to give way. So another consideration, related but not reducible to speed, is timing. For
example, there are also voluntarist possibilities, in which change can be decreed from the apex of a strong
regime, which uses all its powers of control to speedily and proactively rewrite the rules of the game ahead
of events (Ataturk in the 1920s; Taiwan in the 1980s). When great speed is involved resistance may be too
late, but collective understanding may lag well behind the momentum of change, whereas when relentless
long-term forces have built up, the society may be psychologically prepared for the new regime well before
the rulers discover what is happening. In summary, speed can be a highly relevant variable shaping the tra-
jectory of regime changes, regardless of their direction or magnitude.11

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Hybrid and Borderline Cases

In general, it is easy to grasp the idea that all ‘really existing’ examples of regime change must fit within the
three dimensions of direction, scale and duration, and that they must fall between some upper and some low-
er limit on each account. But when it comes to placing any individual process within this comparative frame-
work it turns out that many contemporary episodes are hard to place with much precision, and that crucial
but awkward features of key examples often fall outside neat boundaries. To put the same point in different
language, careful and contextually sensitive examination of the empirical evidence tends to throw up an abun-
dance of borderline cases and ‘hybrid’ experiences.
Recent discussions of ‘backsliding’ by long-established (allegedly ‘consolidated') democratic regimes high-

light the difficulties that can arise when attributing directionality to regime changes. How long must a regres-
sion last, and what scale must it display, before it should be reclassified as a de-democratization? Does the
same threshold (in terms of duration and scale) apply when examining an exemplary case of democratic
consolidation (Switzerland or the United States, for example) as when considering a more recently and less
solidly implanted counterpart (say Brazil, or the Philippines)? Likewise, when a totalitarian regime (say Mao's
China) undergoes far reaching liberalization on multiple dimensions (economic, institutional, communication-
al and even cultural), as under the Deng reforms, and therefore migrates to the ‘authoritarian’ category, the
concept of regime change may seem applicable – but this is only clear so long as the three dimensions op-
erate steadily and conjointly. Once Xi Jinping starts countermanding these liberalization processes, a ‘hybrid’
or borderline classification may be needed, or perhaps the reversal of direction may even merit the label ‘re-
stored totalitarianism'.
Current scholarly uncertainties about both the United States and the China examples underline the impor-
tance and sensitivity of such judgments, and therefore challenge over-confident labeling exercises in the lit-
erature on contemporary regime change. More generally, as already noted, when more regime types are sin-
gled out for separate consideration (for example, Juan Linz (1975) identified seven sub-types of authoritarian
regime, which he also distinguished from totalitarianism; or for military regimes see Geddes, 2014), that can
greatly expand the scope for mismatch between cases and categories.
The Explosion of Large-N Statistical Analysis

Notwithstanding these complications, since the end of the Cold War empirical work on regime change has
become far more focused on the analysis of large-N datasets. The construction of such series began well
before 1989, with the Freedom House annual ratings of the nations of the world on a 1–7 scale dating back to
1972. But the proliferation of ‘objective’ annual measurements of regime type outcomes really took off in the
1990s. Polity IV used a ten-point scale to measure both autocracy and democracy in all countries stretching
far back over time. Bertelsmann constructed two ‘transformation indices’ to track the progress of both political
and economic reform in major transforming states since the Soviet collapse; and the Varieties of Democracy
project probably constitutes the most elaborate and carefully specified catalogue of regime trajectories cur-
rently available. Each series adopts its own specific criteria and protocols. In broad terms a large degree of
co-variance is reported, although much is also made of second order divergences, and differences of cover-
age. The two main methods involved are expert ratings and public opinion surveys. The annual Barometer
Surveys for Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia are increasingly coordinated to generate comparable re-
gional outputs, which can also be checked against such global exercises as the World Values Survey. Other
supportive datasets are provided on more specific themes, such as the Electoral Integrity Project and Trans-
parency International's Corruption Perceptions Index.
Gasiorowski (1996) produced an early political regime change dataset covering 97 ‘third world’ countries of
more than one million inhabitants, from independence to 1992. This has been superseded by later work using
extensive post-Cold War evidence, with many more observations and more sophisticated coding procedures.
However, it is worth revisiting as a clear and foundational large-N exercise. He found high correlation between
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his data and nearly all the other extant series available. He collapsed ‘totalitarian’ into ‘authoritarian’ regimes
on the grounds that there were so few of the former. Nevertheless, he identified not two but four separate
regime types – democracy, semi-democracy, authoritarian and transitional. The last of the four was surpris-
ing, given that he recorded so few cases, and also that they were (self-evidently) all short-lived. The most
significant finding was that only 5% of the 6,842 regime-years in his tabulation recorded some form of regime
change. Regime continuity was very much the norm in this third world universe (Gasiorowski, 1996: 477).12
A decade later, using more careful concepts, coding and sources, Mainwaring et al. (2007: Appendix Table
5.3) conducted a similar exercise, restricting their coverage to the 20 republics of Latin America between 1945
and 2004, and limiting themselves to only three regime types (authoritarian, semi-democracy and democra-
cy). From this set of 1,200 regime-year observations they identified in total 90 regime changes (12 in Peru,
10 in Argentina, 9 in Ecuador, 7 in Venezuela, 6 in Honduras, 5 in Bolivia, 5 in Brazil). Overall there were 52
changes in a ‘positive’ direction (4.3% of all years) compared with 38 regressions from democracy (3.2%).
But it is permissible to query whether these were really comparable episodes. The average Peruvian regime
lasted five years (almost too short to qualify as durable), whereas in Cuba and Paraguay only one change
was recorded in six decades. Moreover, neither the Cuban Revolution of 1958 nor the Nicaraguan Revolu-
tion of 1979 were coded as regime changes of any kind: unbroken authoritarian rule is what this classification
system decrees for these profound political transformations.
Many further large-N regime studies have since accumulated, with broader coverage and more refined coding
procedures. For example, Jan Teorell (2010: 142) provided a useful overview and a range of causal models
and estimations of democratic regime change (he accepts that this is not the only possible variant) for 165
countries between 1972 and 2006, using a continuum and separating ‘upturns’ from ‘downturns'. Probably his
most robust finding was that ‘during the third wave, modernization and economic freedom prevented de-de-
mocratization'. However that may be, a major preoccupation in the literature since his study was published
has been to explain the proliferation of de-democratization tendencies (or ‘backsliding') in modern and ‘mar-
ketized’ regimes following the 2008 global financial crisis.
Two key features of all these exercises require particular attention here: they generate comparative data in
the form of regime-years; and they take for granted the relative homogeneity of the universe of cases under
consideration. From a ‘regime change’ standpoint the first feature means that major discontinuities in nation-
al political trajectories should show up as dateable breaks in a numerical series – the scale and direction of
each break should therefore be quantified and capable of comparison with equivalent movements in parallel
series. The second feature means that this measurement of ‘equivalent movement’ is an artifact of the coding
procedures adopted, rather than the product of contextually sensitive paired comparison. It is simply taken for
granted or imposed as a convenient assumption, rather than established through careful observation, that a
one-year movement of so many points in the scoring of country A equates, in regime change terms, to the
same outcome as in country B when the same movement is recorded. (Thus, for example, the breakup of the
USSR counts as one observation unit; the ‘rescue mission’ to Grenada rates as an equivalent other). Both
these features merit some critical exploration.
Consider the regime-year criterion as it operates in one of the more interesting recent episodes of regime
change. For three decades after 1955, Argentine politics followed the path of an ‘impossible game’ (O'Don-
nell, 1973), with frequent and often dramatic changes not only in political leadership but also in the rules gov-
erning political competition and the goals and values of the system as a whole. Eventually, in 1984, a more
durable regime change (transition to democracy) took place, but even then military rebellions, the forced early
retirement of an elected president and a disputable constitutional change intervened. Still, a decade and a
half of fairly normal democratic politics followed – until 1999, after which a new and extended period of more
polarized confrontation ensued. At best, the ‘regime-year’ method of coding might more or less succeed in
tracking the key turning points, but it would also pick up a great deal of turbulence and noise that, standing
back a little, can be seen to have been leading nowhere.

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Although Argentina is an especially disorienting case, similar distortions can arise when relying on a sequence
of annual observations in other leading cases as well, such as Thailand or Turkey, for example (Turan, 2015).
At the other end of this continuum there are also very gentle and incremental progressions from one regime
to another, with no abrupt annual discontinuity, but a clear shift over time nonetheless (post-Mao China, for
example). Even very well constructed indicators may therefore miss important features of regime change if
they focus too heavily on calendar years. (And most such annual series are not that well honed.)
One reason why such numerical proxies are so loose an approximation of reality is that they rely on standard-
ized criteria taken out of their configurative context and assumed to be uniform in their significance (electoral
turnover, constitutional reform, media pluralism, judicial independence and so on). Large-N tabulations do not
discriminate between exemplary regime changes (France in 1789, Spain in 1976) and marginal episodes.
This might make sense if the universe of processes under inspection was homogeneous (if there was a world-
wide convergence toward a single liberal democratic end-state of regime, say), but it will distort and mislead
if in fact not only the starting points but also the trajectories and the eventual outcomes of regime changes
prove diverse or divergent. A country gets included in these databases if it is recognized as a sovereign state
(since 1945 the critical test is membership of the UN General Assembly), and perhaps also if it has a mini-
mum population size (more than one million inhabitants is the usual cut-off point).
In major respects the universe of cases under study is quite heterogeneous, as are both the form of regime
that each starts with and the available pathways for subsequent political development. For example, although
the parliamentary democracies of Iceland, India and Israel may be similar in terms of their constitutional struc-
tures, other key indicators measuring core features of their respective political orders are far from fully com-
parable. The first is an ethnically homogeneous and geographically secure pluralist regime with a very small
population and a very high per capita income. The second is a vast, linguistically and religiously diverse low-
income sub-continental nuclear power with bitter internal divisions and hostile neighbors. It has more than
three thousand times as many citizens as Iceland, with far lower average levels of education and productivity.
The third is a beleaguered state recently constructed as the homeland of a previously scattered Jewish peo-
ple, with occupied territories containing a large and embittered non-Jewish population not yet reconciled to
their diminished legal status. In order to compare regime change in such contrasting situations it is essential
to factor in the features that are unique to each of these contexts, as well as those that are common to all
three. Enlarging the universe of countries in the database may distract attention from this requirement, but it
only adds to the range of non-standard features screened out by the indicators available for all cases.
The 193-strong current membership of the General Assembly ranges from China with 1.4 billion inhabitants
to Nauru with 9,000. So instead of treating each member state as an equal weight reporting unit for regime
change purposes, it would make sense to test13 large-N comparative political databases on population-
weighted criteria. For example, Corbett and Veenendaal (2018) examine the 39 states with fewer than one
million inhabitants as a separate cluster. They found that whereas GDP per capita was a significant predictor
of democracy in the 154 states with more than one million inhabitants, there was no such relationship among
the 39 smallest states. These small states also differ from the rest with regard to cultural fragmentation and
colonial legacy, and also on other dimensions. Overall they not only establish that small states constitute a
separate set of cases with distinctive empirical characteristics, they also provide a credible theory to account
for this contrast. Stated simply, regimes with small populations depend more on face-to-face personal rela-
tionships, and therefore display distinctive political traits. It is also worth disaggregating further to compare
regime features in small Caribbean, Pacific Island and other settings. Too indiscriminate a universe of report-
ing units would blot out these behaviorally critical determinants of regime dynamics. In addition, some major
large-N studies have excluded such small states – perhaps on the plausible basis that few experts are avail-
able to provide the codings, and that it is uneconomic to conduct opinion surveys in such settings. But if a
database is constructed on the one country, one unit principle, the omission of 20 per cent of all cases may
distort the overall picture, especially if the omitted cases prove atypical.14

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Alternatively, instead of using country weightings, political regimes could be measured and compared in terms
of the number of subjects governed under each dispensation. On that basis, for example, just six large feder-
al democracies encompass about half the voters existing in the world's electoral democracies (Behrend and
Whitehead, 2016). India provides the pre-eminent weight in this set: a single state within India (Uttar Pradesh)
has almost as many citizens as Brazil, the third most populous member of the set. Within these huge federal
regimes one can find major variations in sub-national political conditions. Kashmir with more than 12 million
inhabitants, for example, is partially occupied by Pakistan (which supports an endemic insurgency), and the
Indian-governed core of the state is subject to repeated episodes of ‘presidential rule’ imposed from New
Delhi. So the ‘regime’ in this state is very different from that of the overall nation, and its rhythms of ‘regime
change’ are highly distinctive. Counting the whole of India as a single reporting unit in a regime change data-
base would screen out such considerations.
Multiple Drivers
This survey has emphasized the polysemy of the term ‘regime'; the many and varied possible forms of regime
discontinuity; and the importance of a range of contextual conditions that set boundaries to the validity of
comparisons and that generate diverse hybrid and borderline cases. In light of all these considerations, the
inescapable inference is that no single factor can be expected to trigger all regime changes. To the contrary,
researchers will have to consider a multiplicity of drivers, some of them associated with the observable diver-
sity of pathways and of outcomes.
Some basic divisions can be outlined here. One can distinguish between mainly external and predominantly
internal precipitants of change (e.g. war and decolonization in the first case, versus succession crisis and fis-
cal disorder among the second set of causes). Internationally driven discontinuities can confirm pre-existing
foreign alignments (so that only the internal political order is changed), or they can overturn them. Then on
the domestic side there are top-down versus bottom-up drivers of regime change. The impetus can originate
in the capital city, but it can also flow in from the periphery. The transition can be negotiated (e.g. through an
elite pact), or it can be imposed. Sometimes there is a clear and short interregnum (a step-change), but fitful,
incremental and protracted processes are also possible – notably when bridging institutions are weak or ab-
sent, and when incoming rulers are inexperienced and divided. In addition to these actor-driven pathways to
regime change, scholars must also assess longer term and more ‘structural’ factors, such as socio-economic
trends, demographic and occupational shifts and even changes in underlying norms and values. The latter
can be internally driven but also produced by external demonstration effects. Historical legacies can prove
very long lasting, and may therefore shape or constrain the trajectories available in any given case. In sum-
mary, there is a large inventory of possible drivers of regime change, and comparative work needs to sift and
contextualize these factors if it is to account for individual processes or for related clusters of them.
Conclusion
Let us revert back to the foundational assumptions of ‘regime change’ theory, and some reformulations in the
light of recent experience and empirical study, taking into account the more complex ‘grid’ of trajectories out-
lined above.
As a serious concept in comparative politics, ‘regime change’ has a venerable genealogy and a complex mor-
phological structure. However, since the US invasion of Iraq this term has also entered into popular currency
as shorthand for a unilateral and arrogant style of external interventionism, dressed up in pretentious lan-
guage but probably really serving concealed and unworthy objectives. In general usage it is associated with
unintended and undesirable consequences (‘collateral damage'), so if it is to be restored to scholarly use it
must first be detoxified.

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This chapter has attempted that task. In the process it has also uncovered a challenging degree of complexity.
The result is not to render the notion unusable, but this exercise does highlight both the conceptual and the
empirical difficulties that need to be faced and overcome in order for it to perform a constructive function in
the analysis of post-Cold War comparative politics. (For earlier periods, when fewer instances were available
for comparative inspection, the traditional usage was more adequate.) To determine which type of regime
changed on what dimensions and as a consequence of which drivers requires careful conceptualization and
refined disaggregation and contextualization of the cases. This does not eliminate the need for comparative
work, but it does mean caution against crudely reductionist substitutes for the real thing.
In the absence of comparative framing individual experiences of political discontinuity may be almost impos-
sible to interpret: it becomes unclear where to begin, or which lines of enquiry deserve priority. But pre-estab-
lished explanatory models can be equally misleading, if they are used to over-ride the diversity and nuances
of the contemporary case experiences. In order to capture case-specific contextual realities, not one but a va-
riety of comparative methods should be considered – exemplary models, paired comparisons, cluster analysis
within precise scope conditions, as well as wide-focus search for recurrent regularities. The most appropriate
mix of methods will depend upon the precise hypotheses selected for investigation.
To conclude, good explanations of regime change need to consider the following general guidelines. First,
these are not reducible to single events but involve complex multifaceted processes. Second, they do not
necessarily follow predetermined pathways, but often involve erratic and contested trajectories, perhaps lead-
ing to uncertain outcomes. Third, such trajectories may be open-ended, but they are also heavily constrained
by structural conditions, and by the limited range of coherent and stable outcomes that are possible. Fourth,
ideas and imagination also matter. The social construction of a new regime is partly the product of dialogue
and persuasion between actors experimenting with previously untested solutions and attempting to institu-
tionalize collective values and aspirations (Owen, 2010).
Notes
1 Kinzer (2007) extends the historical record back to 1893, while also only considering Washington-directed
examples.
2 Two of the key words in Guicciardini's Dialogue on the Government of Florence are reggimento and mu-
tazione. Is it anachronistic to equate these to regime and regime change? I rely on the Dialogue's (1994)
editor and translator, Alison Brown for comfort on this score. Note that she also translates stato strictly as
‘regime’ in some contexts. The evidence on this takes the form of a dialogue in which friends exchange ar-
guments on both sides of the issue, and although the author was well placed to present these issues as they
might have been seen at that time, he was in fact writing 30 years later, with the benefit of the hindsight that
neither side had prevailed, and in the knowledge that the stand-off between these regime alternatives was
still generating instability and public danger.
3 My account of the early changes in usage and of the long-term reverberations of the ancien régime–revolu-
tion binary divide draw heavily from François Furet (1992).
4 A further factor to consider is the Florentine need for disguise and plausible denial, given the extreme sanc-
tions risked by those too closely identified with the losing side in a still uncertain seesaw of violent conflict. By
contrast, Alexis de Tocqueville knew he was an ‘out’ in the Second Empire, but that he was free to write un-
der his own name, when he used his internal exile to pen The Old Regime and the French Revolution (Herr,
1992).
5 Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Il Gattopardo (1958). The key sentence reads ‘Si vogliamo che tutto ri-
manga come prima, bisogna che tutto cambi'. Some attribute this idea to Macchiavelli in chapter 25 of Dis-
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corsi, libro. It applies well to the regime change in 1989 in Paraguay, when the longtime dictator Stroessner
was ousted in what gets classified as a ‘transition to democracy'.
6 According to Anne Cheng it was the Zhou dynasty, in the 11th century bc, that introduced the notion of
tianming to justify their overthrow of the preceding Shang dynasty. Thereafter, for three thousand years, this
‘Mandate of Heaven’ concept provided the basis for all Chinese political theory (Cheng, 1997: 56).
7 Were Fukuyama's End of History ever to be realized, the topic of regime change would either have become
redundant, or could only involve change away from liberal democracy.
8 The only case known to me is Nepal's constitutional interlude of 1959–60, which was followed by four
decades of royal absolutism.
9 On informality and judicial politics, see Dressel et al. (2018).
10 Recently, Behrend and Whitehead (2016) examined the variability of sub-national trajectories in large fed-
eral democracies. Although we did not exclude ‘sub-national authoritarian regimes’ for some of these cases,
we were reluctant to adopt the term ‘regime’ as the norm on the grounds that this would tend to overstate the
autonomy of the sub-unit compared to the federal regime within which it is embedded. So, for comparative
purposes, we preferred to analyze ‘illiberal structures and practices’ at the sub-national level.
11 This paragraph was prompted by a verbal communication with Michael Freeden.
12 His article is also helpful in providing an appendix where all the coding decisions can be inspected. It is
noteworthy that he does not count the Mexican Revolution of 1910 or the Cuban Revolution of 1958 as regime
changes (see Teorell, 2010).
13 Although large N studies can, in principle, always add a dummy variable to test for any missing factor,
good reality checks require a good grasp of the relevant realities, whereas in practice most such exercises
rely on excessively crude and unrealistically standardized indicators.
14 Another source of distortion would be the omission of territories that were non-members of the United
Nations. Taiwan, Hong Kong, Puerto Rico and Occupied Palestine are significant political regimes with dis-
tinctive trajectories that do not get included in most datasets.
References
Behrend, Jacqueline and Whitehead, Laurence, eds (2016). Illiberal Practices: Territorial Variance within
Large Federal Democracies. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Cheng, Anne (1997). Histoire de la pensée chinoise. Paris: Editions du Seuil.
Corbett, Jack, and Veenendaal, Wouter (2018). Democracy in Small States: Persisting against All Odds. Ox-
Di Lampedusa, Giuseppe Tomasi (1958). Il Gattopardo. Sicily: Feltrinelli.
Dressel, Björn, Sánchez-Urribarri, Raul and Stroh, Alexander, eds (2018). ‘Information Networks and Judicial
Institutions: Comparative Perspectives,' International Political Science Review, 39(5), November: pp. 573–84.
Ertman, Thomas (2010). ‘The Great Reform Act of 1832 and British Democratization,' Comparative Political
Studies 43(8–9), August–September: 1000–22.
Fishman, Robert (1990). ‘Rethinking State and Regime: Southern Europe's Transition to Democracy,' World
Politics, 42(3): 422–40.
Freeden, Michael (2013). The Political Theory of Political Thinking: The Anatomy of a Practice. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
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Furet, François (1992). Dictionnaire critique de la revolution française. Paris: Flammarion.

Gasiorowski, Mark J. (1996). ‘An Overview of the Political Regime Change Dataset,' Comparative Political
Studies, 29(4), August: 469–83.
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17, May: pp. 147–62.
Guicciardini, Francesco (1994). Guicciardini: Dialogue on the Government of Florence, edited and translated
by Alison Brown. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Herr, Richard (1992). Tocqueville and the Old Regime. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kinzer, Stephen (2007). Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq. New York:
Times Books.
Krawatzek, Félix (2018). Youth in Regime Crisis: Comparative Perspectives from Russia to Weimar Germany.
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Levitsky, Steven and Murillo, Victoria (2009). ‘Variation in Institutional Strength,' Annual Review of Political
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Linz, Juan and Stepan, Alfred (1978). The Breakdown of Authoritarian Regimes. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hop-
kins University Press.
Mainwaring, Scott, Brinks, Daniel and Pérez-Liñán, Aníbal (2007). ‘Classifying Political Regimes in Latin
America, 1945–2004,' in Regimes and Democracy in Latin America, edited by Gerardo L. Munck. Oxford: Ox-
ford University Press, pp. 123–60.
O'Donnell, Guillermo (1973). Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism. Berkeley, CA: University of
California Institute of International Studies.
O'Donnell, Guillermo, Schmitter, Philippe, and Whitehead, Laurence, eds (1986). Transitions from Authoritar-
ian Rule: Prospects for Democracy. Volumes I–IV. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
O'Rourke, Lindsey A. (2018). Covert Regime Change: America's Secret Cold War. Syracuse, NY: Cornell
University Press.
Owen, John M. (2010). The Clash of Ideas in World Politics: Transnational Networks, States, and Regime
Change. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Piccone, Theodore J., ed. (2004). Regime Change by the Book. Washington, DC: Democracy Coalition Pro-
ject.
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April: 337–63.
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Krasner, Stephen D. (1983). International Regimes. Cornell University Press.
Teorell, Jan (2010). Determinants of Democratization: Explaining Regime Change in the World, 1972–2006.
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• regime change
• regime
• comparative politics
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• democracy
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n55

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Religion and Politics
Contributors: Jeffrey Haynes

Chapter Title: "Religion and Politics"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Religion and Politics

Jeffrey Haynes
Introductory Historical Remarks

Around the world, religions have left their assigned place in the private sphere, becoming politically active in
various ways and with assorted outcomes. Religion's re-emergence from political marginality dates from the
last decades of the 20th century. Subsequently, religious actors of various kinds became involved in various
political changes, including democratisation, terrorism and demands for societal changes, such as improved
human rights.
Prior to the 18th century and the subsequent formation and development of the modern (secular) international
state system, religion was a key ideology that frequently stimulated political conflict between societal groups.
Following the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 and the subsequent development of centralised states first in
Western Europe and then, via European colonisation, to most of the rest of the world, the political importance
of religion significantly declined both domestically and internationally.
In the late 20th century, there was a resurgence of – often politicised forms of – religion. This trend was es-
pecially noticeable in the post-Cold War era (that is, from the late 1980s), among the so-called world religions
(Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism). In terms of important events in this
context, many observers point to the Iranian revolution of 1978–9, as it marked the ‘reappearance’ of reli-
gion (in this case, Shia Islam) as a significant political actor in Iran – a country that, like neighbouring Turkey
decades before, had adopted a Western-derived, secular development model.
The past few decades have seen increased political involvement of religious actors within many countries, as
well as internationally. Much attention is often focused upon so-called Islamic fundamentalists or Islamists,1
particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, to the extent that a casual observer might assume that the
entire region is polarised religiously and politically between, on the one hand, Islamic fundamentalists and
secularists, and, on the other, Jews and (Palestinian) Muslims, both of which claim to be the rightful con-
trollers of Jerusalem, a holy city for both.
However, it is not only Islamists who pursue political goals related to religion. In officially secular India, militant
Hinduism has been a feature of politics since the early 1990s. In Israel, Jewish religious parties serve in suc-
cessive governments. The Roman Catholic Church was a leading player in post-Cold War democratisation in
various parts of the world, including eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. In sum, there are
numerous examples of recent religious involvement in politics in various parts of the world, in both domestic
and international contexts. This is a relatively recent turn of events, having largely taken place since the Cold
War ended in the late 1980s. Today, it is difficult to find any countries where the relationship between religion
and politics is not a controversial and often fraught issue.

The nature of the relationship between religion and politics is controversial. Although scholars disagree about
their nature and scope, there is widespread concern in many countries regarding the role of religious actors
in: (1) helping underpin or support authoritarian regimes; (2) inter-communal clashes; and (3) transnational
extremist networks. In Europe, for example, such phenomena today represent a dual challenge: first, religious
communities must effectively integrate into democratic institutions; second, policy-makers must work out and
implement new policies and forms of cooperation to cope with previously unexpected threats and issues,
some of which come from religious extremist actors.

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Debates about the current political importance of religion also include a focus upon various issues that can be
grouped together under the rubric ‘Religion, Security and Development'. What unites them is a common con-
cern with the impact of religion on conflict and development issues and outcomes. Among them can be noted
Samuel Huntington's (1996) controversial thesis about ‘clashing civilisations', with religion and culture key fac-
tors, while others stress the potential of religion to help resolve political conflicts and be a major component of
peacebuilding. Scholars also focus upon the influence of religion on various manifestations of terrorism and,
more generally, the post-9/11 ‘Global War on Terror', as well as the significance of religion in relation to the
developmental position of females. In sum, a variety of religious actors and factors are now involved in vari-
ous political issues and controversies.
Examining the relationship between religion and politics in the contemporary world, we can note that, appar-
ently irrespective of which religious tradition we are concerned with, many religious ideas, experiences and
practices are all significantly affected by the impact of globalisation on both politics and international relations.
The impact of globalisation is encouraging many religions to adopt new or renewed agendas in relation to a
variety of religious, social, political and economic concerns. It is also stimulating many religious individuals,
organisations and movements not only to look at local and national issues and contexts but also to focus on
regional and international environments. In many cases, such concerns focus on the relationship of religion
to conflict and conflict resolution.
Conflict and Conflict Resolution

A second issue is religion's global role in conflict and conflict resolution. A starting point for this analysis is to
note that globalisation both highlights and encourages religious pluralism. But religious responses may well
be different. This is because some religions, including Judaism, Christianity and Islam (sometimes known as
the ‘religions of the book', because in each case their authority emanates principally from sacred texts – actu-
ally, similar texts) claim what Kurtz (1995: 238) calls ‘exclusive accounts of the nature of reality', that is, only
their religious beliefs are judged to be true by adherents.
As globalisation results in increased interaction between people and communities, the implication is not only
that there are increasing encounters between different religious traditions but also that there are variable out-
comes: some are harmonious, others are not. Sometimes, the result is what Kurtz (1995: 168) has called
‘culture wars'. Culture wars occur when religious worldviews encourage differing allegiances and standards in
relation to various areas, including the family, law, education and politics. Resulting conflicts between people,
ethnic groups, classes or nations can be framed in religious terms. Such religious conflicts seem often to ‘take
on “larger-than-life” proportions as the struggle of good against evil’ (Kurtz, 1995: 170). This may be noted
in relation to certain religious minorities who may regard their own existential position – for example, Muslim
minority communities in Thailand, the UK, France, the Philippines and India – as being unacceptably weak-
ened because of actual or perceived pressure from majority religious communities – Buddhists in Thailand;
Christians in Britain, France and the Philippines; and Hindus in India – to conform to the norms and values of
the religious and cultural majority.
There are many examples of religious involvement in recent and current national and international conflicts.
For example, stability and prosperity in the Middle East is a pivotal goal, central to achieving general peace
and the elimination of poverty in the region. Yet the Middle East is particularly emblematic in relation to religion
– in part because the region was the birthplace of the world's three great monotheistic religions (Christianity,
Islam and Judaism). This brings with it a legacy not only of shared wisdom, but also of conflict – a complex re-
lationship that has impacted in recent years on countries as far away as Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia,
the United States and Britain. Key to peace in the region may well be achievement of significant collaborative
efforts among different religious bodies, which, along with external religious and secular organisations – for
example, from Europe and the United States – may through collaborative efforts work towards developing a
new model of peace and cooperation to enable the Middle East to escape from what many see as an endless
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cycle of religiously based conflict. Overall, this emphasises that religion may be intimately connected – and
not only in the Middle East – both to international conflicts and their prolongation and to attempts at reconcili-
ation of such conflicts. In other words, in relation to many international conflicts, religion can play a significant,
even a fundamental role, contributing to conflicts in various ways, including how they are intensified, chan-
nelled or reconciled.
In addition, religion may have a key part to play in resolution of conflicts, including in South Asia (notably
India–Pakistan), Israel–Palestine and sub-Saharan Africa (for example, in relation to Sudan's long-running
civil war). It is important not to over-stress religion's involvement in and propensity to conflict. To do so would
mean that we would be likely to overlook the many recent and current examples of religious involvement in
attempts at conflict resolution. On the other hand, the fact remains that many current international conflicts
have religious aspects that can exacerbate both hatred and violence, and make the conflicts themselves ex-
ceptionally difficult to resolve. Hans Küng, a Swiss Catholic priest and theologian, claims that
the most fanatical, the cruelest political struggles are those that have been colored, inspired, and
legitimized by religion. To say this is not to reduce all political conflicts to religious ones, but to take
seriously the fact that religions share in the responsibility for bringing peace to our torn and warring
world. (Hans Küng, quoted in Smock, 2004)
Such concerns are echoed in Huntington's (1993, 1996) controversial thesis of a ‘clash of civilisations’ – a
controversial topic, especially since 9/11. Huntington argues that there is a serious ‘civilisational’ threat to
global order that became apparent after the Cold War. It is rooted in the idea that there are competing ‘civil-
isations’ that engage in conflict that affects outcomes in international relations in various ways. On the one
hand, there is the ‘West’ (especially North America and Western Europe), with values and political cultures
deemed to be rooted in liberal democratic and Judeo-Christian concepts, understood to lead to an emphasis
on tolerance, moderation and societal consensus. On the other hand, there is supposedly a bloc of allegedly
‘anti-democratic’ Muslim countries, believed to be on a collision course with the West.
A key problem with Huntington's thesis, however, is that there are actually no ‘civilisations’ that act politically
or in international relations in uniform and single-minded ways. Instead, wherever we look – for example, the
United States, Europe, Israel, the Muslim countries of the Middle East – what is most notable is the plurality
of beliefs and norms of behaviour that are apparent even in allegedly cohesive and uniform civilisations. It is
useful to bear these concerns in mind when thinking about the role of religion in relation to conflict in both
domestic and international contexts. It is important not to overestimate religion's potential for and involvement
in large-scale violence and conflict – especially if that implies ignoring or underestimating its involvement and
potential as a significant source of conflict resolution and peacebuilding. It is also important to recognise that,
especially in recent years, numerous religious individuals, movements and organisations have been actively
involved in attempts to end conflicts and to foster post-conflict reconciliation between formerly warring par-
ties (Bouta et al., 2005). This emphasises that various religions play often key roles in international relations
and diplomacy, helping to resolve conflicts and in some cases build peace. The ‘clash of civilisations’ thesis
oversimplifies causal interconnections between religion and conflict, in particular by disregarding important
alternate variables, including the numerous attempts from a variety of religious traditions to help resolve con-
flicts and build peace. When successful, religion's role in helping resolve conflicts is a crucial component in
wider issues of human development. As Ellis and ter Haar (2004) note: ‘Peace is a precondition for human
development. Religious ideas of various provenance – indigenous religions as well as world religions – play
an important role in legitimising or discouraging violence’ (my emphasis).
Global/Regional Differentiation: Religion, Politics and Democracy

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The question of how religious actors2 might affect political change, including through issues of democrati-
sation and authoritarianism, is a topical and controversial issue. Scholars of comparative politics stress the
importance of political culture in explaining the success or failure of democratisation in various countries in-
fluenced by US policy after World War II, including West Germany, Italy and Japan (Linz and Stepan, 1996;
Stepan, 2000; Huntington, 1991). Religious traditions – for example, Roman Catholicism in Italy and Chris-
tian democracy in West Germany – were said to be important in the (re)making of these countries’ political
cultures following the traumatising effects of totalitarian regimes in the 1930s and early 1940s (Casanova,
1994; Madeley, 2009). In addition, during the ‘third wave of democracy’ (mid 1970s–early 2000s), much at-
tention was paid to the role of religious actors in political changes (Huntington, 1991). For example, in Poland,
the Roman Catholic Church, in tandem with a Polish pope, John Paul II, played a key role in undermining
the existing communist government, helping establish a post-communist, democratically accountable regime
(Weigel, 2005, 2007). In addition, the democratic impact of the Roman Catholic Church had a wider political
effect beyond Poland, extending to Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia from the 1980s. Con-
temporaneously, there was the rise of the Religious/Christian Right in the United States and, since then, its
considerable and continuing impact on the electoral fortunes of both the Republican and Democratic parties.
Add to this the emergence, growth and spread of various kinds of Islamist movements across the Muslim
world, from Morocco to Indonesia, which has had significant ramifications for electoral outcomes in various
countries, including Algeria, Egypt and Morocco; electoral successes for the ‘Hindu fundamentalist’ Bharatiya
Janata Party in India; and substantial political influence over time for various Jewish political parties in Israel,
and we have clear and sustained evidence of religion's political importance in relation to political changes,
including democracy.
At the same time, it is important not to overemphasise the religious actors’ importance in these political events
and developments. Focusing on the East European democratising experience in the 1980s and 1990s, Juan
Linz and Alfred Stepan argue that religion was not generally the – or even a – key explanatory factor in de-
mocratisation outcomes (Linz and Stepan, 1996). In relation to Muslim countries in the Middle East, Fred
Halliday argued that apparent barriers to democracy were primarily linked to extant social and political, not
religious, features (Halliday, 2005). These include in many cases long histories of authoritarian rule and weak
civil societies and, although some or all of those features might be legitimised by the state in terms of ‘Islamic
doctrine', there is in fact nothing specifically ‘Islamic’ about them. On the other hand, for Samuel Hunting-
ton, religions have a crucial impact on democratisation (Huntington, 1996). He claims that Christianity, in both
Protestant and Catholic forms, has a strong propensity to be supportive of democracy while other religions,
such as Islam, Buddhism and Confucianism, do not.
To understand the overall political importance of religious actors, and by extension how they involve them-
selves in political changes, including democratisation, it is necessary first to comprehend what they say and
do in their relationship with the state. I mean something more than ‘mere’ government when referring to the
state. The state is the continuous administrative, legal, bureaucratic and coercive system that attempts not
only to manage the various state apparatuses, but in addition to ‘structure relations between civil and public
power and to structure many crucial relationships within civil and political society’ (Stepan, 1988). As a result,
almost everywhere in the world, apparently regardless of the nature of political systems and/or the level of
economic development in a country, states have over time sought to reduce and control religion's political
importance and involvement. That is, around the world states have sought to privatise religion, and thus con-
siderably to reduce its political impact. Sometimes, for example in Poland and Italy (Roman Catholicism) and
Turkey (Sunni Islam), states have attempted to erect a ‘civil religion’ arrangement, whereby a designated re-
ligious format effectively ‘functions as the cult of the political community’ (Casanova, 1994: 58). The declared
purpose is to try to create and develop forms of consensual, corporate religion, claiming to be guided by
general, culturally appropriate, specific religious beliefs of intrinsic societal significance. In short, when states
seek to develop ‘civil religions’ it is an attempted strategy to try to avoid social conflicts and promote national
coordination and cohesion.
Yet, religious actors’ relationships with the state are by no means limited to attempts by the latter to build civil
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religions. In fact, in many countries, relations between religious entities and the state are not only now more
visible, but also increasingly problematic. Why is this the case? First, recent increases in religious challenges
to the authority of the state may merely be transitory reactions in the context of the onward march of seculari-
sation. Second, even if the modern state is particularly vulnerable to legitimation crises, it does not necessar-
ily mean that religion is again becoming automatically relevant to state functioning and policy making. Third,
religion-based challenges to state hegemony have roots in endeavours by the latter to assert a monitoring
role vis-à-vis religion, in effect to control it. We can see such a development at three levels: political society,
civil society and the level of the state itself.
In many countries religion is being liberated from providing sometimes slavish legitimacy to secular authority.
Many religious actors are now willing routinely to criticise and challenge the state in various ways in relation
to a variety of issues and themes. Yet, even if heightened concern about the state's policies can be held up
as evidence of the regeneration of the socio-political power of religion, we still need to ask further questions.
The issues are themselves secular and in so far as religious agencies are active in these areas, this is a rad-
ical shift of concern from the supernatural, from devotional acts, to what are largely secular goals pursued by
secular means. However, a note of caution is in order: we need to bear in mind that when religious interests
act as ‘pressure groups’ – rather than as ‘prayer bodies’ – they are not necessarily going to be effective in
what they seek to achieve. This is because the more secular society is, the less likely it is that religious actors
will play politically significant roles (Wilson, 1992).
Religion and Political Society

At the level of political society – that is, the arena in which the polity specifically arranges itself for political con-
testation to gain control over public power and the state apparatus – we can note a range of religious respons-
es that are in part dependent upon the degree of secularisation. These include (1) resistance to the disestab-
lishment and the differentiation of the religious from the secular sphere – the goal of many so-called religious
‘fundamentalist’ groups; (2) religious groups and confessional political parties’ mobilisations and counter-mo-
bilisations against other religions or secular movements and parties; and (3) religious organisations’ mobili-
sation in defence of religious, social and political freedoms – that is, demanding the rule of law and the legal
protection of human and civil rights, protecting mobilisation of civil society and/or defending institutionalisation
of democratically elected governments. In pursuit of such goals in recent times, we can note Roman Catholic
transnational political mobilisation in and between various countries, as well as activities of Islamist groups in
various countries, including Egypt, Syria and Tunisia.
Religion and Civil Society

Civil society is the arena in which various social movements – including neighbourhood associations,
women's groups, religious entities, and intellectual currents – join with civic organisations, including lawyers',
journalists', trade unions’ and entrepreneurs’ associations, to constitute themselves into an ensemble of
arrangements to express themselves and seek to advance their interests. Sometimes, the concept of civil
society is used in contrast to political society. Unlike the latter, civil society refers to organisations and move-
ments – not political parties – formally uninvolved in both the business of government and overt political man-
agement. Note, however, that this does not necessarily prevent civil society organisations from sometimes
seeking to or actually exerting political influence on various matters, including democratic outcomes and the
content of national constitutions.
Regarding religion at the level of civil society, one can distinguish between hegemonic civil religions – such
as evangelical Protestantism in 19th-century America – and the recent public intervention of religious entities,
concerned either with single issues such as anti-abortion or with morally determined views of wider societal

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development, for example, in relation to homosexual rights or appropriate days for shops to open, currently a
highly controversial issue in Israel. In trying to influence public policy, without themselves seeking to become
political officeholders, religious actors may employ a variety of tactics, including, in no particular order: (1)
lobbying the executive apparatus of the state; (2) going to court; (3) building links with political parties; (4)
forming alliances with like-minded groups, both secular and from other religious traditions; (5) mobilising fol-
lowers to lobby and/or protest; and (6) working to sensitise public opinion via mass media. The overall point
is that religious actors may use a variety of methods to try to achieve their objectives.
Religion and the State

Interactions between the state and religious entities are often referred to as ‘church–state relations'. Yet, one
of the difficulties in seeking to survey the nature of contemporary ‘church–state’ relations in many countries
around the world, is that the very concept of church is a somewhat parochial, Anglo-American standpoint
with direct relevance only to explicitly Christian traditions. It is derived primarily from the context of British es-
tablishmentarianism – that is, maintenance of the principle of ‘establishment’ whereby one church is legally
recognised as the only established church. In other words, when we think of ‘church–state’ relations we may
assume a single relationship between two clearly distinct, unitary and solidly but separately institutionalised
entities. In this implicit model built into the conceptualisation of the religion–political nexus there is but one
state and one church; both entities’ jurisdictional boundaries need to be carefully delineated. Both separation
and pluralism must be safeguarded, because it is assumed that the leading church – like the state – will seek
institutionalised dominance over rival religious organisations. For its part, the state is expected to respect in-
dividual rights even though it is assumed to be inherently disposed towards aggrandisement at the expense
of citizens’ personal liberty. In sum, the conventional concept of state–church relations is rooted in prevailing
Christian conceptions of the power of the state of necessity being constrained by forces in society—including
those of religion.
Expanding the problem of church–state relations to non-Christian contexts necessitates some preliminary
conceptual clarifications – not least because the very idea of a prevailing state–church dichotomy is culture-
bound. As already noted, church is a Christian institution, while the modern understanding of state is deeply
rooted in the Post-Reformation European political experience. In their specific cultural setting and social sig-
nificance, the tension and the debate over the church–state relationship are uniquely Western phenomena,
present in the ambivalent dialectic of ‘render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's and unto
God the things which be God's’ (Matthew 22:21). Overloaded with Western cultural history, these two con-
cepts cannot easily be translated into non-Christian terminologies.
The differences between Christian conceptions of state and church and those of other world religions are well
illustrated by reference to Islam. In the Muslim tradition, mosque is not church. The closest Islamic approxi-
mation to ‘state’ – dawla – means, as a concept, either a ruler's dynasty or his administration. Only with the
specific Durkheimian stipulation of church as the generic concept for moral community, priest for the custo-
dians of the sacred law and state for political community can we comfortably use these concepts in Islamic
and other non-Christian contexts. On the theological level, the command–obedience nexus that constitutes
the Islamic definition of authority is not demarcated by conceptual categories of religion and politics. Life as
a physical reality is an expression of divine will and authority (qudrah'). There is no validity in separating the
matters of piety from those of the polity; both are divinely ordained. Yet, although both religious and political
authorities are legitimated Islamically, they invariably constitute two independent social institutions. They do,
however, regularly interact with each other. Yet, as recent political conflicts have shown in relation to, inter
alia, Egypt and Turkey, there are on occasion sometimes serious tensions between Islamist actors of various
stripes and the state in regard to democratisation and political outcomes more generally.

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The overall point is that tensions widely exist between secular power holders and religious actors of various
kinds in the modern world. It is often the case in some European countries, for example, that religious actors,
apparently regardless of their religious persuasion, may work individually or collectively towards reducing the
ability of the state to sideline them. We can see this in relation to France, where recent years have seen a
campaign by some Muslim women to wear Islamic headscarves, despite the ban since 2004 on such attire.
While these women regard it as their fundamental human right to be allowed to dress as they wish, the French
state see things differently – Muslim women's efforts to dress as they wish is regarded as a direct contraven-
tion of a core French post-revolutionary principle: subjugation of religion by the state. In effect, such religious
challenges reflect a wider development: a wish on the part of some religious actors to reverse religious pri-
vatisation, a course of action which impacts on a variety of political and social concerns.
Ongoing Debates and Critical Assessments

Religion's political and social impact is universal. While impact varies from country to country and in different
international contexts, it is clear that overall religion is much more socio-politically significant today compared
to half a century ago. How and why is religion now so ‘significant'? It is largely because religion can encour-
age, or help resolve, often interlinked political, social, economic and developmental conflicts or disputes. This
is because religion has important functions serving to engender and/or significantly influence individual and
group values which, in turn, impact upon common existential issues, which affect people everywhere regard-
less of ethnicity or culture.
Ongoing debates and critical assessments of the role of religion in politics, in both domestic and international
contexts, typically focus on two overlapping, but conceptually distinct, issues: security and governance. Sig-
nificant issues include:
• Politically assertive religion will continue to affect governance and security outcomes in many coun-
tries around the world, as well as internationally;
• Globalisation and associated technology, including satellite television channels and social media, will
play a considerable role in spreading sectarian and inter-faith mistrust;
• Factional divisions within religious traditions will exacerbate tensions;
• High levels of economic and developmental inequality, derived from religion, ethnicity and/or class,
will be prominent sources of tension;
• Sectarian and other inter-religious tensions reflecting often longstanding socio-economic disparities
will escalate when governments do not address fundamental issues of socio-economic adversity;
• Sectarian conflicts which deepen pre-existing religious divides will in some cases escalate into se-
rious domestic and/or international conflict. When this happens, they will deleteriously impact upon
both governance and political and social stability and, in some cases, encourage anti-US/Western
extremism and terrorism.
Focusing on the next 20 years, we can identify and briefly examine emerging trends of the relationship be-
tween religion and politics both generally and in terms of the relations between the West and the non-West.
Centrally informed by the current importance of religion's influence – affecting individual identity, society and
governance – we note that for billions of people religion is highly likely to remain a very significant issue, in
both developing and developed countries. But religion does not act in isolation, and in recent years two key
developments have led to increased religious responses in many parts of the world. On the one hand, the
recent expansion of representative governments to all global regions, with the important exception of the Mid-
dle East and North Africa (MENA), has provided new political and social space for religion to be assertive. On
the other hand, however, because religion is so fundamental to many people's identity, opening political and
social space in some cases encourages existing or new tensions to surface, leading to inter-group conflict,
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which can sometimes develop into war.
Today, two of the world religions – Christianity and Islam – are showing particularly strong growth. Christianity,
especially evangelical Christianity, is currently growing annually by 1.47%, implying 30% progress by 2035.
Christianity's current growth is particularly swift in South and East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa (Martel, 2013).
The growth of Islam between 2010 and 2020 is estimated at 1.7% a year, linked mainly to ‘high’ birthrates
among existing Muslims in Asia, MENA and Europe (ibid.). A 2010 report by the Pew Research Center's Fo-
rum on Religion & Public Life estimated that, on present trends, the global Muslim population will grow by
about 35% by 2030, rising from 1.6 to 2.2 billion (Pew Research Center, 2011). Given that some countries –
such as Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania and Russia – are already experiencing growing tensions between followers
of Christianity and Islam, then it may be that swift expansion of both Islam and Christianity over the next few
decades will exacerbate such tensions, with implications for global security and governance (Pew Research
Center, 2010).
Politics, Religion and Security

Following the end of the Cold War, both Christianity and Islam showed increasing political assertiveness, a
development which seems likely to continue (Haynes, 2016). While such political assertiveness has been
manifested in many countries domestically, it has also shown itself internationally and transnationally. Cen-
tral to this development is the phenomenon of globalisation and associated developments in communications
technology. The latter permits religious entities’ messages to unite or divide real or imagined communities,
physically separated by international borders and thousands of kilometres. In particular, it enables diaspora
populations to feel a closeness otherwise denied them and appeals to a far wider audience than previously
possible. Technology is also likely to contribute to diaspora communities being increasingly affected by in-
tra-faith discord in countries of origin, such as Pakistan and India. In addition, some governments may have
to address new challenges from religious groups at home. For example, it is posited that over the next two
decades, China will be home to some of the world's largest Muslim and Christian populations. The impact on
China's internal politics and global attitude and focus are likely to be influenced significantly by the manner
in which these two faith groups pursue their goals and seek enhanced religious freedoms. A wider point is
that as religion is so fundamental to many people's identity, where tensions between different groups exist or
develop, they are likely to be exacerbated by religious differences. Some of these will impact upon US and
Western security, as detailed below.
Post-Cold War globalisation led to dramatic, continuing increases in interactions between people and commu-
nities, which were no longer dependent on geographical closeness to easily enable such connections. Global-
isation encourages religions to adopt new, revised or reformed social, moral and/or political agendas. It stim-
ulates many religious individuals, organisations and movements not only to look at local and national issues
and contexts but also to focus on regional and international environments, which often link into or exacer-
bate pre-existing negative perceptions of foreign – including US and Western – cultural, political and econom-
ic hegemonies. Moreover, encounters between different religious traditions, both within faiths and between
them, are increasingly common and not always harmonious. Sometimes the result can be extreme hostility,
captured in the term ‘culture war'. Continuing culture wars, for example in Israel and the United States, occur
in relation to serious differences between secular and religious groups regarding the appropriate positions of
religious and secular norms, values and behaviour. Culture war occurs when differing religious worldviews
encourage different allegiances and standards in relation to various areas, including the family, law, educa-
tion and politics. As a result, conflicts involving, inter alia, gender, ethnicity, class and nations can be framed
in religious terms and can impact on security, sometimes dramatically, both within counties and internation-
ally. This is also the case with some religious minorities who may regard their own existential position – for
example, Muslim minority communities in Thailand, the UK, France, the Philippines and India, and Christian
minorities in many countries in the MENA – to be unacceptably weakened because of actual or perceived
pressure from majority religious communities, such as Buddhists in Thailand, Christians in the UK, France
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and the Philippines, and Hindus in India, which encourage religious minorities to conform to the hegemonic
norms and values of the religious and cultural majority.
This issue has recently affected a region long thought to be immune to the public impact of religion and cul-
ture: Western Europe. There, governments long ago chose the path of secularisation, with a linked ‘down-
grading’ of religion from public realm to privatised belief. Today, however, many urban areas across Western
Europe contain areas of pronounced social deprivation, often home to many migrants. Recent extensive im-
migration to Western Europe, coupled with enhanced mobility of people within the countries of the region due
to the expansion of the European Union, has led to increasingly multicultural societies, albeit often within a
wider trend towards secularism. Yet, local communities with strong religious beliefs continue to exist and, due
to natural expansion, are growing in size. Recent political developments, such as the rise of UKIP (the UK
Independence Party), have highlighted that many, perhaps most, Western Europeans tolerate, rather than
embrace and welcome, integration and immigration into their countries and the region more generally. This is
particular apparent in times of economic stress – for example, since 2008 – when it appears that many West-
ern Europeans revert to older forms of identity, including reference to cultural models of Christianity, feeling
that it exemplifies and underlines two key components of (Western) European culture: liberal and individual-
istic values underpinning modern (Western) European culture. For some, this sets apart Western European
culture from what is seen as different – that is, less liberal, more conservative – values and norms of Europe's
Muslim immigrants, who hail originally from the MENA, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
To date, this issue has not emerged as a clear security threat to American or more generally Western inter-
ests. Future projections are that the population growth of non-Muslims in Europe is slow, while the Islamic
population of Europe is expected to continue to grow, exceeding 58 million by 2030 (that is, approximate-
ly 8% of the total population), but with Christian traditions likely to remain dominant (Pew Research Center,
2011). Reflecting the impact of globalisation and communications technology, diaspora Muslim communities
in Western Europe are likely to be increasingly affected by intra-faith and intra-Islamic focused in the coun-
tries of the MENA. In particular, tension between Sunni and Shia Islam tension could spread. For example,
in 2012, Belgium's largest Shiite mosque was fire-bombed by hard-line Sunnis. However, while there may be
an increase in such incidents, particularly in response to events in the MENA, it is unlikely that large-scale vi-
olence between the different sects will occur in Europe itself, not least because of the small number of Shias.
In the MENA itself, the past few decades have seen the region emerge as a global focal point of increased
political involvement of religious actors both within countries and internationally. On the one hand, religious
minorities across the region are being squeezed and their security compromised. While ‘Islamic fundamental-
ism’ or ‘Islamism’ attracts much attention in this context, we can also observe serious sectarian divisions and
linked conflicts across much of the MENA, including in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. The situation was exacerbated
by the 2011 Arab Spring and its aftermath, where state weakness or breakdown combined with the impact of
politically assertive religious actors saw increasing pressure on religious minorities to convert to the dominant
religious tradition or, failing that, to flee for their lives.3
Religious actors like Islamic State thrive on sectarian division. Given the widespread diminution of state ca-
pacity in the MENA following the Arab Spring and the linked expansion of aggressive Sunni entities, such as
Islamic State, then it seems highly likely that the short and medium-term will feature many sectarian conflicts
in the MENA, which will cause significant friction and, in some cases, result in out and out conflict between
warring sectarian groups. Tensions between Shiite Iran and the Sunni Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are
likely to remain high in the next few years – not least because each is seen to support one sect of Islam on-
ly. However, not all Shia movements will necessarily be pro-Iranian and not every Salafi or Wahhabist Sunni
movement kowtows to Saudi Arabia. Indeed, there are significant Shiite minorities in GCC countries, as well
as a growing (Sunni) Salafi movement in Iran. Sectarian tensions also reflect socio-economic disparities and
are likely to escalate if governments do not address these fundamental issues. For example, Bahrain and
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Saudi Arabia, where economic inequality between Sunni and Shia is greatest, are more likely to see tensions
rise than other countries in the region. Globalisation, represented by influential satellite television channels
and social media, will play a growing, perhaps pivotal, role in spreading anti-government rhetoric and sectari-
an mistrust. In addition, over the next few years, we are likely to see growing tensions within Sunni and Shiite
communities. Sunni Islam is particularly likely to become increasingly factionalised. As Salafist groups grow in
prominence around the world, a backlash may emerge from moderate Sunnis. Correspondingly, Shiite Islam
contains a number of internal divisions.
The countries in the MENA that have suffered most from decades of systematic political, sectarian and racial
repression and mass killings – that is, Iraq and Syria – made possible the foundation, emergence and de-
velopment of Islamic State. What makes these countries’ situation direr is the world's failure to condemn this
oppression, turning a blind eye to the roots of radicalisation, while failing to help deal with the existential threat
that Islamic State poses due to political considerations at home. Yet, it is no longer about a choice between
countering terrorism and respecting human rights. It is impossible to win the fight against terror in this re-
gion without addressing the oppression and lack of opportunity that spawns it. Defending human rights and
confronting religious extremism, and working to end the discrimination against Syrian and Iraqi Sunni popula-
tions, as well as against Bedouins of Sinai, would be the necessary first steps in a long journey to deal with
human rights violations in the MENA.
Whereas in Western Europe, Muslim minority populations question their social and cultural position, and in
MENA, state breakdown encourages sectarian strife and the persecution of religious minorities, in ‘secular’
Central Asia, Islamist movements represent a challenge to the status quo. This is not because they are es-
pecially powerful: today they stand almost no chance of overpowering state institutions or gathering substan-
tial support in urban areas. Yet, regional governments have sought to combat what they see as extremism
in a heavy-handed manner which has exacerbated the problem which Islamist movements see themselves
fighting against: poor, corrupt and repressive ruling regimes. Many Central Asian governments are Western-
friendly and, while Islamism is likely to remain a long-term (if low-level) threat to stability, it does highlight to
many ordinary Central Asians that the West is a friend to their often highly disliked governments. Continued
socio-economic adversity and growing animosity towards an overbearing, monopolistic state is likely to in-
crease the number of instances of instability across Central Asia. Social discontent may result in support for
underground religious movements, rather than opposition parties, while strengthening anti-Western feeling in
many Central Asian countries.
Politics, Religion, Governance and Global Order

Many recent analyses of religion and politics highlight the relevance of economic, social and/or cultural issues,
including the economic range and social and cultural significance of transnational business corporations
(TNCs) (Haynes, 2013). This often leads to the perception that TNCs are taking economic power both from
governments and from citizens. This comes in the context of what is popularly understood as a significant
downside to economic globalisation: the apparent mass impoverishment of already poor people, in both de-
veloping and developed countries. These circumstances have encouraged numerous religious organisations,
including, for example, the 350-member World Council of Churches, to focus on these economic imbalances,
and suggest ways to ameliorate then using the power of religious organisation and community. This focus is
manifested in various ways, including: new religious fundamentalisms; support for anti-globalisation activities,
such as recent anti-globalisation and anti-World Trade Organisation protests; and North/South economic jus-
tice efforts, including the Millennium Development Goals (2000–15) and their successor, the Sustainable De-
velopment Goals (2015–30). In short, recent religious responses to what are perceived as the unacceptable
face of economic globalisation highlight again the emergence of religion as a public actor and the (potential
or actual) impact on political outcomes, within countries or internationally.
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This observation is based on a recognition that around the world, many religious organisations and (secular)
development agencies share similar concerns: how to improve (1) the lot of materially poor people, and (2)
the societal position of those suffering from social exclusion, and (3) unfulfilled human potential in the context
of glaring developmental polarisation within and between countries, which the World Bank now accepts has
arisen in part because of the polarising impact of globalisation. These developmental concerns focus upon,
but are not confined to, issues linked to the impacts of poverty, HIV/AIDS, conflict, gender concerns, inter-
national trade and global politics. These issues explicitly link all the world's countries and peoples – rich and
poor – into a global community, and how to resolve them poses a challenge to governance and global order.
These challenges are manifested in the actions of some extremist religious organisations whose impact upon
US and Western interests is explicitly hostile and very difficult to counter. They are likely to get worse over
the next 20 years – unless concerted efforts are made to blunt their impact by ameliorating the conditions
which give rise to them. For example, al Qaeda still has a stronghold in Yemen, while Islamic State estab-
lished a hold over large parts of Syria and Iraq and a so-called State of Sinai in Egypt. Despite its setbacks,
Islamic State still has a considerable presence in both Libya and Mali and has developed a transcontinental
alliance with Boko Haram in Nigeria, and is no doubt still plotting to carry out terrorist attacks in European
and American cities. Premised upon the idea that ‘Western education is forbidden', Boko Haram is vehement-
ly anti-Western, although an apparently indiscriminate killer of anyone who disagrees with the organisation
and its ideology. Such horrific suffering is the result of decades of severe social injustices, Islamic extrem-
ism, sweeping human rights violations and the absence of good governance. Boko Haram violence underpins
rising death rates among Nigerian citizens, while thousands are also killed in conflicts in the Central African
Republic, South Sudan and Somalia.
Such conflicts highlight how religion, along with culture, ethnicity and identity, is an important component in
understanding governance and global order issues, while contextualising current Western counterinsurgency
efforts. Following 9/11, first al Qaeda and its affiliates and then Islamic State and its allies sequentially posed
serious threats to governance in many countries, and, by extension, global order and Western security. While
it is well known that al Qaeda perpetrated multiple attacks against US and Western targets in the 1990s and
early 2000s, these outrages raised questions about the ideological assumptions and goals of al Qaeda. While
Bin Laden was personally committed to the fight against the ‘far enemy’ – the United States – Islamic State
fights the ‘near enemy': ideologically and ‘un-Islamic’ governments and populations in the MENA. However,
given that many of the dead in the attacks were not Western Christians or Jews but local Muslims, it raised the
question of what exactly the perpetrators are seeking to achieve. What today are the ideological assumptions
and goals of what is left of al Qaeda and its temporarily more powerful successor, Islamic State? Al Qaeda
first emerged in the late 1980s to challenge the incumbency and authority of rulers in various Middle Eastern
countries, including Saudi Arabia, with the objective of replacing them with plausibly ‘Islamic’ leaders. Over
time, however, a lack of success in achieving these objectives led al Qaeda strategists to shift attention to
regional and global goals, including taking the fight, on 9/11, to the ‘far enemy’ (Gerges, 2009). The result was
a continuing ‘anti-Western’ war, which sought to utilise various ‘weapons of terror’ – a campaign now taken
up and adapted to today's specific conditions by Islamic State. Both al Qaeda and Islamic State share con-
cerns about spreading the ‘right’ religion by jihad, and the global balance of power currently dominated by the
United States and the West. Over time, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as more recent – and in some
cases – continuing conflicts in Mali, Nigeria and Syria, indicate that religion, culture and identity are contin-
uing concerns in many conflicts. In each case, there are explicit links to long-term and systemic governance
shortfalls, which have to be ameliorated before the threat from extremist Islam can be nullified and the threat
to the West's security significantly reduced.
Conclusion

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Examples of religion's recent political impact abound in countries at varying levels of economic and political
development. For example, there was the crucial role of Christian, especially Catholic, churches in the ‘third
wave’ of democracy in southern and eastern Europe and Latin America and Africa from the early 1970s to
the early 2000s; the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979 and the sequential growth of Islamist movements
across the Muslim world from Morocco to Malaysia; the (New) Christian Right in the United States, which
emerged in the 1980s and is still today demanding fundamental political, social, and moral changes; long-
running hostility between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland and between Muslims and Christians
in Africa; Hindu and Sikh political radicalism in India; Buddhist activism in South East Asia, including anti-
Rohingya activities in Myanmar; and Jewish extremism and ‘normal’ political activities in Israel. As a result,
around the world, the mass and social media, social scientists, professional politicians and policy-makers,
and many ‘ordinary’ people, now feel compelled to pay greater attention to religion as a significant, albeit vari-
able, socio-political actor.
What they have in common is that today religious organisations of various kinds openly reject the previously
uncontroversial secular ideals dominating many polities, especially in the West, appearing instead as cham-
pions of alternative, confessional options. Often keeping faith with what they interpret as divine decree, such
religious actors refuse to render to non-religious power holders either material or moral tribute. Increasingly
concerned with various political issues, they challenge the legitimacy and autonomy of the primary secular
spheres: the state, political organisation and the market economy. In addition, religious leaders now refuse
to restrict themselves to the pastoral care of individual souls; instead, they raise questions about, inter alia,
the interconnections of private and public morality and the claims of states and markets to be exempt from
extrinsic normative considerations. Intent on retaining or increasing their social and religious importance, they
seek to elude what they regard as the cumbrous constraints of temporal authority, while threatening to usurp
constituted political functions. In short, refusing to be condemned to the realm of privatised belief, religion
strongly reappears in the public sphere, thrusting itself into issues of societal, social, moral and political con-
testation. As Casanova (1994: 6) puts it, ‘what was new and became “news” in the 1980s was the widespread
and simultaneous’ refusal of the so-called ‘world religions’ – that is, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and Bud-
dhism – to be ‘restricted to the private sphere'.
The most eye-catching and societally concerning aspect of the ‘return’ of religion to the public sphere is its
connection to political extremism and terrorism. In particular, terrorism encouraged and fuelled by Islamic ex-
tremism poses a threat to global security and stability, not only in the West but also in many other parts of
the world, such as the countries of the MENA, where sectarian rivalries are egregious. Around the world, high
– and in many cases growing – levels of inequality contextualised by differences based on religion, ethnicity
and/or class are highly likely to endure; and this will encourage and, in some cases, exacerbate the spread
of religion-based terrorism. This will continue to be a serious source of tension in many countries and regions
and will impact on the overall governance and stability of many countries, while also affecting the ability of
global governance to work smoothly and harmoniously.
It is clear that areas of considerable sectarian tension exist across the world, especially in many of the 20 or
more countries that comprise the MENA. If there was a prolonged period of escalation, perhaps underpinned
by further deteriorations in political and developmental wellbeing, then campaigns of terrorist attacks could
be carried out on a previously unseen scale, further plunging the MENA region into chaos with knock on ef-
fects felt in neighbouring regions: Western Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. It is possible that attacks at such
a heightened level could cause a hitherto relatively stable major power, such as Egypt, to descend into civil
war, just like in neighbouring Syria. In addition, pre-existing religious and sectarian divides, including intra-Is-
lamic and Islamic–Christian and/or Islamic–Jewish conflicts could coalesce, rapidly escalating into transna-
tional conflicts affecting both the MENA and neighbouring regions. In such circumstances, it is conceivable
that some countries would be drawn into a wider war, as pressure from their populations, existing treaty oblig-
ations and allegiances compels them to take sides. Should the United Nations, typically deadlocked, weak
and hamstrung, and regional security organisations, unsure of how and why to act, be unable to take up the
challenge, then widespread and serious conflicts could result.
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While the scenario sketched out in the previous paragraph represents an extreme outcome, it is clear that
both terrorism and sectarian and inter-religious tensions and conflicts are at the centre of Western security
concerns, and have been since at least 9/11 and, arguably, as far back as the late 1970s and the unexpect-
ed success of the Iranian revolution. As we have seen in recent years in relation to the Arab Spring events
and political developments in many countries in the MENA more generally, governance problems are at the
heart of religion's involvement in regional and transnational conflicts which also directly and seriously affect
Western security interests. The starting point for our analysis in this regard was to note that globalisation can
both highlight and encourage religious pluralism, or it can encourage intra-faith and inter-religious hostility
and conflict. Several world religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism (‘religions’ of the book'), claim ‘exclusive
accounts of the nature of reality', that is, only their religious beliefs are judged to be true by adherents. This
is not to say that conflict is somehow inevitable. Rather religious responses can aim to be both constructive
and ameliorative. But whether this turns out to be the case can only be answered with empirically derived
evidence over time.
Notes
1 An Islamist is a believer in or follower of Islam who may be willing to use various political means to achieve
religiously derived objectives.
2 In this chapter, a religious actor is one that undertakes action as a consequence of his or her religious faith
and beliefs. They include: churches and comparable religious organisations in non-Christian religious con-
texts; social movements whose main motivating factor is their members’ religious beliefs; and political parties,
whose ideology has roots in identifiable religious beliefs and traditions.
3 Of the more than 20 countries in the Middle East and North Africa, only Tunisia has undergone a post-Arab
Spring transition to democracy which endures at the time of writing (October 2018).
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Analysis of Christian, Muslim and Multi-Faith Actors, The Hague: Netherlands Institute of International Rela-
tions.
Casanova, J. (1994) Public Religions in the Modern World, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ellis, S. and ter Haar, G. (2004) Religion and Development in Africa. Unpublished background paper prepared
for the Commission for Africa, 9 December. Available at https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/
1887/12909/ASC-071342346-174-01.pdf?sequence=1 Last accessed 10 October 2018.
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Halliday, F. (2005) The Middle East in International Relations: Power, Politics and Ideology, Cambridge: Cam-
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Haynes, J. (ed.) (2016) Routledge Handbook of Religion and Politics, 2nd ed., London: Routledge.
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Oklahoma Press.
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ECPR.
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africa/ Last accessed October 10, 2018.
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15. Available at http://www.pewforum.org/2010/04/15/executive-summary-islam-and-christianity-in-sub-saha-
ran-africa/ Last accessed October 10, 2018.
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http://www.pewforum.org/2011/01/27/the-future-of-the-global-muslim-population/ Last accessed October 10,
2018.
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(pp. 195–210), Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• religion and politics

• religion in politics
• politics and religion
• religion
• conflict resolution
• conflict
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n56

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Responsiveness
Contributors: Jeeyang Rhee Baum

Chapter Title: "Responsiveness"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Responsiveness
Jeeyang Rhee Baum
Introduction
Robert Dahl famously asserted that ‘[a] key characteristic of democracy is the continuing responsiveness of
the government to the preferences of its citizens, considered as political equals’ (1971: 1). Following the de-
mocratic guidelines established by Dahl, political theorists describe two fundamental principles of democracy.
The first principle states that ‘people [must] have a substantial influence over which policies a government
passes and which it does not pass’ (Peters and Ensink, 2015: 577). The second principle adds that ‘gov-
ernment should not just be responsible overall, but they should also be equally responsive to their citizens’
(Peters and Ensink, 2015: 577). Leonardo Morlino defines responsiveness as ‘the capacity to satisfy the gov-
erned by executing the policies that correspond to their demands’ (Morlino, 2004: 15) and identifies it as one
of the principal dimensions along which good democracies may vary. Responsiveness is a central quality that
cannot be detached from representative democracies, and it is of great significance as it ‘connects citizens to
authoritative decision making and not only to the selection of leaders in elections’ (Esaiasson and Wlezien,
2016: 699).
Interestingly, while traditional studies of responsiveness have primarily focused on the relationship between
opinion and public policy in democratic systems, an increasing number of scholars have begun to devote their
attention to responsiveness in supranational institutions and in authoritarian systems. Disentangling respon-
siveness from the type of regime is critical in understanding the political dynamics between the government
and its citizens. As Dahl (1971: 14) explains, when ‘hegemonic regimes and competitive oligarchies move
toward poly-archy they increase the opportunities for effective participation and contestation and hence the
number of individuals, groups, and interests whose preferences have to be considered in policy making'. How-
ever, in the perspective of the incumbents who currently govern, this transformation can be problematic as it
may bring potential conflict, with the opponents of the government having greater opportunities to translate
their goals into policies.
Dahl (1971: 15) argues that the greater the conflict between government and its opponents, the more costly
it is for each to tolerate the other. He advances three axioms regarding the likelihood of democratic change
in a non-polyarchy. These are, first, that government tolerance of opposition is inversely related to the costs
of toleration; second, that tolerance of opposition increases with the costs of suppression; and third, that the
likelihood of a competitive regime increases as the costs of suppression rise relative to the costs of toleration.
In short, seeking consensus is cheaper than suppression.
Through an analysis of responsiveness in the United States, the EU, several East Asian democracies, the
People's Republic of China and Russia, this chapter seeks to gain a better understanding of the cross-nation-
al advances and differences in responsiveness.
Theories and Concepts

The concept of responsiveness is complex. Although there is a general acceptance that responsiveness may
be perceived as ‘the “congruence” between citizens’ interests and political outcomes’ (Morlino and Quaranta,
2014: 334), the ‘chain of responsiveness’ (Powell, 2005) helps demonstrate that identifying such congruence
between citizens and policies can be empirically difficult. Not only do citizens lack coherent and consistent
policy preferences, but studies on responsiveness must be conducted under the assumption that ‘citizens
are able to identify and evaluate their desires and preferences’ (Morlino and Quaranta, 2014: 334). The com-
plexity of the concept helps explain why different studies have utilized divergent approaches when measuring
responsiveness. For instance, Arend Lijphart (1999) analyzed the distance between the government's and
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citizens’ policy preferences to measure responsiveness, while Stuart Soroka and Christopher Wlezien (2010)
relied on their examination of public preferences and policy outputs. Sara Binzer Hobolt and Robert Klem-
mensen (2008), alternatively, used executive policy promises (speeches) and policy actions (public expendi-
ture) to determine policy responsiveness.
Understanding the difficulty of measuring actual responsiveness, Morlino and Quaranta assert that progress
in the study can be made ‘if a distinction is drawn between a more general “political” responsiveness and
a more specific “economic” responsiveness’ (2014: 334). Political and economic performances are both ar-
gued to be factors that have significant influences on responsiveness. Political responsiveness is based on
the notion that ‘political institutions can be determinants of the functioning of a democratic regime’ (Morlino
and Quaranta, 2014: 336). Analysis of electoral systems (Singh, 2013) and party system fragmentations (An-
derson, 1998) are examples of indicators of political responsiveness that have been used. Scholars (Criado
and Herreros, 2007) have also long argued that the type of democracy – majoritarian or proportional – af-
fects citizens’ perceptions of the political institutions. Lijphart (1999) and Powell (2005) find that consensual
regimes perform better than majoritarian regimes, as citizens in majoritarian democracies showed less trust
in their government. Kees Aarts and Jacques Thomassen (2008), however, reach contradictory conclusions
in their research, asserting that majoritarian regimes demonstrated higher levels of satisfaction for democra-
cy. The level of political freedom should also be taken into consideration in the study of responsiveness, as
it is one of the core elements of a democratic regime (Morlino, 2011). Although measures of freedom have
mostly been used as control variables in past studies, it is essential to recognize their theoretical importance.
Studies have shown that ‘citizens living in countries with lower ratings of freedom are those more critical of
the way democracy performs in their country (Norris, 1999)', since ‘consolidated democracies, where political
and civil rights are present, show better political performance, which in turn affects citizens’ evaluation of the
regime’ (Morlino and Quaranta, 2014: 337).
Economic responsiveness is based on the conception that economic performance can foster legitimation for
democratic regimes (Anderson, 1998), and consequently affect citizens’ perceptions of the government. Eco-
nomic performance, such as in the areas of inflation, unemployment and GDP growth, have demonstrated
considerable influence on citizens’ satisfaction with democracy. Scholars (Wagner et al., 2009) have estab-
lished that economic growth is positively associated with citizens’ satisfaction of democracy, while bad eco-
nomic performances (i.e. unemployment and inflation) were negatively correlated with democratic satisfaction
(Di Tella et al., 2003). Furthermore, economic inequality is another indicator that should be considered in the
study of responsiveness, as a ‘high level of [economic] inequality is in contradiction to the democratic prin-
ciples’ (Morlino and Quaranta, 2014: 337). One study (Anderson and Singer, 2008) indicated that economic
inequality was negatively correlated with democratic satisfaction, and another (Solt, 2008) added that eco-
nomic inequality depresses voting turnout, political interest and discussion and general participation. There
are, however, other studies that find no evident relationship between economic inequality and democratic sat-
isfaction (Wagner et al., 2009). Further research is necessary in this area, as comparatively little attention has
been given to the study on the relationship between inequality and democratic regimes.
Analysis of Empirical Data in Different Systems
The United States

A 2017 report conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit established that democratic norms in 89 countries
have deteriorated since 2016, and that the percentage of the world's residents living in fully functional democ-
racies decreased from 8.9% to 4.5% between 2015 and 2017. It is interesting to note that this precipitous
drop was triggered by a decline in democratic norms in the United States. For a country that has long regard-
ed itself as exceptional on the basis that it discovered at its inception the definitive form of a free society with

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core values such as liberty and equality, this result is a matter of great mortification. Nevertheless, consid-
ering the degree of economic inequality and the recent rise of populism in the United States, it is difficult to
dispute the result. Sheri Berman (2017) asserts that ‘[i]nstitutional decay, in short, has weakened the respon-
siveness of American democracy, exacerbating the impact of its already many undemocratic features'. Both
the Democratic and Republican parties now have ‘less ability to transmit voter preferences to politicians and
into policies’ and ‘gerrymandering has also warped the translation of voter preferences into political outcomes
while the ease and efficiency of the American voting process have also declined’ (Berman, 2017).
Scholars have noticed a general declining trend in the public's trust in the US government in the past decade.
A 2007 survey by Tyler Schario and David Konisky disclosed that while the public expressed some confi-
dence in responsiveness of local governments, they tended to have ‘negative views of state and, especially,
[of the] federal government’ (Schario and Konisky, 2008: 4). A 2018 report by the Pew Research Center sup-
ports the view that the public's confidence in responsiveness of the US government is in decline, with 61%
stating that it is unlikely that their representative would be responsive to their problems, and 76% saying that
the government is run by a few big interests looking out for themselves. With an increasing number of reports
suggesting that there is an overall trend among the public to perceive the government as unresponsive to
their preferences, this chapter will look into whether this is also true in state and local governments.
The Local Level in the United States

Jeffrey Lax and Justin Phillips examined the quality of democratic government at the state level in the United
States using national surveys and advances in subnational opinion estimations. Their research established
that state governments were generally responsive to voter preferences across a wide range of issues. In par-
ticular, state governments were more likely to be responsive to voter preferences concerning issues of high
salience, ‘even after controlling for the ideology of state voters and elected elites’ (Lax and Phillips, 2012:
164). Julianna Pacheco's research supports the view that the degree of policy representation and public re-
sponsiveness has been ‘dependent on issue saliency, [suggesting] that representation is higher for some is-
sues’ (Pacheco, 2013: 327). Although state governments seemed to be responsive to public preferences on
issues of high salience, it is important to realize that there still exists considerable evidence of democratic
deficit at the state level. Lax and Phillips establish that state policies were congruent with majority opinion
only about half of the time, ‘a clear “failing” grade on the congruence test’ (2012: 164).
A more recent study by Devin Caughey and Christopher Warshaw (2018) supports previous findings that state
policymaking responds to mass policy preferences. Examining state policies in the United States from 1936
through 2014, they find that state policies have become more aligned with public opinion in recent decades.
They further note that the early 1970s was ‘a key inflection point', in which governmental responsiveness
appeared to be more pronounced. While the results of their study showed an almost equal degree of respon-
siveness throughout US states prior to the 1970s, government responsiveness in areas outside of the South
became higher after the 1970s, especially concerning economic issues. One noteworthy discovery in Caugh-
ey and Warshaw's research was that, contrary to the popular perception of partisan state-level politics, there
wasn't much evidence to support the claim that responsiveness was channeled through turnover in political
parties. Changes in policy were not driven by selection of officials from parties, but instead occurred ‘in large
part through the adaptation of incumbent officials’ (2018: 249).
Cities
Studies of responsiveness at the state level provide us with some reassurance regarding the health of Amer-

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ican democracy. At least at the state level, the public's voice seems to make a difference. But is this also
true with responsiveness in local governments? Katherine Einstein and Vladimir Kogan (2015: 3) use ‘a com-
prehensive cross-sectional database linking voter preferences to local policy outcomes in more than 2,000
midsize cities and a new panel covering cities in two states’ to conclude that cities tend to be responsive to
the needs of their constituents. The results from their study established that voter preferences helped explain
why cities adopted certain policies. For example, when the residents demanded greater spending, the cities
responded by choosing to apply for aid. Chris Tausanovitch and Christopher Warshaw (2014: 605) support
their argument, finding that ‘policies enacted by cities across a range of policy areas correspond with the lib-
eral-conservative positions of their citizens on national policy issues'.
Paul Schumaker and Russel Getter (1977), however, note that responsiveness bias is indisputably present
in US cities. Throughout analysis of responsiveness bias in 51 American communities, they find that respon-
siveness bias was present in the communities overall. Cities were more likely to ‘bias their policy responses in
favor of the advantaged than in favor of the disadvantaged, thus suggesting that in most cities upper-SES and
white citizens receive more of what they prefer in public policy than do lower-SES and black citizens’ (p. 274).
They further determined that cities with great bias toward the advantaged shared the following characteristics:
(1) larger population size, (2) greater levels of population wealth, (3) power structures in which governmental
officials have comparatively lower levels of influence than private elites in matters of public affairs, (4) lower
levels of Democratic party strength, and (5) interest groups which are well-organized, and which exhibit low
levels of black representation (Schumaker and Getter, 1977: 275). These characteristics suggest that wealth-
ier cities with lower minority representation typically had greater bias in policies in ways that preferred the
advantaged.
Income and Responsiveness in the United States

Vast literatures concerning responsiveness in the United States have focused on determining the relationship
between income and responsiveness (e.g. Bartels, 2017; Gilens, 2005, 2012). It is interesting to note that
there is a general consensus in results despite the fact that they were independent studies employing differ-
ent data and research designs. Larry Bartels found in his analysis of US senators’ roll call votes that they
were ‘influenced by the preferences of constituents in the top one-third of the income distribution but not at all
by the preferences of low-income constituents’ (Bartels, 2017: 5–6). Research conducted by Elizabeth Rigby
and Gerald Wright (2013) also established that state governments were generally unresponsive to low-in-
come preferences. Furthermore, Martin Gilens (2005, 2012) used an original data set of nearly two thousand
survey questions on proposed policy changes between 1981 and 2002 to determine that responsiveness was
strongly tilted toward the preferences of the most affluent citizens, while the preferences of low-income citi-
zens had virtually no impact on the policies that the government adopted.
The EU
Analogous to the United States, Europe has been experiencing an overall decay in democratic values. In a
2014 survey by the European Election Study, 47% of Europeans responded that the European Parliament
did not represent their preferences while 44% asserted that they did not trust the institutions of the European
Union (Schmitt et al., 2015). Simon Hix (2008) finds that popular support for the EU has been in decline since
the 1990s, ‘when the age of “permissive consensus” ended, following the establishment of the internal market’
(Sorace, 2017: 4). Sheri Berman (2017) identifies two major causes for this democratic deficit in the EU. First,
the European political parties have become considerably weaker over the past decades. ‘[M]embership has
declined, activist networks have withered, and voter loyalty has diminished, which has translated into higher

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rates of vote switching and greater political disengagement’ (n.p.). Peter Mair supports this view, asserting
that those in the European party system ‘have become so disconnected from the wider society, and pursue a
form of competition that is so lacking in meaning, that they no longer seem capable of sustaining democracy’
(cited in Berman, 2018: n.p.).
Second, Berman and many other scholars view the EU as a factor that undermines democracy, as critical
decisions are made by ‘unelected technocrats’ without any direct input from the citizens. Many Europeans to-
day perceive the EU as being run by distant and unaccountable political elites, and such disconnect between
Brussels and many European voters has enabled populist and Euroskeptic parties to gain political ground.
Euroskeptic parties assert that ‘domestic institutions can't prevent governments, businesses and internation-
al bureaucrats from trampling over the welfare of the citizens in pursuit of their own interests’ (Schneider,
2018b). Nevertheless, further research is necessary to determine if it is accurate to perceive supranational
organizations such as the EU as unable to be responsive to the preferences of its citizens.
There is growing scholarly attention on the difference between short term responsiveness and middle term
responsiveness, particularly as it relates to the behavior of neo-populist leaders in Europe. Morlino and Quar-
anta (2014) find that responsiveness is associated more strongly with macro-economic conditions (debt, un-
employment, growth and inflation) than with the substantive dimensions of democracy (freedom and equal-
ity). In other words, they argue that responsiveness is a dimension that is partially unrelated to the type of
regime and to the level of inequality. This implies two things: first, partially democratic regimes can have high
responsiveness and, as a result, if responsiveness becomes a priority, some aspects of democracy becomes
less of a priority; second, if employment or growth improve, the level of inequality is partially irrelevant and
responsiveness could improve, as well as the level of freedom and the type of democracy (pp. 351–2). They
conclude that this result is relevant for party leaders, insofar as it indicates that they should primarily focus on
the macro-economic conditions.
Can International Organizations Be Responsive?

Although the standard argument is that supranational institutions fail to be responsive to the concerns of the
public, Sara Hagemann et al. (2016) argue that governments are able to respond to domestic public opinion
even when acting at the international level. Using a data set on all legislative decisions adopted in the Council
of the EU since 1999, the authors contend that ‘government opposition to legislative proposals is shaped by
public opinion on European integration’ (Hagemann et al., 2016: 869). It is, however, important to realize that
this research conducted by Hagemann et al. focuses on signal responsiveness instead of policy responsive-
ness. The authors note that understanding this distinction is significant because ‘while the presence of sig-
nal responsiveness indicates that citizens’ views are heard, it does not guarantee that they are represented’
(Hagemann et al., 2017: 870). Christina Schneider (2017) supports this research by Hagemann et al., argu-
ing that the EU governments signal responsiveness to their national electorates and voters respond favorably
to these signals of responsiveness. Using data on ‘the bargaining behavior and negotiation success of the
28 EU members in European legislative, and original data from a survey experiment in Germany', Schneider
finds that ‘EU governments are more likely to defend positions that favor their domestic constituents’ (Schnei-
der, 2017: 1). Similar to the research conducted by Hagemann et al., however, Schneider's (2018a) research
focused on signal responsiveness instead of policy responsiveness. Therefore, future research is necessary
to further examine whether governments’ continuous use of the international stage to signal responsiveness
can help guarantee more of the public's preferences and concerns to be represented in actual policies.
Income and Responsiveness in Europe

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Much literature concerning the relationship between income and responsiveness has concentrated on the
United States, but recent studies have expanded their scope to the European context (Fortin-Rittberger and
Eder, 2013; Rosset, 2013). Parallel to results in the United States, Jan Rosset finds that ‘representatives are
better aligned with the ideology of the higher-income than with the lower-income group’ in Switzerland (cited
in Peters and Ensink, 2015: 579). A subsequent 2013 study by Rosset et al. examining differential respon-
siveness in 24 European democracies found that the tendency to under-represent low-income citizens was
not unique to Switzerland, but instead was a widespread phenomenon in European democracies. Yvette Pe-
ters and Sander Ensink support this view, asserting that there is a tendency for lower-income groups to be
under-represented while higher-income groups are over-represented. Peters and Ensink's research, using
time-series cross-sectional methods to analyze data of information on 25 European countries from 2002 to
2010, suggested that ‘differential responsiveness is more pronounced in situations where the preferences of
the rich and the poor diverge more’ (Peters and Ensink, 2015: 596). In such situations, governments ultimate-
ly responded to the preferences of high-income citizens rather than those of low-income citizens.
East Asian Democracies

A critical link in the chain of democratic accountability occurs when elected officials delegate sweeping policy
making authority to unelected bureaucrats. After all, as the US government's own definition of democracy
implies, accountability in governance is a cornerstone of stable democracy. Yet, observers worry that elect-
ed officials may be unable to control these bureaucratic policymakers and that citizens may have difficulty
holding them accountable. This is especially troublesome given the extraordinary breadth and depth of re-
sponsibilities that elected policymakers routinely delegate to administrative agencies in modern nation states,
including authority to interpret health, safety, environmental and economic regulations, as well as to allocate
public investments (such as transportation and energy).
To increase accountability, some countries require that bureaucratic agencies provide the public with infor-
mation on their past performance (e.g. public disclosure) and direct opportunities to participate in future bu-
reaucratic policymaking (e.g. notice, public hearing and comment procedures). They also bestow on civil so-
ciety the right to monitor bureaucratic compliance with legislative directives (e.g. citizen lawsuits and judicial
review). Yet other democracies appear to exclude civil society from directly participating in bureaucratic poli-
cymaking. Though not all new democracies have implemented administrative procedural reform, and though
Administrative Procedure Acts (APAs) do not appear to be a necessary feature of democracy, Baum (2011:
237) suggests that enactment of APAs in new democracies does appear to facilitate movement from ex post
toward ex ante democracy. This, in turn, can make the state more responsive to its citizens. After all, by
making government decision making more transparent and giving citizens voice in the policy implementation
process, procedural openness reduces arbitrariness in governance while increasing the ability of citizens to
influence policy outcomes.
In other words, transparency and participation – among the primary effects of an APA – essentially define in-
stitutional democracy. In most cases, it is too early to know with certainty whether statutory transparency and
participation (via an APA) have contributed toward the success of new democracies. However, if public trust is
a valid gauge of citizen satisfaction with democracy and thus a useful indicator of the state of democracy with-
in a given nation or ‘perceived responsiveness’ (Morlino, 2011; Powell, 2005), there is suggestive evidence
that citizens in South Korea and Taiwan – and especially those not closely affiliated with the former, author-
itarian regime – appear to hold greater trust in their democracy in the post-APA period (Baum, 2009, 2011).
Just as elections are an important pillar of democratic accountability, statutory transparency and participation
procedures are equally important for the maturation of new democracies. Only time will tell whether and to
what extent APAs ultimately facilitate the transition from ex post institutional democracy to ex ante responsive
democracy in other developing democracies around the world (Baum, 2011: 239–40).
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The People's Republic of China

It is not surprising that comparatively little attention has been given to the study of responsiveness in author-
itarian regimes, as this is a concept fundamentally tied to democracy. Nevertheless, recently there has been
an increasing number of studies examining responsiveness in these regimes. Tianguang Meng et al. (2014)
stress that it is extremely important that scholars be cautious when applying the concept of responsiveness
to an authoritarian context. This is because in countries such as China, where the legacy of totalitarianism is
deeply rooted in its culture, ‘the willingness of citizens to express their preferences undoubtedly differs from
that in a consolidated democracy’ (Meng et al., 2017: 402). Despite the fact that the Chinese government
has developed new formal and informal channels for citizens to express their preferences, it still remains in-
evitable that information or speech deemed inappropriate in the perspective of the government will be cur-
tailed through censorship or physical repression. Considering that theoretical predictions of Western political
science assert that authoritarian governments are generally not responsive to public preferences, this chapter
subsequently investigates why authoritarian governments feel the need to respond to the preferences of their
citizens.
Why Do Authoritarian Governments Respond?

Contrary to predictions of the standard theory of democracy, recent research of responsiveness in authoritar-
ian systems reveal surprisingly high responsiveness. But why do authoritarian governments feel the need to
be responsive? Jidong Chen et al. (2015: 29) argue that citizen engagement may in fact contribute to regime
survival in authoritarian regimes, ‘or at the very least, citizen engagement is not necessarily a harbinger of
the collapse of institutionalized single-party regimes'. This finding is in direct contrast to previous research
by James Robinson and Daron Acemoglu (2006), who asserted that citizen engagement and protest act as
‘catalysts for regime change'. Using an online experiment among 2,103 Chinese counties, Chen et al. find
that ‘approximately one third of county governments in China are responsive to citizens’ requests related to
social welfare’ (Chen et al., 2015: 383). Results from the research disclosed that threats of collective action in-
creased responsiveness overall in local governments by approximately 30%, while increasing public respon-
siveness by almost 50%. It came as a surprise, however, that the study did not find the Chinese government
to demonstrate any bias toward long-standing members of the Communist Party.
A Comparison with Democracies

Recent studies on responsiveness in China have, surprisingly, established that the Chinese government ex-
hibits a considerably high level of government responsiveness. In an Asian Barometer Survey conducted
in 2008, approximately 78% of mainland Chinese citizens responded that the government is responsive to
their needs. In contrast, only 36% of Taiwanese citizens answered that their government was responsive.
The results are even more alarming in other East Asian democracies that have modeled the Western liberal
democratic system, such as South Korea (21%) and Mongolia (25%). J. Yingnan Zhou and Ray Ou-Yang
(2017) assert that authoritarian countries may seem like they have a higher level of government respon-
siveness compared to democracies due to three key differences. First, unlike in democracies, where failing
to elect one's preferred candidate predisposes voters to critical assessment of government responsiveness,
such predisposition does not exist in authoritarian countries ‘where elections are nonexistent or nominal’ (J.
Yingnan Zhou and Ray Ou-Yang, 2016: 283). Second, elections create incentives for democratic leaders to
‘over-respond to certain groups', yet such mechanism also does not exist in authoritarian countries. Third,
‘the solid and clear legitimacy established by electoral victories shield democratic leaders from particularistic
demands made through unconventional channels’ (Zhou and Ou-Yang, 2017: 283). Therefore, without solid
and clear legitimacy, authoritarian governments ‘are compelled to cement legitimacy by increasing respon-
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siveness’ (Zhou and Ou-Yang, 2017: 283). The authors conclude that low responsiveness in democracies
may, in fact, be an inevitable result of having democratic elections and government transparency.
Quasi-Democratic Institutions as Window Dressing?

An increasing number of scholars are finding that authoritarian countries employ quasi-democratic institutions
as an effort to retain their power. China has adopted quasi-democratic institutions ranging from ‘village elec-
tions to people's congresses to public participation mechanisms’ (Meng et al., 2017: 403). Using a list experi-
ment of 1,377 provincial and city level leaders in China, Meng et al. find that receptivity is possible at the sub-
national levels. Despite recent evidence that China has high perceived government responsiveness, however,
it is imperative to view this argument with some skepticism. Zhou and Ou-Yang (2017) assert that authoritari-
an governments may be merely creating a ‘perception’ of a responsive government in the wider world. In their
words, ‘[p]erception may not correspond to reality’ and ‘[w]e cannot infer that authoritarian governments are
more responsive to public opinion by any objective measure’ (Zhou and Ou-Yang, 2017: 297). On the other
hand, Meng et al. assert that quasi-democratic institutions may be more than mere window dressing for local
leaders. Nevertheless, they also remain cautious about making any hasty judgments as it remains unclear
whether responsiveness at the local level ultimately leads to actual policy decisions. Thus, further research
is therefore necessary in this area to better evaluate whether China's use of quasi-democratic institutions is
mere window dressing.
Russia
Russian electoral authoritarianism is a classic case where responsiveness is a key element of the regime, but
is complemented by manipulation, corruption and other similar aspects. Andreas Schedler writes: ‘Electoral
authoritarian regimes play the game of multiparty elections by holding regular elections for the chief executive
and a national legislative assembly. Yet they violate the liberal-democratic principles of freedom and fairness
so profoundly and systematically as to render elections instruments of authoritarian rule rather than “instru-
ments of democracy”’ (2006: 3).
Electoral authoritarian (EA) regimes set up a whole institutional landscape of representative democracy by es-
tablishing ‘constitutions, elections, parliaments, courts, local governments, subnational legislatures, and even
agencies of accountability’ (Schedler, 2006: 12). By allowing competitive multiparty elections, the EA regime
recognizes subjects as citizens and ‘endow[s] them with the ultimate controlling power over who shall occupy
the summit of the state’ (Schedler, 2006: 13). It is, however, imperative to realize that electoral contests in EA
regimes are ‘subject to state manipulation so severe, widespread, and systematic that they do not qualify as
democratic’ (Schedler, 2006: 3). Authoritarian manipulation can exist in many forms:
[r]ulers may devise discriminatory electoral rules, exclude opposition parties and candidates from
entering the electoral arena, infringe upon their political rights and civil liberties, restrict their access
to mass media and campaign finance, impose formal or informal suffrage restrictions on their sup-
porters, coerce or corrupt them into deserting the opposition camp, or simply redistribute votes and
seats through electoral fraud. (Schedler, 2006: 3)
No matter the form, different guises of authoritarian manipulation all tend to serve the purpose of ‘containing
the troubling uncertainty of electoral outcomes’ (Schedler, 2006: 3).
In EA regimes, as opposition parties are designed to lose elections, electoral contests are ‘a profoundly am-
biguous affair for opposition parties’ (Schedler, 2006: 14). Schedler notes that authoritarian elections ‘do not
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provide any of the normative reasons for accepting defeat losers have under democratic conditions', and also
‘fail to display the procedural fairness and substantive uncertainty that makes democratic elections normative-
ly acceptable’ (Schedler, 2006: 14). In a more recent book, Schedler finds that manipulating the public per-
ception of political realities through media censorship is one of the most effective ways in which ruling parties
cope with problems, with exclusion and fraud also seen as effective instruments for authoritarian stabilization
(Schedler, 2013).
Major Advances in the Field
Public Opinion and Political Decisions

The seminal works of political theorists Robert Dahl and Hanna Pitkin inspired a great deal of empirical re-
search ‘examining the relationship between citizens’ policy preferences and the policy choices of elected of-
ficials’ (e.g. Miller and Stokes, 1963; Page and Shapiro, 1983; Stimson et al., 1995; Soroka and Wlezien,
2010). Shapiro and Jacobs (2001) assert that there has been ‘a decline in democratic responsiveness at the
very top of American national government’ (p. 150). Although it may look like American presidents are paying
increasing attention to public opinion, the authors note that this does not necessarily mean that policy making
has become more responsive to public opinion. In fact, they argue that public opinion has little bearing on
most political decisions and that, if anything, politicians are keen to aim to change the public's perceptions
rather than their own agenda. Only in circumstances when politicians feel very pressured by the public's sen-
timent do they seem to follow the non-confrontational, neutral and compromising approach of choosing what
would satisfy the majority.
Ideological/Partisan Preferences
Lax and Phillips asserted that partisanship and interest groups affect the ideological balance of incongruence
(2012: 148), leading to policy decisions which are much more responsive to ideological and party preferences
than to policy preferences of the majority. This view has been standard for many political scientists, yet
Caughey and Warshaw found contrasting results in their research. They argue that ‘partisan selection is a
comparatively minor mechanism of responsiveness not because party control has no policy effects, but rather
because mass policy preferences explain relatively little of the variation in party fortunes’ (Caughey and War-
shaw, 2018: 263). This argument is ‘consistent with Erikson et al.'s “statehouse democracy” model, in which
the platforms of Democratic and Republican parties in a given state diverge from one another (resulting in
partisan effects on policy) but are roughly centered on the state's median voter’ (Caughey and Warshaw,
2018: 263). In addition, incumbents pay attention to voter preferences and adapt to changes in public option
even without no party control (Caughey and Warsaw 2018: 263).
Substantive Representation in the European Parliament

With an increasing number of scholars arguing that the EU is able to be responsive to the needs of its citizens,
Miriam Sorace (2018: 3) compared ‘voters’ preferences in economic policy to political parties’ economic writ-
ten parliamentary questions during the 2009–14 term of the European Parliament. Unlike previous studies
that have concentrated on data from the Council, Sorace's research focused on data from the Parliament. The
results indicated that there were good institutional representations of the position of the average European
voter on the part of the European Parliament, with EP political parties demonstrating strong tendencies to be
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drawn toward the preferences of the average citizen. One interesting finding is that, unlike previous studies
which have argued that responsiveness was biased toward people of high income, data from the Parliament
did not demonstrate any bias against the elites and the working class. Sorace holds that despite the popular
perception that there is democratic deficit in Europe, evidence from the Parliament suggests that it is ‘at most
a pluralism deficit in the European Parliament, since substantive representation in the European Parliament
is successful as far as the majoritarian norm is concerned’ (2018: 3).
The Salience of Political Contestation

Sara Hobolt and Robert Klemmensen (2008) examine data on ‘rhetorical responsiveness’ – how politicians
respond to the public's preferences through statements and speeches – and ‘effective responsiveness’ – the
response offered by politicians in terms of actions. The scholars compared data from Britain, Denmark and
the United States in the period 1970–2005 and determined that while rhetorical responsiveness is highest in
Denmark, effective responsiveness is highest in the United States. One interesting finding from their study is
that all three countries that were compared shared tendencies to display greater responsiveness when under
pressure – suggesting that the degree of democratic responsiveness is highly correlated with the degree of
political contestation present in a country.
Increasing Responsiveness Online in China

In China, there has been increasing use of online forums as new channels for political participation. Using
big data analytics of full records of citizen–government interactions from 2008 to early 2014, Zheng Su and
Tianguang Meng (2016) observed ‘a dramatic increase in both the expressed demands from citizens and the
responses from government through the internet channel’ (Su and Meng, 2016: 65). Their study further finds
that approximately 33% of online public demands were responded, signaling a rapid growth of response rate
in China. One important thing to note in the study is that authoritarian government responsiveness seemed
highly selective, ‘conditioning on actors’ social identities and the policy domains of their online demands’ (Su
and Meng, 2016: 52). Demands from local citizens that were collective and related to economic growth were
most likely to be responded.
Recommendations for the Future
Potential Negative Externalities

Political equality and responsiveness to citizens are two fundamental values in representative democracy,
and thus a great deal of previous empirical research has focused on understanding actual responsiveness
processes (e.g. Burstein, 2010; Wlezien and Soroka, 2010). However, comparatively little research has been
done on whether there are negative externalities of government responsiveness. Marcia Grimes and Peter
Esaiasson (2014) use a data set of the siting of unwanted facilities in two Swedish cities to argue that govern-
ment responsiveness may have some undesirable consequences. They find that citizens with strong political
resources have greater success in impressing their preferences upon decision makers, ‘meaning that govern-
ment responsiveness may possibly exacerbate inequality in policy outcomes, especially if participatory demo-
cratic arrangements are prevalent’ (p. 758). This concern was demonstrated in the results of their study as
it found that participatory decision making had contributed to inequality in policy outcomes, because citizens
with stronger political resources were able to participate to a greater extent and sway the decision makers
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to their favored position. More research on potential negative externalities of government responsiveness is
necessary in order to ensure that every citizen's preferences are being represented equally.
Challenges and Limitations of the Study

Many challenges and limitations exist in the study of responsiveness. As Bingham Powell notes, evaluating
the quality of democratic responsiveness is a very difficult task. Powell argues that ‘correspondence between
citizens’ policy desires and government's policy outcomes is not a sufficient measure of democratic respon-
siveness', and is doubtful as to whether there are any simple measures to adequately assess countries’ rela-
tive democratic responsiveness (Powell, 2005: 2). This chapter concurs with Powell's assertion that there are
several problems with the approach of measuring democratic responsiveness by examining the relationship
between public preferences and policy outcomes. First, as recent data suggest, voters lack coherent, consis-
tent policy preferences. Consequently, it is extremely difficult for the legislators to decide on the preferences
to which to respond. Second, as Bartels argues in his critique of democratic theory, voters share tendencies
to ‘take their policy preference cues from political elites’ (Hill, 2018). Thus, responsiveness may not be de-
mocratic as the elites shape public preferences and ‘use those preferences as justification for their policies’
(Hill, 2018). Third, voters tend to be highly influenced by their cognitive and emotional biases preventing them
from making rational choices. Even in cases when voters can possibly overcome their biases, they still cannot
effectively express their attitudes through elections because ‘America's current electoral processes constrain
voter choice such that citizens cannot adequately express their political attitudes through the election mecha-
nism’ (Hill, 2018).
Shared Concerns of Democratic Deficit in the United States and the EU

An interesting phenomenon is that contemporary liberal democracy is in crisis in both Western Europe and
the United States. Saskia Brechenmacher (2018) observes that the decline in democratic norms in democ-
racies on both sides of the Atlantic reveals a new sense of political convergence. For example, Europe and
the United States share the concern of ‘high levels of citizen distrust in democratic institutions, alienation from
establishment political actors, and unease about an increasingly fragmented and incoherent public informa-
tion space that is vulnerable to polarization’ (Brechenmacher, 2018: 30). Unresponsiveness of political power
is a salient issue which both Europe and the United States must confront in order to recover from the cur-
rent state of democratic crisis. To improve government responsiveness, both Europe and the United States
are exploring new mechanisms to improve public trust in media institutions – ranging from ‘fact-checking and
greater transparency measures to programs centered on media and civic literacy and investments in local
newspapers and reporting’ (Brechenmacher, 2018: 31). Timothy Besley and Robin Burgess (2002) support
this method of expanding the role of democratic institutions and mass media to ensure that citizens’ prefer-
ences are represented in policy. Besley and Burgess assert that the media can be utilized to provide a more
informed and politically active electorate, which is crucial to have strong incentives for the government to be
responsive. It is imperative that the United States and Europe perceive the current moment of democratic
crisis as an opportunity to develop new local experiments in democratic innovation and identify more effective
mechanisms for democratic responsiveness. Although it may not be enough, expanding the role of democra-
tic institutions and mass media can be a good starting point for both the United States and Europe.
Note
1 The author thanks David Chai for excellent research assistance.
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• responsiveness
• citizens
• government
• democracy
• regime
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n57

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Political Performance and State Capacity
Contributors: Edeltraud Roller

Chapter Title: "Political Performance and State Capacity"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Political Performance and State Capacity

Edeltraud Roller
Introduction
Political performance and state capacity refer to activities of public officials as individual and above all as
collective actors. The general concept of political performance, comprising all public officials such as gov-
ernments, institutions and administrations, was suggested for the first time in the 1970s; the more specific
concept of state capacity, focusing on the administrative activities of a political regime, was introduced in the
mid 2000s.
Political performance and state capacity is not a well-established field of research with a common terminology
and well-defined concepts, a set of well-formulated theories and proven empirical findings. Research is divid-
ed into several heterogeneous areas, some of which are still in their infancy.
In principle, political performance is defined in broad and narrow ways. Broadly defined, it encompasses the
activities of public officials (descriptive aspect) as well as the evaluation of these activities and their outcomes:
how well public officials do or how successful they are (evaluative aspect). Hence, it concerns the descrip-
tion of particular activities, such as passing bills and collecting taxes. In addition, it includes the evaluation
of whether public officials make public policies (the activity), for example, in an efficient way and without cor-
ruption, plus whether they achieve intended goals (outcomes) such as welfare of citizens or liberty. Narrow-
ly understood, political performance is only an evaluative concept, referring to the evaluation of what public
officials do and what the outcomes of their actions are. This narrow definition, which dominates in political
science, is the one adopted here. Three stages of the study of political performance, as well as a preliminary
stage, can be distinguished.

The classical political science literature can be interpreted as the preliminary stage in the debate on political
performance. In fact, the idea of evaluating political systems is a core concern in this literature. Criteria of po-
litical performance such as liberty and equality dominated the writings of classical political theorists (e.g. John
Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau) in their search for good types of government. Additionally, performance
criteria such as common good and political stability served as central yardsticks for scholars of comparative
government, from Aristotle to Karl Loewenstein, in describing and comparing different nondemocratic and de-
mocratic regimes. This preliminary stage, however, is characterized by the fact that its protagonists did not
make explicit use of the term political performance. Furthermore, they mainly relied on theoretical arguments
and unsystematic empirical observations to assess the merits of different regimes.
First Stage
The first stage of systematic conceptual and empirical study of political performance started in the 1970s. At
this point, two crucial obstacles had been overcome. The first, the availability of cross-national data, became
less of an obstacle with the collection and documentation of a wide range of social and political indicators for
many independent countries of the world. First editions of several data handbooks appeared during the 1960s
(e.g. World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators). The second obstacle, the deliberate avoidance of
evaluation by empirically oriented political scientists, was removed when they dared to make explicit and sys-
tematic appraisals of concrete political systems based on empirical data.
The outset of this phase can be dated to 1971, when Harry Eckstein developed and justified theoretical criteria
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for evaluating political systems and when Ted Gurr and Muriel McClelland (1971) made a first systematic at-
tempt to operationalize these criteria and applied measures to a sample of democratic and nondemocratic
countries. Eckstein, stressing the fact that measuring political performance is an evaluative task, distinguishes
between two types of performance: goal-oriented or substantive performance, which aims at the attainment
of particular goals such as welfare or liberty; and procedural performance, independent of particular goals,
which helps to promote the attainment of any particular goal. Focusing on procedural performance, Eckstein
(1971) identifies four dimensions on which polities must perform well if they are to effectively attain any spe-
cific goal: durability, civil order, legitimacy and decisional efficacy.
In 1978, Gabriel Almond and G. Bingham Powell developed their concept of political productivity, the most
influential and lasting concept of political performance emerging from this phase. The political system itself is
seen as the producer of (political) goods that are ‘commonly sought by or expected of political systems … and
are widely acknowledged as the legitimate obligation of political systems’ (Almond and Powell, 1978: 394).
The authors distinguish between two types of goods: goods that satisfy the needs of the state and goods
that satisfy the needs of the citizens. Their concept of political productivity comprises eight political goods:
system maintenance, system adaptation, participation, compliance and support, procedural justice (needs of
the state; the first two originating in Eckstein's work) and welfare, security and liberty (needs of the citizens).
The list incorporates both of Eckstein's types of performance; the five needs of the state refer to procedural
performance, whereas the three needs of citizens refer to substantive performance. Aside from suggesting
this list, the authors empirically study the attainment of some of these goods in several democratic and non-
democratic countries.
The studies of the first stage of performance research, mainly conducted within systems theory, were inter-
ested in finding an external and relatively unbiased evaluation of political systems and presented primarily de-
scriptive information on the performance of several democratic and nondemocratic regimes. This early work,
however, provoked only a few isolated studies.
Second Stage
The rise of new institutionalism in the 1980s, with its central premise that different institutional arrangements
produce different results (institutions matter), was the starting point for the second stage. Research on political
performance advanced significantly and resulted in the development of an independent research area in the
1990s. The focus was no longer on identifying and studying generally accepted performance criteria but on
the empirical analysis of a wide range of consequences of political regimes, interpreted as political perfor-
mance.
At the beginning of this second stage, research focused on the performance of democracies. Arend Lijphart's
Patterns of Democracy (1999, [2012]), one of the most important and influential works, is devoted to the per-
formance of majoritarian and consensus democracy. Lijphart asks which type works best and offers a com-
prehensive empirical analysis, covering 36 established democracies and 32 performance indicators catego-
rized into four areas: macroeconomic management; control of violence; quality of democracy and democratic
representation; and what he calls kinder and gentler policy areas (encompassing welfare state, environmental
policy, criminal justice and foreign aid). This study stimulated further research on the performance of different
types of democracy, such as parliamentary and presidential systems, unitary and federal systems, majori-
tarian and proportional electoral systems or different types of negotiation democracy (e.g. Armingeon, 2002;
Roller, 2005; Gerring and Thacker, 2008).
Research comparing democracy and authoritarianism is now accelerating. The revival of scholarly interest in
the classic question whether democracy or autocracy performs better originates in historical developments.
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Despite the worldwide triumph of democracy in the aftermath of the third wave of democratization, a great
number of nondemocratic regimes continue to persist, some of which display great economic success (e.g.
China, Singapore). Thus far, a considerable number of empirical studies comparing the performance of
democracy and authoritarianism have been presented. These studies, however, mainly focus on two dimen-
sions of policy performance: economic policies and/or and social policies (e.g. Przeworski et al., 2000; Baum
and Lake, 2003; Ross, 2006). These are the two policy areas for which comparative data is available.
In this second phase, the latest studies compare the performance of different types of authoritarian regimes.
Confronted with a multitude of different nondemocracies, political scientists identified different types of con-
temporary authoritarian regimes and, what is more, collected corresponding comparative data starting at the
end of the 20th century (e.g. Cheibub et al., 2010; Geddes et al., 2014; Wahman et al., 2013). The most
important types are electoral authoritarianism and closed authoritarianism; the latter is further divided into
monarchies, military regimes and one-party regimes. As a result, the question of which type of authoritarian
regime performs better has been moving to the top of the research agenda. To date, the number of empirical
studies is of a manageable size. They focus on economic and/or social policies; but they also start examining
the question of whether types of authoritarian regimes differ in terms of basic political freedoms (e.g. Gandhi,
2008; McGuire, 2013; Miller, 2015; Stier, 2015).
Guided by the ‘so what?’ question of comparative government (Lijphart, 2012: 255), the majority of empirical
studies which are part of this second stage are not interested in investigating specific types of performance
or concrete performance criteria but rather in analysing the general question whether political regimes make
any difference in performance at all. That is why many scholars choose performance indicators without any
further theoretical justification (for exceptions see, e.g., Putnam, 1993; Roller, 2005). Very often, the selection
of indicators is guided solely by the availability of comparative performance data. As a result, heterogeneous
performance indicators and criteria are studied. What is more, even measurements such as expenditure data,
which simply describe but do not evaluate the performance of political regimes, are used.
Third Stage
While this second stage is still ongoing, a third stage of the study of political performance is on the way. The
defining characteristic of this stage is the introduction of state capacity as a specific concept of political perfor-
mance. It is difficult to identify the beginning of this stage, but it seems reasonable to choose the year 2008,
when Hanna Bäck and Axel Hadenius presented a first empirical analysis of ‘Democracy and state capacity',
and Bo Rothstein and Jan Teorell a theoretical contribution entitled ‘What is quality of government? A theory
of impartial government institutions'. Their point of origin is the observation that in many cases democratic
transitions do not result in improved welfare or human well-being (e.g. poverty, inequality, infant mortality, life
expectancy). This raises doubts as to whether the democratic regime is an important performance-enhancing
factor. The proponents of the state capacity concept (Rothstein and Teorell use the term quality of govern-
ment) argue that besides democracy, a state is needed that ‘functions well in an administrative sense’ (Bäck
and Hadenius, 2008: 1). The idea that a high quality administration is a necessary condition for welfare is
not new. In the mid 1990s, the promotion of ‘good governance’ by international aid and development orga-
nizations such as the World Bank and the United Nations was motivated by similar reasons. However, the
concept of good governance and the associated Worldwide Governance Indicators, (WGI) (Kaufmann et al.,
2009) have been criticized for being too broad and lacking conceptual clarity and precision. The idea behind
the state capacity concept is to provide a precise definition of this administrative factor so that it can be even-
tually be operationalized and measured.
The introduction of the state capacity concept leads to the study of several new research questions. On
the one hand, empirical studies examining the relationship between political regimes and state capacity ask
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whether political regimes differ in terms of state capacity and what type of political regimes perform better. As
in the second stage, studies compare different types of democracy (old and new), different types of authori-
tarian regimes and democracy with authoritarianism (e.g. Bäck and Hadenius, 2008; Charron and Lapuente,
2010, 2011). On the other hand, research addresses the pivotal question whether the political regime (author-
itarianism or democracy), or state capacity, or both determine welfare. At issue is how both factors interact in
determining welfare – whether democracy and state capacity are complements or substitutes (e.g. Knutsen,
2013; Hanson, 2015).
The identification of state capacity as a determinant of welfare has far-reaching theoretical consequences.
State capacity, referring to administration, is conceptualized as a causal factor influencing welfare, covering
specific goals such as economic growth and infant mortality. Applying Eckstein's typology (1971) of political
performance to this chain of causation, state capacity as a specific type of procedural performance is postu-
lated as a determinant of various forms of substantive (goal-related) performance. Hence, the third stage of
the study of political performance focuses on the relationship between different types of performance. More
specifically, it seeks to test the basic hypothesis of whether the performance of the administration (procedural
performance) helps to promote the attainment of particular goals (substantive performance). So far, there is
only scattered evidence on this central issue; research is just beginning to burgeon.
Basic Concepts
Concepts of political performance define the research object, and classify and justify criteria for evaluating
political performance; theories of political performance explain political performance. In the following, the gen-
eral concept of political performance and the specific concept of state capacity are discussed.
Political Performance
Political performance is defined as the evaluation of what public officials (as individual and above all collective
actors) do and what the outcomes of their activities are. For an explicit and systematic evaluation of political
performance, normative criteria are required; they function as yardsticks against which the activities of public
officials and their outcomes can be assessed. For an external and relatively unbiased evaluation of different
political regimes, these normative criteria should represent universal values that are commonly expected by
political systems.
As stated earlier, research on political performance is characterized by the study of heterogeneous perfor-
mance indicators and criteria that are seldom justified. Because scholars are mainly interested whether polit-
ical institutions and political regimes have any effect, they tend to disregard the fact that they are examining
different types of performance. With the help of a typology of performance criteria, the most important types
of criteria can be identified. The typology, initially developed for the performance of liberal democracy (Roller,
2005) and thereafter adjusted to all political regimes, is based on two dimensions:
• The first dimension, going back to Eckstein (1971), distinguishes between substantive and procedur-
al performance. Substantive performance aims at the attainment of particular goals such as welfare
or liberty. Procedural performance helps to promote the attainment of any particular goal: examples
are stability or decisional efficacy.
• The second dimension, differentiating between systemic and democratic performance, takes into ac-
count different normative expectations that exist either with regard to all political systems or only with
regard to democratic regimes. Systemic performance refers to achievements every political system

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must generate for society, such as economic growth and stability. Democratic performance refers to
achievements that are to be ensured by democratic regimes, such as liberty, responsiveness and
accountability; they are intrinsic to democracy.
By combining these two dimensions, four types of performance criteria can be established. Both substantive
and procedural political performance can be distinguished according to whether they are to be provided by all
political regimes or only by democratic regimes. Table 55.1 shows definitions and examples for the four types
of performance criteria.
Table 55.1 Typology of performance criteria

Substantive performance Procedural performance
Effective realization of goals Characteristics of all political processes that promote the
Systemic
valid for all political systems attainment of particular goals
performance
(e.g. security, welfare) (e.g. efficiency, stability)
Effective realization of democra-
Characteristics of democratic political processes that
Democratic tic values
promote the attainment of democratic values
performance (e.g. liberty, equality, respon-
(e.g. accountability, participation)
siveness)
Source: Author.
The typology can be applied to classify the few elaborated concepts of political performance. While one-di-
mensional concepts rely on a single type of performance criteria, multidimensional concepts combine differ-
ent types of performance criteria. For example, Harry Eckstein (1971) suggested a one-dimensional concept
of procedural performance valid for all political regimes. It includes durability, civil order, legitimacy and de-
cisional efficacy. Edeltraud Roller's (2005) Normative Model of Political Effectiveness is also a one-dimen-
sional concept aiming at a complete list of substantive, systemic performance criteria. It covers international
security, domestic security, wealth, socioeconomic security and socioeconomic equality (goals of the welfare
state) and environmental protection. Larry Diamond and Leonardo Morlino (2005) developed a two-dimen-
sional concept of democratic performance. Their quality of democracy concept covers two procedural (rule of
law and accountability) and three substantive criteria (responsiveness, liberty and equality).
The typology of performance criteria can also be used to describe the main research activities. Research on
the performance of different types of democracy embraces the most comprehensive range of performance
criteria. For example, Lijphart's (1999 [2012]) influential Patterns of Democracy studies all four types of per-
formance criteria. He considers substantive, systemic performance (e.g. inflation rates, unemployment); sub-
stantive, democratic performance (e.g. gender inequality index); procedural, systemic performance (e.g. cor-
ruption); and finally procedural, democratic performance (e.g. accountability). The majority of his indicators,
however, refer to substantive performance, indicating Lijphart's dominant understanding of performance. Re-
search comparing the performance of democratic and authoritarian regimes as well as performance of dif-
ferent types of authoritarian regimes is much more limited. The most widely used measures are economic
growth and child mortality, referring to substantive, systemic performance (e.g. Ross, 2006; Knutsen, 2013;
Miller, 2015). There are also many studies on corruption, representing procedural, systemic performance (e.g.
Bäck and Hadenius, 2008; Charron and Lapuente, 2010). Recently, some studies have investigated basic
freedoms such as media freedom – that is, substantive, democratic performance (e.g. Miller, 2015; Stier,
2015) – and ecological performance, that is, substantive, systemic performance (e.g. Wurster, 2013).
As far as the theoretical justification of performance criteria is concerned, most scholars tend to select their

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criteria arbitrarily without any further theoretical justification. At most, they just attach importance to their cri-
teria. If theoretical justifications are being made, scholars refer to different theories depending on the type of
performance criteria. In the case of democratic criteria, whether substantive (e.g. equality) or procedural (e.g.
accountability), normative democratic theory (e.g. Dahl, 1989) is used. In the case of systemic criteria, espe-
cially substantive criteria such as security, wealth, socioeconomic security and socioeconomic equality (wel-
fare state), and environmental protection, empirical political theories, especially theories on the development
of policies or the expansion of the role of government (e.g. Rose, 1976), are used to justify the policy-perfor-
mance criteria.
State Capacity
State capacity is not yet a well-established concept. For all five attributes of the concept – designation, de-
finition, criteria, justification and measurement – there are alternative specifications, even sometimes highly
controversial ones. The most important specifications for the first four attributes will be discussed in what fol-
lows (for measurement issues, see section on empirical databases).
Starting with the designation issue, alternative terms for ‘state capacity’ are ‘quality of government’ and ‘good
governance'. Authors treat either all three terms or at least ‘state capacity’ and ‘quality of government’ as syn-
onyms. When authors reject the term ‘good governance’ as a synonym, they refer to the popular World Bank
(2019) definition:
Governance consists of traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised. This
includes the process by which governments are selected, monitored and replaced; the capacity of
the government to effectively formulate and implement sound policies; and the respect of citizens
and the state for the institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them.
This definition of governance has been criticized for being too broad and including all aspects of politics (e.g.
Rothstein and Teorell, 2008; Agnafors, 2013), and that is why some authors disclaim the term ‘good gover-
nance.’ When authors prefer the ‘state capacity’ term over both synonyms, they argue that the administrative
dimension that is at stake here is traditionally part of the classic state-ness concept in the sense of Max We-
ber.
State capacity or state-ness is defined both narrowly and broadly. Typically, Michael Mann's (1993: 59) fa-
mous conception of infrastructural power as ‘the institutional capacity of a central state, despotic or not, to
penetrate its territories and logistically implement decisions’ is used as the starting point for both types of de-
finition. Subsequently, Bäck and Hadenius (2008: 3), favouring a narrow concept, have contended that state-
ness or a functioning state covers at least two dimensions. First is ‘the capacity of state organs to maintain
sovereignty over a geographical territory', that is, controlling the territory with the monopoly of violence. Sec-
ond is the administrative or implementation capacity of how well the state organs are able to carry out their
tasks. Furthermore, Bäck and Hadenius argue that the implementation capacity occurs only after the effective
establishment of sovereignty, and it is (only) this dimension of administrative or implementation capacity that
promotes welfare. The administrative or implementation capacity is rooted in the Weberian tradition regard-
ing the existence of a professional and insulated bureaucracy. Scholars, favouring broad concepts of state
capacity (e.g. Carbone and Memoli, 2015) criticize this one-dimensional, administrative definition of state ca-
pacity as too narrow. They suggest a multi dimensional, broad conception of state capacity that, in addition,
incorporates the above-mentioned dimension of sovereignty (also called political order) as well as the dimen-
sion of legitimacy.
There seems to be an obvious explanation for the use of either a narrow or a broad definition of state capacity.
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Proponents of broad concepts are mainly interested in explaining the overall state capacity of different political
regimes. Hence, the use of narrow or broad definitions of state capacity varies with the research questions
at hand. Examining state capacity as a determinant of political performance (state capacity as independent
variable), scholars are inclined to work with a narrow definition of state capacity focusing on the administrative
dimension. In examining determinants of state capacity (state capacity as dependent variable), scholars are
inclined to employ a broad definition of state capacity.
Criteria, the third attribute of the state capacity concept, refers to the yardsticks used for evaluating the ad-
ministration. What is a well-functioning administration, or when do bureaucrats do a good job? Regarding this
attribute, there are different, sometimes contradictory ideas. Bäck and Hadenius (2008: 3) list different fea-
tures characterizing a well-functioning administration: a bureaucracy that recruits and promotes persons on
professional grounds; a bureaucracy that applies clear rules for decision-making such as impartiality, open-
ness and accountability; and a bureaucracy that enjoys a high degree of autonomy. In contrast, Rothstein
and Teorell (2008: 170) focus on a single normative criterion, namely impartiality. They define impartiality in
the exercise of public power as follows: ‘When implementing laws and policies, government officials shall not
take into consideration anything about the citizen/case that is not beforehand stipulated in the policy or the
law.’ Impartiality is conceptualized as a basic norm on the output side of the political system (referring to the
way in which authority is exercised), which complements the basic norm of political equality on the input side
of the political system (relating to the access to public authority). The authors assume that impartiality, as a
basic norm, will result in increased state capacity. Furthermore, they conceive of impartiality as a universally
accepted procedural principle that promotes the substantive criteria of effectiveness. Rothstein and Teorell
suggested the most elaborated concept, but this concept is not without dispute. For example, Francis Fukuya-
ma (2013: 349) argues that an impartial state could still lack the capacity and/or autonomy to deliver welfare
in an effective way. Consequently, he suggests capacity and autonomy as criteria for well-functioning bureau-
cracies. Capacity consists of resources (e.g. extractive capacity measured in terms of tax extraction) and the
degree of professionalization of bureaucratic staff.
At first glance, a consensus seems to exist with regard to the fourth attribute of justification. Advocates of
the state capacity concept (e.g. Bäck and Hadenius, 2008; Rothstein and Teorell, 2008; Hanson, 2015) share
the basic functional premise that state capacity is good for welfare, or in other words, that state capacity is a
determinant of substantive performance. In fact, this is an empirical proposition that may or may not be true.
Hence, it is a hypothesis that has to be put to an empirical test. However, depending on the use of a narrow
or broad definition of state capacity, two different hypotheses are at hand. Proponents of a narrow defini-
tion of state capacity claim that (only) a well-functioning administration is necessary to promote welfare (e.g.
Bäck and Hadenius, 2008; Rothstein and Teorell, 2008). On the other hand, proponents of a broad definition
of state capacity hypothesize that a well-functioning administration is not sufficient; further, state dimensions
such as political order are required to promote welfare (e.g. Hanson, 2015).
To summarize, there are currently a large number of different concepts of state capacity competing for domi-
nance. Research is in its infancy and it is unclear which concept or which concepts will prevail.
Theories Explaining Political Performance

Research on political performance has been shaped in large part by the new institutionalism, with its central
premise that institutions matter. Therefore, theories explaining political performance focus on political institu-
tions as the central determinant. Four theoretical explanations can be distinguished: theoretical explanations
for the performance of different types of democracy, for the performance of democracy and authoritarianism
and for different types of authoritarian regimes, and theories on the interaction between political regime and
state capacity as determinant of welfare. In the following, these theories and approaches, as well as related
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research, are reviewed.
Different Types of Democracy

Even though systematic research on political performance started with a comparison of different types of
democracy, this research was not guided by well-formulated theories. Lijphart's Patterns of Democracy (1999
[2012]), comparing the performance of majoritarian and consensus democracy, is a goodexample. Majoritari-
an democracy is defined by the principle ‘government by the majority’ and, on the institutional level, by power
concentrating institutions such as the two-party system and unicameral legislature. Consensus democracy
is defined by the opposite principle, ‘government by as many people as possible', and by power dispersing
institutions such as the multi-party system and bicameralism (Lijphart, 2012: 2). Lijphart identifies in total ten
institutions (each contrasting between the majoritarian and consensus models) that cluster in two separate
dimensions. The first, executives-parties dimension covers five institutions (executive, relationship between
executive and legislative, party system, electoral system, interest groups) and the second, federal-unitary di-
mension covers the same number (federal and unitary government, legislature, constitution, judicial review,
central bank). To derive hypotheses on the performance of both types of democracy, Lijphart refers to a so-
called conventional wisdom of PR versus plurality and majority elections, which he extends to the broader
contrast between consensus and majoritarian democracy. The conventional wisdom assigns to consensus
democracy more ‘accurate representation, and, in particular, better minority representation and protection of
minority interests, as well as broader participation in decision-making’ and to majoritarian democracy more
decisive and hence more effective policy-making (Lijphart, 2012: 255). Lijphart seems to be content with the
conventional wisdom as a theoretical basis for his comparison. Even after his empirical analyses are found to
be able to confirm the conventional wisdom only for the executives-parties dimension – that is, only as far as
the executives-parties dimension is concerned do consensus democracies outperform majoritarian democra-
cies – he is not interested in further theorizing the findings.
With the help of veto player theory (Tsebelis, 1995), some authors tried to give the executives-parties and the
federal-unitary dimensions a more profound meaning (e.g. Birchfield and Crepaz, 1998; Roller, 2005). Veto
players are actors whose consent is necessary before a policy can be changed. Veto player theory distin-
guishes between institutional veto players (set by the constitution) and partisan veto players (set by the party
system and governing coalition). In a first step, the authors reinterpret the federal-unitary andthe executives-
parties dimensions as measuresof institutional and partisan veto players. The central feature of institutional
veto players is that different political actors operate through separate institutions with mutual veto powers
(e.g. federalism, strong bicameralism, presidentialism), while partisan veto players emerge from institutions
where different political actors operate in the same body and whose members interact with each other on
a face-to-face basis (e.g. multi-party coalition government, multi-party legislatures). In the next step, the au-
thors describe the different veto players’ consequences for the decision-making process. With an increasing
number of institutional veto players, there will be blockage of the executive, whereas in the case of increasing
partisan veto players there is a structural need for the government to negotiate and find consensus. To char-
acterize the different effects of the two kind of veto players, Vicki Birchfield and Markus M. L. Crepaz (1998)
suggested the terms ‘competitive veto points’ for the institutional and ‘collective veto points’ for the partisan
veto players.
The study by John Gerring et al. (2009) comparing parliamentary and presidential systems is another example
of the lack of well-formulated theories on the performance of different types of democracy. In a parliamen-
tary system, the executive is chosen by and responsible to an elective body (legislature), building a single
locus of sovereignty at the national level. In the presidential system, the policy-making power is divided be-
tween two separately elected bodies (legislature, president). Gerring et al.'s (2009: 336) literature review on
the performance of both types of democracy concludes that ‘a genuinely coherent, operational, and plausible
theory of how democratic institutions work’ does not exist. Consequently, the authors reverse the convention-
al sequence of scientific inquiry. They do the testing first and theorize afterwards. Their empirical analysis
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demonstrates that parliamentary systems are associated with higher levels of performance in policy areas of
economic and human development. At the end of their analysis, they explain this pattern through the capacity
of parliamentarism to function as a coordination device. Parliamentarism offers better tools for resolving coor-
dination problems ‘because parliamentarism integrates a diversity of views while providing greater incentives
for actors to reach agreement’ (Gerring et al., 2009: 354).
To conclude, types of democracy vary with respect to two dimensions (Roller, 2005: 99): distribution of power
(constraining or dispersing) and the type of veto player (constitutional or partisan). Theoretical explanations
for the performance of different types of democracy focus on these two dimensions and ask whether they
promote negotiations and the finding of consensus. They claim that democratic institutional arrangements
promoting negotiations and the finding of consensus show higher levels of performance.
Democracy and Authoritarianism

Research comparing the performance of democracy and authoritarianism is also not guided by well-formulat-
ed theories. Typically, scholars list several causal mechanisms to explain the superiority of democracy. The
designation, type and number of causal mechanisms varies; they are depending partly on the performance
indicator at hand. Two instructive examples are presented. Michael Ross (2006) examines the welfare of the
poor in democratic and authoritarian regimes. He suggests three mechanisms accounting for a better perfor-
mance of democracy: (a) competitive elections in democracies allow the poor to penalize governments; (b)
freedom of the press in democracies transmit information from the poor to the central government; (c) de-
mocratic governments produce more public goods and more income redistribution to meet the demands of
a larger group of supporters. The latter mechanism is based on the classic Meltzer–Richard model of redis-
tribution (1981) arguing that in democracies the decisive median voter earns a below average income and
prefers more economic redistribution. In their study on democracy and human development, Gerring et al.
(2012: 2) discuss ‘four of the numerous possible pathways’ linking democracy with human development. In
particular, they are interested in a possible time-dependent nature of the relationship. The pathways are: (a)
competitive elections produce accountability; (b) institutions of democracy such as political rights tend to fos-
ter a well-developed civil society, which is instrumental in providing services for the poor; (c) democracy may
serve to inaugurate a culture of equality that empowers oppressed groups; (d) older democracies will benefit
from greater institutionalization in the political sphere.
The postulated causal mechanisms follow a simple logic. Focusing on various democratic institutions (com-
petitive elections, political rights, freedom of the press, and so on) that do not exist in autocracy, they describe
effects of these institutions that are supposed to promote political performance. Remarkably, the authors do
not explain the selection of the causal mechanisms; quite obviously, there are sometimes more mechanisms
at work than those discussed (see the above-mentioned quote from Gerring et al., 2012: 2). What is more,
they are not interested in exploring the question of which causal mechanisms or democratic institutions can
account for the better performance of democracy. Hence, the main function of these lists is to generate a
number of plausible arguments (the more the better) that speak in favour of democracy. The theoretical basis
of research comparing the performance of democracy and authoritarianism tends to be of an eclectic charac-
ter.
Different Types of Authoritarian Regimes

Research on the performance of different types of authoritarian regimes is still in its infancy. Available studies
work with two different typologies. They compare either electoral with closed authoritarianism (e.g. Miller,

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2015) or several subtypes of authoritarian regimes, namely one-party authoritarian regimes, limited multi-par-
ty authoritarian regimes, military regimes and monarchies (e.g. McGuire, 2013). Depending on the typology
used, two theoretical approaches can be identified.
Electoral authoritarianism, in contrast to closed authoritarianism, is characterized by multi-party competition in

legislative elections, but these elections are not of a democratic type – they are unfree and unfair. Michael K.
Miller (2015) suggests that electoral authoritarianism displays better welfare than closed authoritarianism. He
justifies his hypothesis by referring to three causal mechanisms. The first two are commonly associated with
democracy and provide channels for popular pressure: (a) electoral pressure (although authoritarian elec-
tions are contested on an uneven playing field, they involve elements of uncertainty and the risk of electoral
turnover); (b) civil liberties and political openness (civil liberties such as the rights to speech and association,
as well as the openness of the political space to rival groups, allowing for direct popular engagement of citi-
zens); (c) governmental capacity (electoral authoritarianism implements similar institutions as democracies).
Hence, Miller takes causal mechanisms from the contrast between democracy and autocracy. He argues that
‘autocratic elections can be sufficiently competitive to contribute to popular pressure and governmental ca-
pacity’ (Miller, 2015: 1528).
While hypotheses on the performance of electoral and closed authoritarianism are explained with effects
of democratic institutions, the situation is more complex in the case of the second typology of authoritarian
regimes, distinguishing between one-party and limited multi-party authoritarian regimes, military regimes and
monarchies. In this case, the types of authoritarian regimes are defined mainly by different groups that estab-
lish the authoritarian regime, and, in addition, by the degree of party competition. James W. McGuire (2013)
uses the selectorate theory (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003) to deduce hypotheses on the social performance
of subtypes of authoritarian regimes. The selectorate theory argues that the performance of political regimes
can be explained with two concepts: the size of the selectorate and the size of the winning coalition. The se-
lectorate (S) is the set of people who have a legitimate say in the selection of the leader. The winning coalition
(W) is the subset of the selectorate whose support is necessary for the leader to stay in power. The size of
W determines whether the leaders distribute private goods (e.g. business or export licenses) or public goods
(e.g. health care, education, and infrastructure). The larger the W, the more expensive it is for the leader to
stay in power by providing private goods to his supporters rather than public goods (for a similar argument on
the ratio W/S, measuring the loyalty of the members of the winning coalition with the incumbent leader, see
Clark et al., 2018: 391). In order to deduce hypotheses on the performance of the subtypes of authoritarian
regimes, information on the size of each regime's winning coalition is required (and in the case of W/S also
information on the size of the selectorate). Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003) provide such information, and
consequently McGuire (2013: 59) suggests that after democracy, the limited multi-party regimes should have
the highest level of social performance, followed by one-party authoritarian regimes, monarchies and military
regimes, in that order.
The selectorate theory is particularly qualified for deducing hypotheses on the performance of different polit-
ical regimes. On the one hand, the majority of performance criteria studied are conceptualized as collective
goods. On the other, the elegant and parsimonious character of the theory allows a ranking of multiple po-
litical regimes along one dimension (W or W/S) supposed to be decisive for the political performance of the
regimes. Although McGuire's (2013) findings on social performance can only partly confirm the hypothesized
ranking of political regimes, further research will assess the merits of selectorate theory.
Interaction between Political Regime and State Capacity

The political regime and state capacity are supposed to be central determinants of welfare, but the nature of
the interaction between both factors is unclear. Research on this question is also still in its infancy. Jonathan
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K. Hanson (2015) tried to sort out two alternatives – complements or substitutes – and suggested an interest-
ing hypothesis. According to Hanson (2015: 305) a complementary relationship exists when democracy cre-
ates ‘the incentives to expend greater resources on public services’ and state capacity provides ‘the means to
deliver these services effectively'. Democracy and state capacity would substitute for each other, when they
‘work independently and through different mechanisms to create the incentives and means to deliver public
services'. Hanson hypothesizes a partial substitution. In a first step, he explains why democracy creates in-
centives to expend greater resources on public services. Here he refers to the well-known causal mechanism
of accountability, namely the accountability of policymakers to citizens. In a similar way, he explains why state
capacity provides the means to deliver these services effectively. In this case, the key causal mechanism is
also accountability, but it refers to the relationship between policymakers and public service providers. Ser-
vices are delivered effectively when policymakers hold public service providers accountable for delivery. In
the next step, Hanson (2015) formulates the decisive argument for his partial substitution thesis. He argues
that high state capacity provides alternative mechanisms to accomplish some functions assigned to democ-
racy. High state capacity can improve the flow of information regarding public needs (information can come
from a well-organized data collection), facilitate the design of better policies and help set the policy agenda.
Hanson's theory is one example of conceptualizing the interaction between political regime and state capacity
in explaining welfare (or substantive performance). Further theoretical explanations are on the way. Never-
theless, his theory is instructive in that it shows what such an explanation might look like. First, he identifies
causal mechanisms that account for the advantages of democracy as well as causal mechanisms that ac-
count for the advantages of high state capacity. Second, he studies the relationship (substitutive or comple-
mentary) between both of them.
Empirical Databases
In order to evaluate the performance of political regimes, comparative data on substantive and procedural
performance over a long time span is required. The measurement of political performance raises several is-
sues, which are discussed as follows.
Substantive and Procedural Measures

Substantive performance aims at the attainment of particular goals such as welfare. Policy analysis distin-
guishes between two types of indicators gauging activities of public officials: output measures, referring to
actions or efforts to reach goals, and outcome measures, referring to the actual results of these actions. In
the case of redistribution, for example, social expenditures measure the effort (output) and poverty rates the
results of this effort (outcomes). Inasmuch as political performance is an evaluative concept aiming at assess-
ing whether the intended goals are achieved, outcome measures should be used. They are the real test as
to whether the outputs have produced the intended results or not. A common argument raised against the
use of outcome measures claims that usually public officials cannot directly control outcomes. Consequently,
these scholars doubt whether one can speak of political performance here at all. To avoid this problem, they
consciously decide to use outputs rather than outcomes as measure for substantive political performance.
For example, Putnam's Index of Institutional Performance (Putnam, 1993) primarily employs outputs such
as the number of day care centres and health expenditures, rather than mortality rates, for example. This is
convincing only if outputs could serve as valid proxies for outcomes, but this is a much disputed assumption.
An argument for the use of outcome measures can be derived from Almond and Powell's (1978: 394) dic-
tum that substantive performance refers to goals that are commonly expected of political systems. If there is
empirical evidence that the goals studied guide the actions of politicians and politicians assume responsibility

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for achieving these goals, scholars can deliberately rely on outcomes. For example, Roller's Index of Effec-
tiveness of Democracies (Roller, 2005), which is a pure measure of outcomes covering indicators such as
poverty, infant mortality and unemployment rate, satisfies these conditions.
In the case of procedural performance of the administration, or state capacity, the question of valid indicators
is also pressing. Procedural performance, narrowly defined, is the capacity of how well the administration can
carry out its tasks. The most often used indicator is the ‘bureaucracy quality’ rating of the International Country
Risk Guide (ICRG). It is based on expert ratings of whether ‘the bureaucracy has the strength and expertise
to govern without drastic changes in policy or interruptions in government services’ and ‘whether the bureau-
cracy tends to be somewhat autonomous from political pressure and to have an established mechanism for
recruitment and training’ (PRS, 2019). This measure unambiguously focuses on an evaluation of the adminis-
trative capacity. However, some scholars instead use outcomes of public policy such as infant mortality rates.
There are several arguments against using outcomes as measures for state capacity. The most persuasive
counterargument refers to the fact that state quality itself has been introduced to explain just these outcomes.
Thus, state quality and substantive performance would coincide (Fukuyama, 2013: 356).
Scholars working with a broad definition of state capacity consider measures for the administrative capacity
and additionally measures for the extractive capacity and/or coercive capacity of the state (for an overview
see Hanson and Sigman, 2013). Typically, the extractive capacity is measured with tax revenues as propor-
tion of GDP (e.g. Fortin, 2012). The coercive capacity is gauged with an expert rating from the Bertelsmann
Transformation Index (BTI) considering the degree to which the state has a monopoly on the use of force
(e.g. Carbone and Memoli, 2015).
Factual and Evaluative Measures

In principle, performance measures are based either on facts (e.g. poverty rate, infant mortality) or on eval-
uations of experts (e.g. ICRG's bureaucratic quality rating, Freedom House's (2019) rating of freedom of the
press). Generally, the type of measure varies with the performance dimension at hand. Typically, substantive,
systemic performance such as welfare is measured by facts; substantive, democratic performance such as
freedom of the press is measured by expert ratings as well as procedural performance of the administration.
However, there are exceptions to the rule. Sometimes, scholars are particularly interested in the evaluation
of substantive performance by the citizens themselves. They use citizens’ life satisfaction or citizens’ satis-
faction with the way democracy works as measures. Hence, sometimes it is a matter of theoretical decision
whether factual or evaluative measures are used.
Very often, the validity of expert ratings is put into question and expert ratings are dismissed as merely subjec-
tive. However, such critics fail to recognize that in certain cases the perception or evaluation of a phenomenon
is the only way to measure it. The state-of-the-art method to address the problem of reliability is to ensure a
sufficient number of experts per country in the data collection process (e.g., Coppedge et al., 2018) and/or to
check robustness with alternative indicators in the process of data analysis.
Single and Composite Measures

Sometimes, studies on political performance are interested not only in the assessment of single specific cri-
teria (e.g. infant mortality) but also in the overall level of regime performance. The most efficient method to
gauge the overall level of performance is to construct a composite measure aggregating several performance
measures. A widely used composite measure of substantive performance is the Human Development Index

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(HDI) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP, 2019). It subsumes three dimensions of wel-
fare – a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living – and relies on four indicators (life
expectancy at birth, expected years of schooling, mean years of schooling and gross national income per
capita). It assesses the average achievements in a country on these dimensions of welfare.
The Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) of the World Bank (2019) cover the most widely used composite
measures focusing on procedural performance. They encompass measures for six dimensions – voice and
accountability; political stability and the absence of violence; government effectiveness; regulatory quality;
rule of law; control of corruption – and an overall composite measure comprising these six dimensions. The
WGI, based on several hundred individual variables from multiple sources, measures perceptions of gover-
nance by experts and ordinary citizens (e.g. law and order, citizens’ satisfaction with education system). Very
often, scholars use the dimension ‘government effectiveness’ as an indicator for administrative capacity. This
dimension is defined as follows: ‘Government effectiveness captures perceptions of the quality of public ser-
vices, the quality of the civil service and the degree of its independence from political pressures, the quality
of policy formulations and implementation, and the credibility of the government's commitment to such poli-
cies’ (World Bank, 2019). Hence, government effectiveness does not focus on administrative capacity, and
includes more components than the ICRG bureaucratic quality index (thus the ICRG bureaucratic quality in-
dex constitutes only one of multiple World Governance Indicators measuring government effectiveness).
Constructing composite measures implies decisions about the techniques of standardization, weighting and
aggregation of individual values. Different statistical procedures of standardization (e.g. z-score transforma-
tion and indexing), weighting (e.g. equal or unequal) and aggregation (e.g. arithmetic mean, multiplication and
unobserved-components model) are used, and their relative merits are discussed intensively.
Availability of Data
The feasibility of research on political performance depends on the availability of data. Empirical studies com-
paring substantive performance of democracy and authoritarianism, as well as the performance of different
types of authoritarian regimes, suffer from incomplete factual data. The willingness of governments to dis-
seminate policy-relevant data to international organizations (e.g. United Nations, World Bank) is considerably
lower for authoritarian than for democratic countries (Ross, 2006; Hollyer et al., 2011). These differences in
‘policy transparency’ (Hollyer et al., 2011: 1192) lead to selection bias; authoritarian regimes are more likely to
be missing in samples of countries than democratic ones. Furthermore, there are hints that missing data are
not randomly distributed within the group of authoritarian regimes. For example, authoritarian regimes with
better performance regarding incomes and child mortality tend to have more missing data. They may have
fewer incentives to report their data to international organizations (Ross, 2006: 864). Given the high probabil-
ity of selection bias within the group of authoritarian regimes, scholars are well advised to check, if possible,
whether his or her sample of countries is biased (Roller, 2013). In order to correct for these flaws, fixed effects
in time-series cross-sectional analysis and multiple imputation to replace missing data have been suggested.
Major Advances
Research on political performance has seen three major advances in the past decade. The first is an expan-
sion from the comparison between types of democracy to the comparison of democratic with authoritarian
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regimes, as well as between different authoritarian regimes. Research on the performance of authoritarian
regimes is now a significant part of the emerging field of authoritarianism, which has gained momentum after
the millennium. Since political competition between democratic and (some) authoritarian countries is increas-
ing, research on the performance of democracy and authoritarianism is of political importance too. It provides
empirical evidence as to whether in any performance measure authoritarianism is superior or at least equal
to democracy. So far, most of the available evidence is in favour of democracy. As for the performance of
different types of authoritarian regimes, there is no clear pattern yet.
However, it must be noted that the comparison between democracy and authoritarianism, as well as between
different authoritarian regimes, involves a notable narrowing of the performance measures. Typically, infant
mortality is the most commonly used indicator interpreted as an indicator either for health (e.g. Miller, 2015)
or for poverty (e.g. Ross, 2006). On the one hand, this limitation is a result of the lack of available data for
nondemocratic regimes; they produce and publish less policy-relevant data. On the other hand, this limitation
is a result of the lack of comparable data for poor countries that are overrepresented among nondemocratic
regimes. Since the living conditions of the poor countries differ greatly from those of rich countries, many per-
formance measures that work well for rich countries either do not exist or are not valid in poor countries (e.g.
household income in subsistence economy).
The identification of state capacity as a determinant of welfare is a second major advance of performance
research. There is evidence to suggest that state capacity and political regime exert an independent effect on
welfare. The inclusion of state capacity helps to explain the poor performance of some democratic regimes
and the good performance of some authoritarian regimes. In theoretical terms, state capacity as a specific
type of procedural performance is introduced as a causal factor for various forms of substantive (goal-related)
performance.
The third major advance refers to the empirical analysis. Scholars are increasingly using elaborate statistical
methods for analysing the time-series cross-sectional data. For example, they control for global trends in wel-
fare, they use fixed-effect models to control for country-specific effects, and they address the endogeneity
problem with the help of the method of instrumental variables (e.g., Ross, 2006; Miller, 2015; Wang et al.,
2019).
Ongoing Debates
That political regimes matter is the basic premise of research on political performance. A follow-up question
is which aspect of the political regime matters for political performance. One debate addresses the question
whether it is the current regime type or the regime type history. Studies on the performance of democracy and
authoritarianism are going to test the hypothesis whether it is the current level of democracy or democratic
experience (stock) that matters (e.g. Gerring et al., 2012; McGuire, 2013; Miller, 2015). So far, the available
empirical findings indicate that both factors matter, and that democratic experience would seem to be more
important.
A second recent debate refers directly to various components of democracy. This debate is made possible by
the new Varieties of Democracy measure (Coppedge et al., 2018). Whereas former measures of democracy
(e.g. Polity IV, Freedom House) are highly aggregated measures, Varieties of Democracy allows for differenti-
ating between multiple institutional components of democracy (e.g. electoral, liberal, participative, deliberative
and egalitarian democracy). Based on this new measure, it is possible to examine the question of which com-
ponents of democracy are relevant for performance. A first empirical analysis suggests that electoral com-
petition reveals a stronger relationship with infant mortality than citizen empowerment; the latter comprises
individual liberty, political equality, female empowerment, civil society and deliberation (Gerring et al., 2015).
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With the help of this new democracy measure it will be possible to test some of the postulated causal mech-
anisms that have been suggested to explain the superior performance of democracy (see section on theories
explaining political performance).
Critical Assessment
The dominance of new institutionalism in performance research leads to a bias in favour of political regimes
and their effect on political performance, that is, the independent variable. Scholars pay little attention to the
dependent variable of performance. Performance measures are simply used as a test case. Consequently,
different performance dimensions and criteria (cf. Table 55.1) seem to be almost irrelevant for theorizing on
the effects of political regimes. This is a major drawback of existing theories explaining performance.
Another neglected problem refers to the quality of performance data for authoritarian regimes. Empirical stud-
ies document low policy transparency for authoritarian regimes, that is, the willingness of governments to
disseminate policy-relevant data to international organization (Hollyer et al., 2011). However, it is very plau-
sible to assume that low policy transparency also implies that the available factual performance data of au-
thoritarian regimes are less reliable than that provided by democratic regimes. It is striking that scholars are
not interested in discussing this fundamental issue – they seem to rely uncritically on the data collected by
international agencies. More information, and empirical studies about the quality of performance data for au-
thoritarian regimes, are urgently needed.
Perspectives
Although research on political performance and state capacity has made substantial progress in the last
decade, its achievements are far from being solid, comprehensive and cumulative. In order to become a well-
established field of research, it might be helpful to try to integrate the present concepts, theories and findings,
to check the quality of the available performance data and to make use of new data on political regimes.
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• state capacity
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n58

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State Formation and Failure
Contributors: I. William Zartman

Chapter Title: "State Formation and Failure"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
State Formation and Failure

I. William Zartman
Introduction
A state is the authoritative political institution that is sovereign over a recognized territory and its inhabitants.
Like any fundamental concept, it has been defined by many people in many ways, but essentially they all boil
down to the definition above (Dawisha and Zartman, 1988; Luciani, 1990; McIver, 1926; Service, 1975; Las-
ki, 1935; Weber, 1947; Lasswell and Kaplan, 1950; Nettl, 1968; Tilly, 1975; Evans et al., 1985; Schatzberg,
1987; McLennan, Held and Hall 1984; Worster, 2009). Weber (1958), who is often considered the reference
authority on the state, defined it as ‘an association that claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence,
and it cannot be defined in any other manner’ (334), but he then went on to add ‘a compulsory association',
‘a relation of men dominating men', ‘(successfully) claims', and ‘within a given territory, (82, 78).
More than just as association or a relation, a state is an institution, that is, it has a structure and organization
that can accomplish its associated functions. Beyond its functional institutions, that state as an institution itself
contains a perception of corporate interests, an autonomy that distinguishes it from society at large (Rothchild,
1987). As an institution, the state enjoys autonomy, a quality that relates to many agencies and functions.
Institutionalization gives structure and longevity to the state; leadership may wobble but the civil service or-
ganization carries on. The state becomes larger than its ruler, with whom it was identified in the pre-modern
period (and remains so in many contemporary cases). The human agent may disappear, physically or intan-
gibly as a discredited symbol, but the state continues, awaiting capture by its next leader or government (as
illustrated in Indonesia after the fall of Soekarno and then Soharto, Tunisia after the fall of Habib Bourguiba
and then Lazzadin ben Ali, Egypt after Gamal Abd al-Nasser and then Hosni Mubarek, Libya after the fall of
Muammar Qaddafi, Yemen after the fall of Ali Saleh, Zaire (Congo) after the fall of Mobutu Sese Seko and So-
malia after the fall of Siad Barre, to give 20th and 21st-century examples). Its capabilities are not just ad hoc
but are built into bodies to perform them, well or badly. Some of these functions may be provided informally
or spontaneously, but it takes an institutionalization of them into a state design to make a state (Call, 2008).
Procedurally, the functions have come to be divided into rule-making (legislation), rule-executing (executive),
rule-applying (judicial) and rule-enforcing (police/military). Substantively, that state performs functions that no
other body can handle – if one could, it would be a state. These include security, both domestic and external;
welfare; adjudication; conflict management; allocation; and regulation and coordination.
Successful claim over the monopoly of force is a core element but it also involves qualifications; the claims
must be not only operative but legitimate. Weber never defined legitimacy very clearly, but a good succinct
definition is ‘the right to rule’ (Lasswell and Kaplan, 1950). But who gives that right? The source of legitimacy
can be both internal and external. External legitimization comes as international recognition by other states,
but it comes as a confirmation that the institution has embodied the other characteristics. Under international
law, there is a bit of circularity. A state must exist to be recognized but it must be recognized in order to exist in
law (Aynete, 2012). Thus, recognition is not the same thing as existence. The 1933 Montevideo Convention
on the Rights and Duties of States (art. 1), based on the International Court of Justice Statute (art. 38), de-
clares that in order to qualify as a person in international law, a state must possess a permanent population,
a defined territory, a government capable of ruling over the population in the territory and a capacity to enter
into relations with the other state.
However, there are two schools of thought on this circular relationship (Worster, 2009). The declaratory school
regards recognition as merely an acknowledgment of the existing state status. Thus, recognition should be
automatic, based on objective criteria. De facto existence precedes de jure existence through recognition by
other states (Montevideo arts 3 and 6). The constitutive approach holds that recognition is the final criterion
for state existence and is therefore a matter of judgment and even of politics; UN membership is granted by
the Security Council to peace-loving states who are willing and able to carry out UN Charter obligations (UN
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Charter 4.1). Thus Somaliland, a functioning and democratic state in all aspects for a quarter century, has not
been recognized. Then there are puppet states: Abkhazia and South Ossetia were removed from Georgia
and set up as states by neighboring Russia but are not recognized; the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic
has little territory and its population is in Algeria, but it is recognized as a member by half of the Africa Union.
Yet for the UN, once a state, always a state. Somalia and Libya joined the UN in 1960 and are still members;
Somalia has had no government since 1991 and only a temporary one since 2015, and Libya has had no
government since 2010 (or two since 2015).
Legitimization by the population is basic, although the concept is hard to operationalize. Optimally, internal
legitimization comes voluntarily from the full support and identification of the population with the state, but in
many cases it stops at the door of the monopoly of violence, making the requirement circular (Papagianni,
2008). Internal legitimization refers to an alternative definition of the state, related to Durkheim's approach
rather than Weber's (Lemay-Hébert, 2013, and one that runs counter to the notion of autonomy. For Durkheim
(1957: 79–80; 1964: 79; 1986: 54), the state ‘is the very organ of social thought … comprising the sentiments,
ideals, beliefs that the society has worked out collectively and with time'. As ‘more an idea held in common
by a group of people than it is a physical organism’ (Buzan, 1991: 63), the state exists beyond its institutions
and reaches into an additional capacity, ‘the capacity to command loyalty – the right to rule’ (Holsti, 1996: 82).
Carried to an exclusion, this behavioral sense of a state can be seen as opposed to the institutional definition,
but the two are in fact compatible. Sentiments, ideals and beliefs, for all their intrinsic content, relate to a gov-
erned, populated territory with an institution that has not only the right to rule but the right to fight (Goemans,
2006). The behavioral notion expands the institutional understanding, allows for the legitimization of the state
through popular feelings – difficult thought this may be to operationalize – and invokes the notion of a social
contract.
A social contract is the ‘bargain’ that ties together state and society. It is often simply understood but occa-
sionally written. Its written form can be a constitution but also a series of commentaries and ‘op-eds', like The
Federalist Papers, which seek to form and express a consensus (Arjomand, 1992). The idea comes out of
the 18th-century political philosophers’ groping for an expression of the relationship between ruler and ruled
(Barker, 2008). For Thomas Hobbes there was no social contract if not erected by a domineering state, but for
John Locke it meant the voluntary pooling of individual liberties for security and for Jean-Jacques Rousseau
it was the obligatory melting of individual interests into a common will. For established nations, the social
contract is contained in the underlying spirit of the constitution, legislation and judicial hearings, but new na-
tions have a headier challenge in collecting authoritative statements and building an effective consensus.
Their political values are concentrated on the struggle for independence to the exclusion of other interests, in
what has been termed the ‘funnel phase’ of political life, and on defining themselves as ‘not the Other’ rather
than in positive values and identities. For this reason, they are often prey to ideologies that provide already
packaged answers, explaining the unpleasant past and laying out the glorious future and the path to it in the
present. When the path to Arab or African unity or Arab or African socialism or the Asian Way does not pro-
duce promised results, new efforts are required – pragmatic or ideological – to fashion an appropriate social
contract for the nation and the state. The political wanderings of the South African state after apartheid under
Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, Joseph Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa exemplify this search. Thus, the social
contract is an important element in defining the state but is an elusive subject of interpretation.
Legitimacy can be equated with sovereignty, which is the legal parallel to the monopoly over violence; sover-
eignty is the (successful) claim to monopoly over the legitimate use of civilian authority to perform the func-
tions expected of it. It is significant in the UN policy of Responsibility to Protect, which holds states responsible
for the welfare of their people (Deng et al., 1995; ICISS, 2001; UN, 2005; Evans, 2008).

A number of concepts associated with the state and its various definitions are also used in attempts to identify
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different types of state, often associated with their location.
Territorialization refers to the fact that the state is an entity in control of a bounded piece of land and its inhab-
itants. It denotes both the state as an area of land control and one whose territory is a focus of its inhabitants’
identity. The two are related, as territorialization strengthens the modern state by fixing identity on a physical
‘mappable’ piece of land (and water) as a tangible embodiment of home – a sacred homeland (Goemans,
2006; Casey, 1997). The alternative is a demographic state, whose citizens are determined by their nation-
al, ethnic or religious identity wherever they are, without regard to territory. The demographic state has been
associated with Islam and with African or American Indian tribal entities, especially in mobile or transhumant
societies.
Nation-state, like territorialization, bears a double meaning, which provides confusion. It refers to the coinci-
dence of nation and state, but also to the location of legitimization in the populace rather than in the monarch,
as in a royal state. In the first sense, the community of identity and affection, the nation, is assumed to be
the basis of the state. Nation, often confused with state, is the imagined communality derived from shared
language and religion, history and ethnicity, and ancestry; it is rare where these elements of commonality are
not mythical (Anderson, 1983/2006). The assumption of a nation-state subsumes all diversity under a com-
mon identification. Where the nation is not the result of a long history of tradition and traditional nations or
tribes are the basis of identity, or where new populations bring their own identity, states often seek to create
a new, encompassing nation by decree, reversing the process by integration into a state-nation. Such efforts
are often counter-productive since they work to reinforce adherence to the traditional nation for solidarity, par-
ticularly when democratization or rebellion has pushed leaders to seek supporters for their promotion (Arnson
and Zartman, 2005). In the second sense, the actions of the state, notably in interaction with other states, are
claimed to represent the general will of the population. In the tradition of the French Revolution, the state is
the population mobilized and policy is legitimized as the people's will. This can lead to problems when policy
goes awry and is repudiated as really only representing the regime, a problem faced by post-Nazi Germany.
National self-determination is the policy based on the notion of the nation-state, which says that every nation
should have its state and the justification for the existence of the state is the pre-existence of the nation.
The idea has followed a complex evolution. It came out of Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points at the end of
World War I and was applied to the multi-national empires of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Turkey;
Egypt, for example, was liberated from the Turkish and placed under the British, giving rise to protests from
the Wafd party at the Versailles Peace Conference. In each case, ethnic nationalities other than the determin-
ing one were included in the new state, sometimes with destabilizing effects, such as the inclusion of ethnic
Germans in Czechoslovakia. Only after the following World War was the concept applied to the colonial pos-
sessions of Britain, France and Portugal, in Asia and Africa. But here it was the colonial unit – the colonially
created territorial state – that was the determining self, since almost all colonial units were multi-national. In
the biggest exception, Pakistan broke away from multi-national India to form a homogeneously Muslim state
in 1947 but was then split in two between ethnically diverse (west) Pakistan and Bangladesh in the east. The
principle of state – not national – self-determination continued in the determination of new states’ boundaries,
so that new states contained pieces of some neighboring nation in addition to the legitimizing nation, as in
South Sudan, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Timor Leste. Nationalities’ self-determination would simply pose too
many insurmountable problems to be practicable.
Types of States
Weberian state refers to two characteristics discussed by Weber (1958): the claim to the legitimate monopoly
of force, as discussed above, and the routinization of legitimacy by law as exercised by bureaucracy. The
latter combines issues that were important to Weber: legal legitimization as the end stage of an evolution
from traditional and charismatic sources (78–9) and bureaucratic authority in fixed and official jurisdictional
areas ordered by laws and regulations of modern states (196–259). Together, the characteristics encompass
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the functions of a contemporary, developed state. A 19th-century doggerel declared: ‘As forms of government
may fools contest. Whate'er is best administered is best.'1
Administrative state in a sense refers to a Weberian state gone too far, in which legislative functions are taken
over by executive agencies, aided by judicial lawmaking by appointed officials, without involvement of elected
officials as policymakers. The term has been applied to the administration of Barack Obama in the United
States but even more pointedly to the functioning of the EU. ‘Policy made in Brussels’ was cited as the major
underlying reason for Britain's resignation from the EU (‘Brexit').
Democratic state is one where regularly elected officials are in charge of policymaking and execution within
the state institutions. Democracy – ‘the ability to choose and the ability to repent’ – is a procedural require-
ment that does not guarantee good government, but only the occasion to reject bad government; the demo-
cratic state emphasizes accountability as the judgment of performance and by extension carries with it the
idea that state officials are public servants. In reality, democracy is not a fixed condition which, once achieved,
remains a permanent condition; democracy is a process, continually pursued, and even the most democratic
states are always democratizing, well or badly, although some states of course are not democratizing at all
(such as 21st-century China, Cambodia, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia). Elections are not sufficient; they must
be periodically established by law and free and fair, which implies an open opportunity for candidatures and
for election campaigns.
Stateless societies – also termed acephalic, for an absence of chieftain – are those which lack the institutional
structure of a state but cohere through a sense of established community and moral economy (Evans-
Pritchard, 1940; Lewis, 1961). Institutions are rudimentary but other functions are performed by the commu-
nity as a whole, and community solidary is strong. Nonetheless, acephalic societies are also often associat-
ed with segmentation, following the rule of action: ‘Myself against my brother, my brother and I against our
cousins, my cousins and I against the outside world.'
Civil society is the subject of widespread debate of a proper definition. Generally and most usefully, its
essence is captured by G. W. Hegel's view ‘as a historically produced sphere of ethical life … positioned be-
tween the simple world of the patriarchal household and the universal state’ (Keane, 1988: 50), or that area
of public activity between the individual family and the state. For Alexis de Tocqueville (1835), it is the self-
organized ‘eye of society’ exercising vigilance and calling for accountability from the state, but in addition to
accountability it also performs functions of its own, as Antonio Gramsci (1967) develops. Civil society is the
result of the pluralization and complexity of modern society, alive with multiple demand-bearing groups be-
yond the capability of the state to satisfy. Its area of action is flexible; in a well-functioning state there is a
balance in civil society's performance of things it does best, both lower level and aggregating, from neigh-
borhood clubs to town meetings and from food kitchens to parent–teachers’ associations. An overactive civil
society indicates that the state is not functioning up to capacity; a shriveled civil society indicates a repressive
state. However, in an oppressive state, civil society may surge with activity to challenge official dominance.
In Zaire (Congo) in the 1980s, villages and regions built their own schools and roads in face of government
neglect, but in Iraq at the same time there was little space for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) inde-
pendent of state control. Even in Iran and Russia of the early 21st century, civil society is present to carry out
civic functions and contest government.
Historical Evolution
States grew out of monarchial tradition in Western Europe, but an argument can be made for their roots as
institutionalized bodies for regulation and allocation in the imperial regimes of ancient Greece and Rome and

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their Asian competitors. Even feudal systems were based on an exchange of security for allegiance (and tax-
es, often in kind), an arrangement that still can be found in the ‘proto-states’ of the mafia, rebels, national
liberation movements and gangsters of modern times (Clunan and Trinkunas, 2010; Magnuson, 2018). Im-
portantly, they were bounded and territorialized, usually with borders or, if not, with marches or border zones.
Not until the development of the nation-state in the French Revolution did democracy and national identifica-
tion begin to appear as legitimization; however, on one hand, national identification began to appear as early
as the Sicilian Vespers in 1282 (Runciman, 1958), and on the other, the state was still identical with its head
alone at the Congress of Vienna nearly six hundred years later. History does not come in sharply bounded
epochs.
Similar states existed elsewhere – Africa, Mideast, Asia, South America – primarily as empires over multiple
and non-identifying populations without entering the democratization stage. Nevertheless, the governance
qualities of the regime often approximate the functions of the state (Kautilya, 1960; Darke [ibn Ali al-Tusi],
1074/2002). In much of the non-European world, the notion and organization of a state was revived or im-
planted by 19th–20th-century colonialism. Often, a national liberation movement came into being as a pro-
to-state, embodying what was termed the ‘real country’ against the ‘legal country’ as denominated in French
colonies. Upon independence, the two became one as the movement became a single (‘state') party. The
former colonies have striven to maintain the colonial institutions, sometimes also continuing traditional insti-
tutions to help them fill out state functions. While formally recognized, these creations have frequently been
inadequate for territorial control, functional performance, institutional coherence, popular accountability and
effective security (Jackson, 1990; Herbst, 2000/2015). Since the implant was artificial, some states collapsed,
many were fragile, weak or failing, and state-building became an international priority. However, it is likely that
time and experience in both success and failure will be the most important element in the attempts of ‘new
nations’ to catch up with the history of the West.
State formation is a historic process, both deliberate and inherent (MacIver, 1926; Service, 1975; Badie,
1987). When the indicated functions need to be performed, they create pressure for a state to come into be-
ing. Although a core element, successful claim of monopoly over the use of force is not enough; insurgent
groups enforce such a claim but may have no other functions. The need to claim and defend a territory is an
ingredient, not just for security reasons but more importantly to respond to other needs that it takes a state
to meet. Money needs to be raised to fund security, and services need to be provided to undergird efforts to
raise funds. The judgment of Tilly (1975: 42; 1978: 3–4) that ‘war made the states and the state made war’
encapsulates (too briefly) the idea that effort to sustain the claim to the monopoly of the use of force in a given
territory requires additional functions to fund and legitimize that claim. When the feudal notion of security for
service was enhanced by notions of welfare (service to, not from the population) and national identification
with a particular land (popular territorialization of security), the need for a body to perform functions associ-
ated with a state came into being. These requirements imposed the development of a final element of state-
ness: institutionalization.
Thus, the growth and articulation of social organization in a particular era created its own demands and efforts
to meet them. This is not to say that purposeful action by individuals and groups had no role in the process; to
the contrary, human agency could seriously hobble or accelerate the process. Henry II in England, Richelieu
and Louis XIV and then Napoleon in France, Mohammed Ali in Egypt, Senghor in Senegal and Houphouët-
Boigny in Ivory Coast are among the many state-builders who could be cited from many eras and places. It is
not only through the leadership of notable statesmen that individuals are important in the process of state for-
mation. Collective roles are important too, notably in the formation of political parties. Parties are the collective
political component of state-building, and again are a natural evolution of participation. The tendency of a poli-
ty to establish a governing elite has been emphasized often enough, as the Iron Rule of Oligarchy (Michels,
1949), but the equal tendency toward fractioning has received too little attention (Coser, 1956). Participation
requires organization, and even if there is a broad consensus, as for example in a social contract, there will
always be differences over implementation, among social or age groups, between groups for change (from
the left) and those for constancy (from the right), from different regional attachments, or simply over person-
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alities (Zartman, 1980). Parties tend to arise either from differences within a governing institution (legislature,
council, incumbent followers) or against a governing authority (opposition) (Tilly, 1978; LaPalombara 1966,
2015).
The results of state formation have been graded by a number of different criteria. Strong versus weak state
provides a basic spectrum based on effectiveness (Myrdal, 1968; Migdal, 1987). However, each contains a
number of subcategories. States can be strong in various ways: hard states have a solid structure with a
heavy hand of control over participation, but brittle states have a repressive shell and little or no participation.
Weak states come in various gradations sometimes reaching the level of failed and collapsed. After an ear-
ly introduction of the notion of collapse (Helman and Ratner, 1993; Zartman, 1995), attention rapidly shifted
to the broader phenomenon of state failure and failing, and finally simply political instability (Rotberg, 2003,
2004; Clement, 2004; PITF, 2007).
State ‘un-building’ or failure can be a much more rapid process, although frequently unnoticed roots go back
much further. In accordance with the definitions of a state given above, state failure involves a breakdown
of the state security function, eroding its monopoly of violence. It can lose its control over dissident regions,
usually over ethnic neglect, as in Sudan over South Sudan, or its claim to the right to govern the entire nation
in the face of revolutionary rebellion, as in Tsarist Russia confronted by the Communists, or simply its ability
to provide civic order against organized crime and local armed groups, as in the Central African Republic and
Democratic Republic of Congo.
Much of the attention to state failure has focused on the deeper structural problem of the state's inability to
provide for its citizens’ welfare. The state may depend on failing sources of revenue and lose the ability to
deliver to its population, as in Algeria when oil prices dropped in the 1980s and 2010s or in Haiti, or it may
overspend so badly that it falls into inextricable debt, as in Argentina in the 1980s or Venezuela in the 2010s,
or it may fall prey to deep corruption where a small group intervenes between supply and demand to keep
state resources for itself, as in Gabon, Tunisia or Brazil in the early 21st century (Arnson and Zartman, 2005).
Deeper still in the state–society nexus is a state's loss of resonance with its population, so that they feel alien-
ated and unrepresented and the social contract is ruptured or eroded. This may be because the state appa-
ratus is monopolized by a small group for their own benefit, as in Syria under the Alawite Assad dynasty; or
the state may follow policies that tear the population apart, as in the UK under Prime Ministers Cameron and
May; or the state may simply lose contact with its population, who break down into smaller groups of more
meaningful identity, as in the Central African Republic or Yemen or the former Yugoslavia. In reality, security,
economic and social causes of state failure (to return to Weberian categories) can coexist and reinforce each
other, leading to complete state collapse (Esty et al., 1995; Esty et al., 1998; Fragile States Index 2018; Rot-
berg, 2003, 2004).
State collapse is a process that may take many paths as a result of many causes, with the component char-
acteristics reinforcing each other. As a result, a threshold of collapse is difficult to establish, just as it is difficult
to declare when the government mechanism of a society has qualified as a state. Collapse means the state
can no longer perform the functions required for it to qualify (Zartman, 1995; DFID, 2005; OECD, 2007). It has
lost the ability to enact meaningful policy, solve salient problems and manage internal conflicts; laws are not
made, order is not preserved and societal cohesion is not maintained (Badie and Birnbaum, 1983; Howad,
2014; Schlichte, 1998). The breakdown of order involves rising challenges beyond internal security control
and ‘power deflation', where force is increasingly deployed with decreasing effect (Johnson, 1966). Not only
do social issues arise without solutions to break down social cohesion, but regional and other identify divisions
pull parts of the country out of central control. The center rules for itself; the state becomes brittle (Acemoglu
and Robinson, 2012). Institutional incapacity to meet these challenges carries with it a loss of legitimacy and
of symbolic representation of society, as people look elsewhere for their identity.
Despite the attention that has been given to the incidence of state failure and collapse, there has been little

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work analyzing collapse as a process. While it is clear that failing is a slippery slope that begins well before the
final arrival of collapse, if it is not stopped beforehand, it is also clear that the slide is marked by bumps and
slips: conditions may improve or worsen, sudden changes or improvements may be brought on by policies or
by external events, components of collapse may vary at different rates. It is difficult to discern a starting point
for these interrelated processes and because of its compound nature, components of the collapsing process
may begin at any point, dragging the others with it, all amounting to overcoming the efforts of the institution to
persist as a state.
Ultimate signposts are identifiable, even though it is not clear whether they are in the right order or not (or
whether there is an order at all) (Zartman, 1995: 10):
1. Power devolves to the peripheries because the center fights among itself. Those in cen-
tral power are too busy defending themselves against attacks from their colleagues to
hold onto the reins of power over the countryside, as in Somalia in the 1970s. Local au-
thority is up for grabs and local power-grabbers – rebels and eventually warlords – grab.
2. Power withers away by default at the center because central government loses its power
base. It no longer pays attention to the needs of its social bases and they withdraw their
support, as the center relies instead on its innermost trusted circle –an ethnic or regional
base, or a functional group such as an army officers’ clique, as in Congo in the 1980s.
Attention to the needs and demands of the support group diverts allocations from the
broader social sources of support.
3. Government malfunctions by avoiding necessary but difficult choices on pressing prob-
lems. Such measures mount in urgency and difficulty as a result, facing the state with a
governing crisis, as in Algeria in the 1990s and 2010s. Decisional avoidance can take
place either because of institutional incoherence, in which the mechanisms of govern-
ment are inadequate to their challenges, or because of political flabbiness, in which the
politicians themselves are incapable of biting the bullet. The effect is the same.
4. The incumbents practice only defensive politics, fending off challenges and reducing
threats, concentrating on procedural rather than substantive measures. Such measures
include both repression and concession, both taken to get the opposition off their back.
Absent is a political agenda for participation and programs, as in Venezuela in the 2010s.
Elections are postponed; platforms are absent. Exclusion rather than inclusion is the way
of handling demand-bearing groups.
5. Probably the ultimate danger sign is when the center loses control over its own state
agents, who begin to operate on their own account. Officials exact payments for their own
pockets, and law and order are consistently broken by the agents of law and order, the
police and army units becoming gangs and brigands, as in Zaire in the last days. Local
society handles local needs that were formerly part of the state's responsibilities.
Some of these may appear as harbingers of revolution (Johnson, 1966), but in the case of collapse, society
is too tired and disorganized to produce a revolutionary movement and elite. It is true that revolutions tend be
occasioned by state weakness (Brinton, 1965), but the alternative outcome is a society set back on its local
resources with no state to be taken over. The French state in the late 18th century and the Iranian state in
the late 20th century were failing, but there was a state to be overthrown; the state in the Central African Re-
public or Somalia or Yemen in the late 20th century did not exist. In such cases, without a strong, dedicated
revolutionary movement to take over, the revival of a state (of any kind) is a slow process of putting the pieces
together when they tend to weigh each other down instead of building on each other. Collapsed state rebuild-
ing in the early 21st century in Sierra Leone and Liberia has been a slow process, and more rapid in the later
20th century in German and Japan because of the strong state tradition and the enormous international effort.
State-building, commonly mistermed nation-building, is the process and policy of restoring functionality to
weak, failing, failed and collapsed states, and is a major focus of developed states’ foreign policy, a testimony

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to the importance accorded to the state as the organizer of the world's people and territory. The attention has
come about because weak states of all varieties have proven unable to handle their own affairs and this inca-
pacity has given rise or at least locus to disputes and rebellions that threaten other states’ security. There is
an urgency in state rebuilding after conflict, since untended formerly conflicted states have a 50% chance of
recidivism within five years (Collier, 2003). State rebuilding then becomes key to conflict prevention (Zartman,
2015). Where a people has not enjoyed (in the literary sense) a history dedicated to the consolidation of their
state, efforts must be expended to make up for lost experience. By the nature of the challenge, national efforts
are unlikely to be sufficient and require international assistance; the relation between the two is important for
the eventual solidity of the building (Tahiri, 2010; Doyle and Sambanis, 2006). Instant institutions have to be
installed and manned; political life, including parties and free and fair elections, have to be created; function-
ing and respected judicial systems need to be installed; and national budgets and taxation and fiscal policy
need to be established.
State-building programs have been advocated in many forms. Some proposals look for the level most appro-
priate for strengthening; the need for building from the local base contrasts with international programs that
seek institutionalization from the top down (Kaplan, 2008; USAID, 2005). Others have divided failing into ver-
tical component and categorized the process into major gaps – in legitimacy and security – so as to be able
to develop by functional segment (Call, 2010). Another approach sees state-building as primarily an econom-
ic matter, since the unemployed youth bubble is vulnerable to alienation and delegitimization (Collier, 2003;
USAID, 1995). In any case, rebuilding efforts need to be coordinated to be effective; the World Bank has
been accused of rushing to provide economic rehabilitation before political reconstruction has been achieved
in conflict-ridden states, thereby funding irresponsible and unaccountable rulers. State-building has been dis-
cussed primarily as institutionalization, with much less attention paid to the behavioral approach, admittedly
more difficult and closer to the real sense of nation-building.
Regional Variations
State is a universal concept, but states are not universally distributed, at least as defined. If any other entity
were to perform its functions, it would be a state. Although the concept is associated with the Western Eu-
ropean cultural area with a claim of conceptual universality, developing areas of the world sometimes claim
their own brand of state. They do not qualify as some other type of institution, since they aspire to filling state
functions, but they do so badly, simply because they are young in their statehood and only developing in the
given direction. As new states, their greatest source of weakness is their unsteady legitimacy. Coming out
of a traditional era, they depend on two of Weber's sources of legitimization: either charismatic, depending
on the attractiveness of an individual, or revolutionary, a concept that Weber named but never got around to
developing. States in Africa, Latin America and the Arab world often claim their own identity, largely based on
their historical heritage rather than on any predominant characteristics from their societies. All three cultural
areas lean heavily on central personal leadership – the Big Man or chief in Africa (Schatzberg, 2001); the jefe
or caudillo in Latin America; the za'im (leader) in the Arab world. Since the central figure tends to lean on his
own extended family and act as the father figure of the nation, combining traditional with charismatic or even
revolutionary legitimization, the notion of a patrimonial state is appropriate. The routinization of charismatic
(and, again, especially revolutionary) legitimization is a long and difficult task involving jolts or transition and
pressures of backsliding (Weber, 1968: chapter 6).
The Latin American state is an identifying designation rather than a specific analytical concept. Latin America
had gotten over the post-colonial problems it experienced after independence (by state self-determination)
two centuries ago, a century and a half before Africa. The result has been the creation of a small landed elite,
supported by the Catholic church (despite a small 20th-century breakaway protest movement of liberation
theology). Militant protest from Soviet-supported agrarian movements in the 1970s and 1980s only reinforced
the gap between them and the state, but in the quarter century since then, some more moderate leftist move-
ments have been elected into power.
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In this evolution, the Latin American state came to be viewed as an extension of international economic dom-
ination and was analyzed as an autonomous state, located between its masses and its international capitalist
dependency in a ‘Janus-faced’ position (Evans et al., 1985). Dependency ‘theory’ became the neo-Marxist
lens for analyzing the Latin American state during the Cold War (Frank, 1967; Cardoso and Faletto, 1979), but
the development of local capital and of bureaucratic–authoritarian regimes thereafter provided material for the
analysis of more complex relations. However, the evolution of the state as an autonomous actor with its own
interests separate from both its population and its international ties left it strong but limited in its capabilities,
and so allowed the growth of unregulated corruption and a return of equally autonomous bandit movements
(bacrims for criminal bandits) of private advantage, primarily in drugs, rather than of popular protest. The Latin
American state is a strong state, democratically functioning in many cases, with a few military states appear-
ing from time to time; Chavez–Maduro Venezuela in the 2010s has been the only state to show great fragility.
The African state is a term used to characterize the outgrowth of the nationalist movement into a party-state
whose writ is concentrated on major cities where political life, social services, education and public utilities are
concentrated (Herbst, 2015; Villalón and Huxtable, 1997). The African state is like an egg: yolk in the middle
and a fragile shell outside, but weak fluidity between the two. The contemporary African state was born with
its politics concentrated in a post-World War II national liberation movement (violent or simply political) under
a George Washington figure. The movement became a single party centered on a Great Coalition of modern
and traditional forces and trained only in colonial state overthrow. After the first decade of independence in
the 1960s, military coup became the most common means of succession, since civilian electoral opposition
to the charismatic figure of the president was still considered treasonous.
The embryo state was weighted from birth with a series of burdens. It came into being on the wave of na-
tionalist state self-determination, designed to return sovereignty to its citizens and answer their needs (the
story is told of a Malian who went into a bank and wanted to get money ‘because that's where money is').
It was also accompanied by the developmentalist thesis, according to which new states would take off like a
plane and develop into the world economy. It also had no local capital, which obliged government to create a
state-centralized economy that soon developed a foreign aid dependency. With the fall of Soviet support and
inspiration, the ‘African Spring’ beginning in 1993 rose against single-party rule and the centralized economy,
the latter aided by the World Bank's Structural Adjustment (Zartman, 1997).
Since the 1990s, elections have provided a succession of party-cum-business coalitions. Except for Rwanda,
a unique case of rupture with traditional structures, government in the capital is aided by the incorporation
of traditional authorities and leaders, coopted as ruling party members. Marginal groups uncovered by the
specific ethnic business party coalition are outside the scope of service and participation in the state; seeing
this neglect as targeted discrimination, they enter dissidence. This is the story of regional rebellions against
the state in Senegal, Mali, the Central African Republic, Sudan, Chad, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory
Coast, both Congos, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Angola, Mozambique and South Africa, among
others. In a few cases – Chad, Ivory Coast for a decade in the early 2000s, Rwanda, Burundi, South Africa –
the marginalized group was able to take over the state; elsewhere the dominant group maintains control, and
constitutional revisions are increasingly frequent from the 1990s for presidential terms extended to life. The
African state south of the Sahara is typically a weak state, totally collapsed in a few places such as Central
Africa, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia, followed at the next level by Mali, Chad,
Sudan and Botswana (Fragile States Index 2018).
The Arab state has long been regarded as based on an authoritarian regime riding on a sham democracy and
a military intelligence (mukhabarat), as confirmed, paradoxically, by the events of the Arab Spring of 2010–15.
Although the region also saw national liberation movements and parties after World War II, the heritage of
sultanates and janissaries (armies) remained (Badie, 1987; Luciani, 1990; Mello, 2018). References to the
population (masses) and prevalence of single parties continued; most of the countries’ rentier economies’ de-
pendence on oil revenues removed the need for effective taxation and underwrote inefficient state industries.
These token political and economic ties with the population allowed for plebiscite elections and entrenched

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leaders claiming revolutionary legitimization. In many places – Libya, Somalia, Egypt, Algeria, Sudan, Yemen;
Iran and Afghanistan outside the Arab world; and in the 21st century Syria and Iraq – popular protest against
corrupt, uncaring governments found expression in Islamist movements that challenged the secular state.
When, finally, the unemployed youth, supported by the middle classes, exploded in secular protest in 2010–11
in the Arab Spring, the popular movement did not have enough organization and experience to take over
power and create a state based on a new legitimacy, and the old state forms returned; in three cases – Syria,
Libya and Yemen – already brittle states collapsed in civil war (Zartman, 2015). The Arab state is indeed a
hard state, with executive succession by inheritance, designation or coup, although collapsed in Yemen and
Libya, with Iraq and Afghanistan (non-Arab) following not far behind in 2019 (Fragile States Index 2018).
The Islamic state is a newcomer to the modern scene but with historic antecedents. It is based on a purported
resurrection of the khilafa (caliphate) as embodied in the golden age of the first four successors (khalifa) of the
prophet Mohammed; in historic reality, the period of the eighth century was an age of enthusiasm, expansion
and instability. The notion of the Islamic state, also referred to by its Arabic acronym da'esh (Islamic State of
Iraq and the Levant), was revived most recently by an extremist Muslim group launched by former followers of
Saddam Hussein in Iraq and rapidly establishing a rulership in Syria and Iraq in the early 2000s. It acted as a
transnational movement rather than a territorial state, although it did administer areas that it occupied, and it
extended its claim to other self-affiliating groups throughout the Muslim world. Similar ventures were launched
at the end of the 20th century in Afghanistan by the Taleban (‘students') after the eviction of the Russian oc-
cupation, and then by al-Qaeda (The Base), which had similar characteristics but, as its name indicates, a
fixed location in Pakistan and Afghanistan (Kendall, 2018). Al-Qaeda's base was dispersed to other regions –
Arabian Peninsula (Yemen) (AQAP), North Africa (AQMI), Syria (under a succession of names), Somalia and
Indonesia, among others.
Al-Qaeda operates as a terrorist movement with targets in the region and abroad, with little pretention at gov-
ernance (al-Suri, 2005), but da'esh made efforts to govern its region. It provided services, offered payments
and salaries, administered justice and enforcement of its strict fundamentalist regulations and lived largely
on extensive oil revenues, under a khalifa (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi [Ibrahim al-Badri]) elected by a selected
consultative council. Legitimacy comes from a self-declared designation from God, and actions are based on
a narrow interpretation of the Qoran. The territorial base in eastern Syria was finally destroyed around 2019,
but the hydra's tentacles continue to operate.
Advances, Debates and Assessments

Conceptualization of the state advances as new types of cases appear from inductive analysis and then de-
ductive typology and process development. The independence of former colonies in Africa and Asia after
World War II (much more than the independence of Latin American states after the fall of Napoleon) brought
out new problems and new concepts. Debate is still ongoing over whether African and Arab (more than Asian)
states are a phylum of their own, or merely an early (how early?) stage of development toward the Western
archetype. In the process, they raise basic questions about the components of states and strategy of state-
building, and their universality. The debate is emotionalized by the protests of those in the developing world
who do not want to be seen as following the Western path (Mamdani, 1996). State-building is nonetheless the
current thrust of dealing with new states in the 21st century, much as development theories were the theme
for analysis of new states in the postwar period. Interestingly, the al-Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001
and the Islamic State attacks of 2015 have had little impact on the conceptualization of the state (cf. Rotberg,
2003; Badie, 1987: chapter 8).
Despite much attention, many of the processes described above still elude well-developed conceptualization
and analysis. In many cases, opposed approaches are more content to draw lines exclusionarily instead of
looking for complementarity. The legal criteria for recognition as a sign of external legitimization remain circu-
lar. The declaratory and constitutive approaches provide the material for debates but in fact each is dependent
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on the other. Proof of internal legitimization is still elusive: how does one measure the degree of legitimacy
accorded by the population (homogeneously or by groups and types – Horowitz, 1985 versus Lijphart, 1977;
Montville, 1990), and what is the threshold – how much legitimacy does a state have to have to be legitimate?
The process of state failure is still unexplored; the characteristics of each stage are well studied, but the way
in which states fail and eventually collapse (while still retaining their legal existence, of course) is not fully
understood. That process may be completely idiosyncratic, but it is more likely that there are patterns that
remain to be discovered and explored.
The debate over remedies to state weakness is widely open, but needs more study of the process of weak-
ness itself (Patrick and Brown, 2007; Kaplan, 2008; Lund, 2010; Zartman, 2015). While admittedly there must
be a local component, pure bootstrapping is rare and takes time. Therefore, the temptation for foreign states
and international organizations to step in and set it all right is great; trillions of dollars are spent in these ef-
forts, and because there is no control case, it is impossible to know how necessary or useful they were (US-
AID, 2005). The composition of R2P gives an answer by identifying its three pillars of responsibility: states
are responsible for the welfare of their people; external states are responsible for giving help to the task when
asked; external states are responsible for stepping in when the first pillar state does not exercise its responsi-
bilities. But the trilogy does not give any indication about when to pass from one pillar to the next. The debate
over R2P is a necessary and engrossing challenge for the definition of a new international norms of conduct
and responsibility.
Perspectives
States will continue to be built and to fail. The wave of new states produced by decolonization and the end of
empire is essentially over and the experience of the few latecomers shows that many lessons remain unap-
plied, as in South Sudan, Eritrea, Ukraine and Georgia (Miller, 2010; Beissinger and Young, 2002; Barrington,
2006). But the striking fact is that stateness is a universal aspiration and the number of qualifying entities, de-
spite all their problems and challenges, is only increasing. Debates, both academic and policy-oriented, rage
over how to prolong their life and increase their health. Arguably, the widest ranging substratum of those de-
bates is whether such measures must be home-grown by those who know the territory or imported by those
who know the answers. It is of little help to insist that both must be combined because this only leads to the
second question of the proper measures in the combination and the skills in making the mix (Leader and
Waever, 2019). The two questions are not new but badly need some resolution; this is complicated by the fact
that that resolution involves a meeting of the minds of analysts and practitioners (George, 1993).
Since building and failure is ultimately a policy problem, it requires repeated attention to the challenges of
prevention and the lessons of the innumerable past successes (attested by the number of functioning states
and their ability to overcome recurrent challenges). A new element of focus brought on by the rise of ‘new’ in-
ternal and asymmetric wars (Kaldor, 2012; Walter, 2017), is the conflict trap, which indicates that once caught
in an internal conflict, it is difficult for states to emerge because the conflict has done great damage to their
capabilities for recovery. By this logic, rebuilding is no longer a policy challenge, but a struggle against inher-
ent forces (Collier, 2003). Partially in response, another concept has drawn attention to a revised focus: the
matter of resiliency or the ability of state-society to roll with the punches and recover its balance when con-
fronted with the prospect of failure (Aall and Crocker, 2017). It is not clear whether the concept refers to the
ability to regain the status quo ante or to absorb the challenge and emerge strengthened – restoring versus
renovating resilience (Martin-Breen and Anderies, 2011). The concept of the state itself is the latter, since the
world does not stand still, and that means that it will face new challenges and find new answers in order to
maintain and improve its essential existence.
Note
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1 As a personal note, on my MA comprehensive exam, I wrote on the matter: ‘On forms of government may
wise men disagree: Whate'er is best administered may verge on tyranny.'
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• state formation
• state failure
• social contract
• institutions
• territory
• government
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n59

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Bureaucracy and Bureaucratic Effectiveness
Contributors: B. Guy Peters

Chapter Title: "Bureaucracy and Bureaucratic Effectiveness"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Bureaucracy and Bureaucratic Effectiveness

B. Guy Peters
The Nature of Bureaucracy

The term bureaucracy is usually associated with the German political sociologist Max Weber and is taken to
mean a formal structure governed by hierarchy and rules and populated by career officials recruited on merit
principles. Although the Weberian concept of bureaucracy was based on the experiences of, or aspirations
for, Western countries, bureaucracies of various sorts have existed in traditional and transitional regimes for
centuries (Eisenstadt, 1963). The formal bureaucratic model also has been largely adopted in most non-West-
ern countries but may be adopted in form only, with the practice differing markedly from the Weberian ideal
(see Nef, 2007).
Formally, a bureaucracy (following Weber) is an organization that has the following features:
1. hierarchical organization;
2. fixed lines of authority;
3. division of labor and specialization;
4. governance through published regulations;
5. maintenance of files;
6. full-time, career employees;
7. recruitment, retention and promotion by merit principles.
It is crucial to remember that for Weber, the bureaucracy is an Ideal Type rather than an organizational form
that would necessarily be manifested in the real world of public administration. That is, the bureaucratic form
of organization was intended to be a manifestation of the achievement of the rational legal form of authority
in a developed society (Lepsius, 2013). However, a number of empirical studies have demonstrated that the
bureaucratic model is rarely fully achieved in the real world of public or private administration (Hall, 1963;
Hinings and Meyer, 2018; Olsen, 2008).
While bureaucracy has come to have strong negative connotations (Kaufman, 1981), at the time the concept
was developed it could be seen as a significant advance over the amateur, patrimonial administrative struc-
tures that existed in many countries during the time Weber was writing. In addition to the rationality embedded
in this form of organization, the assumption was that a bureaucracy would perform more efficiently than pre-
vious structures. As well as the efficiency gained through the bureaucratic form, this mode of administration
was also more transparent for citizens as they could learn of any rules in advance and could also find out at
what stage their file was in being processed. Finally, the career structure, the training of individual bureau-
crats, and authoritative controls within the organization were intended to make the administrative system less
corrupt and more competent.
The concept of bureaucracy also implied a construct of the bureaucrat who inhabits a bureaucracy. These
individuals are meant to demonstrate substantial abilities to perform their tasks, but to also suspend their
personal judgment when performing their tasks. The good bureaucrat acts sine irae et studio.1 That is, they
would make their decisions without concern for the particular circumstances of the individuals involved in the
issue, but only on the basis of the law and the directions of superiors within the organization. This behavior
should create greater equality between citizens as their cases would not be judged on ascriptive criteria but
instead on the universalistic criteria of the law.2
Given that bureaucracy is an intellectual construct, the characteristics of comprehensive rationality and the
complete divorce of the bureaucrat from their own ideas and values were not likely to ever appear in reality.
This construct was intended largely as a methodological tool against which to compare real-world organiza-
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tions (Eliason, 2000), thus measuring the extent to which the rational-level model had been achieved. Rather
than being a guide for building better organizations, the concept of bureaucracy may be better understood as
an aid to comparative analysis (Dahlström and Lapuente, 2017).
As well as being perhaps unachievable, the Weberian bureaucratic form of organization might not even be
desirable, especially in a democracy, were it ever to be achieved fully. As just noted, this form of organization
would imply that the bureaucrat would become something of an automaton who was making decisions strictly
according to the rules and the hierarchical commands of their superiors. The experiences of numerous au-
thoritarian regimes have made it very apparent that public bureaucrats must be prepared to exercise some
independent moral judgments about their actions and the actions of their organizations (Du Gay, 2005; Good-
sell, 2015). The same sort of separation between individual values and decisions on behalf of the State can
be identified when bureaucrats are excessively loyal to the regime or to a particular political leader (Pierre,
2019).
Thus, a strict bureaucratic organization can be dehumanizing both for the employees of the organization and
for its clients. For the employees, working for such an organization provides little opportunity for personal
growth or the use of talents: decisions are governed by rules and hierarchical command and do not involve
personal judgment. Likewise, for the client of the organization there is little room for consideration of the in-
dividual characteristics of the case. The rules are the rules and the case will be judged according to those
impersonal rules.3
Although there is a formal definition of bureaucracy, the term also is used more informally and almost always
negatively. One set of connotations of bureaucracy are of organizations that are bound by red tape, ineffi-
ciency, and corruption. That image of bumbling incompetence can be contrasted with an alternative set of
connotations of bureaucracy as organizations that aggressively seize power from the more democratic insti-
tutions of the public sector (Niskanen, 1971). Those images existed long before the advent of contemporary
populism and the attempts to undo the ‘administrative state’ (Metzger, 2017). The connotations of bureau-
cracy mentioned above are obviously contradictory, but they may exist side-by-side in the media and even in
academic discourse.
Whether viewed in more formal terms or through such negative lenses, the bureaucracy remains a central in-
stitution for governance. Much of the work of governing is carried out by the bureaucracy, and in some places
it is the most competent and modernized institution for governing. Variations in the form of bureaucratic in-
stitutions will have a profound effect on the performance of government and the economy (Acemoglu et al.,
2015). This article will address the concept of bureaucracy as well as examine the nature of bureaucratic
institutions within a comparative perspective, as well as the influence of those institutions on the governing
capacity of political systems.
Bureaucracy as Attitudes and Values as Well as Structure

The discussion above, and indeed most discussions of bureaucracy, focus on the structural features outlined
by Weber and by other scholars such as Woodrow Wilson in the United States. It is crucial to remember,
however, that bureaucracy also depends upon the values of the individuals who populate those structures.
Further, as with most aspects of bureaucracy, those attitudes held by the bureaucrats may be both positive
and negative. Indeed, the same value held by a public employee may have both positive and negative con-
sequences for the clients of government organizations and for the government itself.
The negative conceptions of the attitudes of bureaucrats usually focus on patterns such as rigidity, legalism,
and risk aversion. These values are, in turn, related to classic pathologies of bureaucracy such as red tape
and buck-passing. The traditional rules within a public bureaucracy guarantee tenure for the employee of a
public organization unless he or she does something wrong – perhaps egregiously so. These rules there-
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fore generate behaviors, and the attitudes supporting those behaviors, that make it difficult for citizens to get
prompt decisions from government. However, those same values of legalism and rigid adherence to rules can
also enable bureaucracies to create equality in the services provided to citizens.
In some settings bureaucrats have been noted to have an attitude of superiority and to consider themselves
different from the society they serve. Historically, this was the case in many European societies, but even
where the role of public sector bureaucrat remains respected, the democratization of public life has reduced
or eliminated those attitudes. However, they may persist in some settings. This attitude has been noted in a
number of African countries (Olivier de Sardan, 2008), with the bureaucrats lacking a service orientation and
inheriting the sense of superiority from the former colonial administrators.
But there are also more positive values associated with the public bureaucracy. Most importantly, the literature
on ‘public service motivation’ (Perry and Hondeghem, 2008) has demonstrated that many, if not most, civil
servants in developed democracies are motivated by the opportunity to do the service for the public and their
country that is offered by working in the bureaucracy. Rather than being concerned about defending their own
positions and paychecks, these bureaucrats see the public sector as a locus for service to their society.
The problem for individual bureaucrats becomes how to balance their service motivation with the formal rules
of government. They are responsible for upholding the rule of law and following the rules for delivering public
services. Even if they are sympathetic with their clients, as some of the literature on street-level bureaucracy
has indicated (Evans, 2016), then they may still be constrained by formal rules and supervision from organi-
zational superiors.
The Tasks of Bureaucracy

Bureaucracies are large and multi-faceted institutions. Any simple notion of them as Kafkaesque, paper-pro-
cessing institutions will quickly disappear when one examines their tasks and their responsibilities. While they
certainly do move a great deal of paper – or now digital – files, they also provide a wide range of public ser-
vices, including education, healthcare, social services, environmental regulation, and a host of others. We
can name these various types of public services provided through public administration, or the public bureau-
cracy, but we can also think of them as being provided through several fundamental activities.
Implementation
The most fundamental task of the public bureaucracy is to implement public policy. This has been their role
for centuries, but the concept of implementation has been developed more fully over the past half-century
(Pressman and Wildavsky, 1974). In addition to the analytic developments in this literature, there has been
a great deal of emphasis on the difficulties inherent in implementing policies in a timely and effective man-
ner. Largely unintentionally, this emphasis on failures in implementation has reinforced the generally negative
stereotypes of bureaucracy held both by the public and many academics alike.
Implementation remains the principal task for public bureaucracies, and the large majority of the individuals
working for the public sector are engaged in implementing policies and are working at the ‘street level', having
direct contact with the public (Lipsky, 2010). Therefore, not only are these public employees crucial for the
actual performance of public programs, they are also the primary contact between the State and society.
Most citizens see their political leaders infrequently (except on television) but they are in frequent contact
with postal workers, social workers, policemen, teachers, and a host of other street-level bureaucrats (Zacka,
2017).
While the bulk of the bureaucracy is engaged in implementation, it is also here where there are numerous
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attempts to reduce the size of the public sector. The implementation process is increasingly performed by
non-governmental actors, whether from the market or from social actors such as churches and voluntary or-
ganizations. These collaborative forms of policy implementation have the advantage of reducing the apparent
size of government, and they also can leverage the skills and resources of the private sector for public pur-
poses (Donahue and Zeckhauser, 2011). Further, in more democratic terms, collaboration also permits more
participation by social actors in policy decisions, albeit at the implementation stage.
But we must also recognize that these collaborative forms of implementation can have their pitfalls as well.
Perhaps most importantly, the implementation process can, in a manner analogous to regulation, be captured
by the partners in collaboration. That is, the goals of the public program may be subverted (by design or by
gradual change) by the goals of the partner(s) from the private sector. Capture has been especially important
in public – private partnerships but can be an issue in almost any form of collaboration.
Policy Advice
A second major function of the public bureaucracy is to provide policy advice to politicians. The public bu-
reaucracy is a major repository of expertise about the policies they administer, while many politicians – espe-
cially in a parliamentary system – have little or no experience with the policies for which they are responsible.
Therefore, bureaucracies become important sources of advice for their political ‘masters', and the interface
between bureaucratic and political officials can be extremely important in defining the success of policymak-
ing.
However, this conventional role of policy advice for the bureaucracy has become reduced by changes in both
the prevailing theories about public administration and the attitudes of politicians. First, the New Public Man-
agement (NPM) (see below) emphasized the managerial role of senior public servants and downplayed the
policy advice role. The assumption was that political leaders and their own personal advisors should think
about policy, while the bureaucracy got on with the task of implementation.
In addition to the ideology of NPM, the policy advice function of the bureaucracy was reduced by the in-
creasing ‘presidentialization’ of political executives (Poguntke and Webb, 2007). Parliamentary democracies
increasingly became dominated by their cabinets, and especially by their prime ministers. This domination
included increasing the size of personal staffs, including policy advisors. The advice that might have come
from the bureaucracy then came from those personal staffs that were considered more loyal, albeit perhaps
less expert, than the career bureaucracy.
Rule Making
Although most citizens might think of legislature as the source of legal rules, the major source of rules in most
countries, even democratic societies, is the public bureaucracy. The rules made by the bureaucracy are a
secondary form of legislation made in pursuit of the primary rules issued by the legislature but far exceed
the volume of the laws coming from the political institutions. For example, in the United States, the federal
bureaucracy makes thousands of regulations each year to elaborate the rather broad legislation passed by
Congress (Kerwin and Furlong, 2019).
There are very good reasons for the importance of the bureaucracy in making legal rules for the society.
For example, governments tend to have relatively little capacity to make detailed legislature. This capacity
is limited both because of restraints on time and also because of limited technical information. Governments
therefore have chosen to delegate a good deal of the rule-making role in society to bureaucracies. In democ-
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ratic societies, there are always legal and political controls over the actions of bureaucracies in making rules
(Page, 2001), but the administrative organizations of government still exercise a great deal of power over
public policies.
Rule Adjudication
Just as bureaucracies make more rules than legislatures, so too do they try more legal cases than do the
formal court systems. These legal cases arise from other activities of the administrative system. Whenever a
bureaucrat makes a decision about an individual client, that decision may be subject to a legal proceeding, es-
pecially if the claim for benefits is denied or a fine is imposed. Likewise, in many cases where a bureaucratic
agency makes a new regulation, that regulation can be contested – for example: did the agency act in an
‘arbitrary and capricious manner’ when they made the decision?4
Many of the administrative law courts are managed and staffed by the same agencies that are making the
decisions being contested (Adler, 2003). This appears to create some conflict of interest, although in most
instances steps are taken to insulate the legal from the decision-making components of the organization.
And there may also be independent administrative law courts and organizations such as the Conseil d'Etat
in France which assesses the legality of administrative actions. Further, it may be possible for a citizen or
a corporation to appeal decisions in the regular court system if there is a substantial legal or constitutional
question involved.
Alternative Forms of Bureaucracy

There is some tendency to assume that all public bureaucracies are the same, in part because the Weberian
model posits a certain form of bureaucracy. Although the organization of public administration may be more
similar than that of legislatures or political executives, there are still marked differences. These differences are
found in the organization of the public sector, but more importantly in the underlying patterns of thinking about
public administration and its role in governing. Superficially, bureaucracies are the same but, when viewed
more closely and more carefully, there are important differences.
Organization
The first important dimension of difference among public bureaucracies is their organizational formats. In his
discussion of bureaucracy, Weber assumed a hierarchical pattern, and the usual portrayal of bureaucracy is
a neat pyramid with some political leader(s) on top and then an orderly hierarchical structure beneath those
leaders. There is a unified structure that goes from the top of the organization all the way down to the lowest
level field staff who generally are in contact with the clients – or objects – of the organization, whether they be
individual citizens, regulated industries, or foreign governments.
But there are many other ways in which public administration may be organized. For example, the Scandi-
navian countries, especially Sweden, have delegated a great deal of the implementation of public policies to
autonomous agencies, leaving the ministries to make policy. This plan has been copied widely as a compo-
nent of NPM (below). In federal systems, much of the implementation function is delegated to the sub-national
units, again separating policy and administration. The extent of that delegation varies across federal systems,
being extremely high in countries such as Belgium and Germany but low in Australia.

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Another option in the organization of public bureaucracy is to build supervisory structures into the system
in order to ensure conformity by the implementing organizations. The use of prefets in France and other
Napoleonic systems to supervise implementation at the local level ensures greater uniformity in the treatment
of citizens, albeit involving some potential loss of local autonomy and local democratic control. Communist
systems have used the party as a parallel structure to supervise government officials, again to ensure com-
pliance.
Culture and Values

As noted throughout, there is some tendency to think of public bureaucracies, or public administration, as be-
ing very similar across countries and levels of government. That, however, tends to assume away a number
of important differences among administrative structures and practices. Some of those we have mentioned
above when discussing the structures of administration, but the differences go deeper than just structure.
At one level, bureaucracy should be understood as a concept that is the same across cultures. If we begin
with the basic ideas advanced by Weber, then a bureaucracy can be seen as a standard against which to
compare organizations existing in a particular country. Given that bureaucracy was intended to be an Ideal
Type rather than a description of any particular organization, the comparative use of the concept arises from
the contrast between a real-world organization and the standards contained in the ideal model. That is, a bu-
reaucracy in any setting should be much the same as in any other setting.
If, however, we adopt a less strict conception of how to proceed with using the concept, then the various forms
of public administration that have been developed across the world must be compared among themselves,
rather than necessarily with the Ideal Type model itself.5 That form of comparison is more common than one
based strictly on the Ideal Type, and although it lacks a conceptual standard against which to compare real-
world administrative systems, the more direct comparison of those systems may reveal more about them as
functioning public bureaucracies. Such a comparison reveals how the administrative systems function in their
own terms, rather than those imposed by the researcher.
One of the principal sources of difference among administrative systems is the administrative tradition from
which they have emerged. Although contemporary administrative systems are heavily influenced by the
changing demands of governance, and changing ideas about what constitutes good public administration,
they also reflect legacies from the past. In some cases, the inheritance may be over centuries. Some scholars
(Daly, 1968) argue, for example, that patterns of public administration in contemporary Latin America reflect
the style of administration of the Spanish conquistadores.
There may be as many administrative traditions as there are countries, but there are also some clear groups
or families of national patterns. Among Western countries there appears to be four major groups: Napoleonic,
Germanic, Scandinavian, and Anglo-American. We can also identify a clear administrative pattern in Islamic
countries (Samier, 2017) as well as in Confucian countries (Chau, 1996). Interestingly, although it is to some
extent an amalgam of the traditions of the member states, administration in the EU appears to be developing
a distinctive pattern of its own (Kassim, 2018).
Levels of Development
There are legacies of the past for less developed countries, just as there are for other countries. The legacies
of the past are often the vestiges of their colonial experiences. The post-colonial states in Africa (Young,

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2012) reflect in many ways the administrative styles of the previous colonial power, but they also reflect the
difficulties of attempting to create a modern bureaucratic system in societies and economies with a shortage
of available talent and deeply entrenched patterns of patronage, nepotism, and corruption. Further, the de-
mands on bureaucracy in developing societies may be greater, given the role of the public sector in fostering
and managing economic development.
One common pattern of administration in less developed countries is the dual existence of modern bureau-
cratic organizations and practices along with more traditional patterns of administration, especially at the local
level. This dualistic structure contains two alternative sources of legitimation for the actions of the public sec-
tor. The formal bureaucracy has a rational-legal foundation for action while the use of existing structures in
villages maintains traditional sources of authority.
Bureaupathologies
As noted at the beginning of this chapter, bureaucracies tend to be unloved, and part of that absence of af-
fection or respect results from the pathologies that have been identified as being endemic in public adminis-
tration. These pathologies are too numerous to detail (one scholar has a list of over 100; Caiden, 1991) but
they can be placed into some broader clusters and discussed in that way. There are also marked differences
in the types of pathologies experienced in more or less developed administrative systems.
Red tape is one of the most commonly mentioned negative consequences of the bureaucratic style of orga-
nization (Bozeman and Feeney, 2011; Gupta, 2012). The complaints regarding red tape argue that decisions
within public organizations involve an excessive amount of time because of the numerous checks and clear-
ances required. Seemingly simple decisions will require multiple officials to agree to them. As already noted,
this red tape is both a barrier to effective bureaucracy and a protection both for citizens and also the bureau-
crats making the decision.
‘Passing the Buck’ is a pathology within bureaucracies that is similar to red tape. Often for fear of making
an incorrect decision, members of the bureaucracy will refer a decision to their superior, and they will refuse
to make a decision, passing it on to an even higher level within the organization. One official will eventually
have the courage, or at least the responsibility, to make a decision, and the case will be passed back down
through the hierarchy for implementation. However, by that point, a great deal of time and energy will have
been wasted before a decision is made.
Another commonly mentioned pathology of organizations in the public bureaucracy is that they tend to survive
long after their utility has been exhausted. There are a number of amusing examples of the survival of organi-
zations for decades longer than needed (Kaufman, 1974) but these examples are not amusing to critics of the
public sector. Although the extent of survival of organizations is not as great as sometimes assumed (Peters
and Hogwood, 1993), there are certainly good examples of this pathology in most bureaucracies.
For all the pathologies mentioned here, and many more, a positive feature of the bureaucratic model of
public administration has created unintended consequences (Merton, 1936; Baert, 1991). The greatest single
source of unintended consequences is the protection against dismissal from office provided that the individual
public servant follows the rules. The fear of not following the rules, therefore, may result in not making any de-
cisions. Bureaucrats are not meant to be risk-takers and are, indeed, supposed to be rule followers. But rules
can be more ambiguous than those who write them think they are. When faced with any ambiguity, therefore,
the safest thing for the public employee to do is to do nothing. Even if the individual bureaucrat does make a
decision, they are more likely to make a safe one that follows the letter of the law.

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Threats to Bureaucracy
Bureaucracies tend not to be popular with politicians or with the public, although, as noted above, the civil
service as an institution is often more trusted than are politicians and legislatures. Since the inception of pub-
lic administration there have been attempts to reform the institution. Many of these reforms have attempted
to make government more like the presumably more efficient organizations within the private sector, while
others have sought to make bureaucracies friendlier to the ordinary citizen and to minimize the pathological
elements of bureaucracy mentioned above.
In addition to reforms directed at making the public sector more businesslike, there have been attempts to
make the bureaucracy less autonomous from political institutions. While the presumed value of a bureaucra-
cy comes in part from its autonomy from political pressures, political leaders generally want to have greater
control and to have the bureaucracy conform to the policy preferences of the government of the day. These
political pressures on bureaucracy may be exacerbated by the managerial reforms given that a more man-
agerialist bureaucracy will be more concerned with efficiency than with policy preferences of the incumbent
government.
General Rejection of the Bureaucratic Model

Although the bureaucratic model rarely appears in its pure form, the pattern of public administration in many
countries has contained many of the features. The dominant pattern of public administration depended for
decades on hierarchy, authority, and career public servants who were relatively immune to sanctions or dis-
missal. This model was considered the best way to govern and did provide advantages both for government
and for citizens. But it also presented major problems for individuals working in it, as well as for citizens at-
tempting to receive service from it.
Internally, individual bureaucrats have seen bureaucracy an impediment to the development of their careers.
Many people want jobs that give them more latitude to make decisions on their own and have a lot of variety
in them. Many public employees have found their lives in bureaucracy less fulfilling than they had hoped, per-
haps especially those with a strong public-service motivation. Some reforms of the public sector have sought
to increase participation by lower level officials and to increase their opportunities for making decisions, but in
many public sector organizations there is still little option for individual autonomy.
In addition to the internal critique within the system, beginning as early as the 1970s, there have been other,
more political, calls for a ‘post-bureaucratic’ model of public sector organizations. On the political right, the
continuing critique has been primarily that the bureaucracy engages in empire-building for themselves and at-
tempts to evade political controls. The bureaucracy profits from a large state and high levels of public spend-
ing (Niskanen, 1971) and therefore has little incentive to be frugal with funds – indeed, it even has incentives
to expand its budget. These claims about the bureaucracy have returned with substantial force in the early
21st century, with populist claims in a number of settings, for example the United States and Brazil, about the
existence of a ‘Deep State’ that defends its own interests against the people.
Critiques on the political left also argue that the bureaucracy and the bureaucrats defend their own interests.
But in these critiques the complaint is less about the growth of public expenditure than about the failure to pro-
vide needed services to the public. The rigid, rule-bound nature of bureaucracy is assumed to prevent public
servants from serving the public, especially the disadvantaged (Piven and Cloward, 1993). Further, class and
cultural differences between bureaucrats and their clients limit the quality of the services provided to those
citizens who most need public services.
Managerialism
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The NPM has perhaps been the major challenge to the traditional form of public bureaucracy over the past
several decades (Hood, 1991; Christensen and Lægreid, 2001, 2007). We can date the beginning of this
movement to the end of the 1970s, with political leaders such as Thatcher, Reagan, and Mulroney (Savoie,
1994), and there are numerous elements of the reforms associated with NPM that persist. Indeed, in some
cases the ideas associated with NPM are still being implemented anew.
The fundamental idea behind the NPM is that public management should be more like management in the
private sector and, indeed, that the public sector in general should be more influenced by market ideas. The
diagnosis for these reforms was that the hierarchy and monopoly of public organizations produced inefficien-
cy and high costs (Peters, 2000). Therefore, to make public administration perform better, some of the defin-
ing features of these institutions should be weakened. For example, it was argued that the personnel system
should become more like the market with civil protections being weakened or eliminated. Likewise, employ-
ment in the public sector should cease to be a distinctive career, and individuals should be hired from outside
as needed. Following on from that, there has been an emphasis on performance management (Bouckaert
and Halligan, 2007) to assess the level of performance of individuals and organizations, with rewards and
sanctions associated with the level of performance.
While these managerialist changes might be seen as merely enhancing the efficiency of public administration,
they may also threaten some important values in the public sector. Perhaps most fundamentally, as Wallace
Sayre argued, public and private management are alike in all unimportant [emphasis added] respects. For
example, the threats to the civil service may undermine the independence and probity of administration, and
the capacity for managers or political leaders to appoint individuals from outside the career service opens the
system up to patronage and politicization (see below).
In addition to the emphasis on management, in the NPM there was also a strong emphasis on altering the
structure of the public bureaucracy.6 The agency model – small policymaking ministries with autonomous
agencies implementing policy – was a part of the NPM prescriptions for the public sector (Lægreid and Ver-
hoest, 2010). Although in many implementations of the agency model the agencies were not as autonomous
as sometimes assumed, there was still some separation from the direct political control of the minister.
Further, the emphasis on management and therefore on implementation, tends to undervalue some of the
other activities of the public bureaucracy. In particular, the NPM de-emphasized the policy advice role of the
bureaucracy rather significantly. The assumption was that politicians and their political advisors should make
policy, while the bureaucracy would implement those policies. This separation of policy and administration is
a classic idea in public administration but tends to underestimate the knowledge about policy that exists with-
in the bureaucracy. It also tends to over-estimate the policy knowledge of most political leaders and many of
their advisors (Rose, 1976).
Although the NPM seriously challenged the bureaucratic form for organizing the public sector, the post-NPM
reforms from the 1990s onwards have tended to rediscover some of these elements of bureaucracy. The cre-
ation of the ‘Neo-Weberian State’ (Lynn, 2008) was intended to bring together the best features of NPM with
the formal accountability and the merit-based administration associated with Weberian bureaucracy. In addi-
tion, there was the need to restore the center of government after the pursuit of decentralization and decon-
centration in the implementation of the NPM reforms (Peters, 2004).
Politicization
I noted above that managerialism may lead to some weakening of the merit principles that have been central
to the development of civil service systems and public administration. The pressures from managerialism are,
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however, only part of a larger set of pressures that seek to undermine merit-based civil service systems in
favor of more politicized patterns of public employment (Peters and Pierre, 2004; Neuhold et al., 2013). Even
in countries with deeply ingrained merit systems, there have been changes that allow more political appoint-
ments to public office and more political influence over the behavior of all public administrators.
Of course, in some instances, more politicized systems of public administration have been in place for
decades or centuries, despite the advocacy of merit systems by reformers within the governments and by ex-
ternal donor organizations. The administrative systems of Africa (Olowu, 2003) and Latin America (Panizza et
al., 2019) continue to be characterized by high levels of patronage. In some instances, this can be functional
for the performance of the political system, enabling government to hire – even if for just a short period – more
talented individuals than they might be able to, given the relatively low wages in the public sector. But in other
cases, these patronage appointments are just ‘Jobs for the Boys’ (Grindle, 2012).
There has also been some continuing increase in the politicization of the public service in Europe and Asia,
which have previously depended largely on merit appointments. The level of ‘democratic backsliding’ in the
public bureaucracy has been especially noticeable in former socialist countries such as Hungary and Poland
(Kopecky et al., 2012) but there has also been some increased politicization in other European countries. In
Asia, Japan has been moving away from its bureaucratically dominant style of politics to a more politicized
style of governing. With that changing style has come a greater openness to patronage appointments in the
public sector.
Contemporary versions of politicizing the bureaucracy have perhaps been more fundamental than simply
placing political appointees in positions that might be thought to be more appropriately filled by a career civil
servant. The various populist regimes that have come to power in Europe, as well as North and South Ameri-
ca, have taken aim at the bureaucracy and the ‘administrative state’ as a central barrier to a government that
serves ‘the people'. These attacks on the bureaucracy, and the desire for more direct political control, are
politicizing the public sector more intensely.
The point above about the capacity to hire more talented individuals raises a more general point that can be
overlooked when considering merit systems and patronage. This is simply that patronage is not always as
evil as some believers in the strict bureaucratic model might argue. In addition to the capacity to recruit tal-
ent into government for a short time – even when civil servants are talented and well-paid – patronage can
provide other benefits. In democratic terms, patronage permits elected officials to have greater control over
the administration of its policies and over the policy advice it receives. Further, using patronage appointments
rather than a formal merit system may enable governments to accelerate attempts to make the public sector
more representative (Peters, 2015).
Corruption
The third major challenge to the bureaucratic model of public administration is corruption. The legal founda-
tions and the emphasis on, and the adherence to, rules implies that bureaucracy will function with a great
deal of probity. The presence of a strict hierarchy within bureaucratic organizations also helps to control the
behavior of individuals within it and hold them accountable for their actions. The problem is that these controls
may in practice be weak, and that there are also strong incentives for individuals within the government to
enrich themselves through the misuse of their offices.
Despite continuing efforts to eliminate corruption, it remains endemic in many public bureaucracies (Berman,
2011). In many cases, this is because of very low wages paid to public employees who must then find ways
to make a living wage. This petty corruption by lower level officials can be contrasted with the large-scale
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corruption that occurs at the top of the hierarchy by both political and administrative leaders alike. These offi-
cials may have a reasonable wage but yet want more, desiring incomes more like those found in the private
sector. Both forms of corruption, however, erode public confidence in public administration, and reduce the
legitimacy of the public sector in general.
Although corruption is often economically based, it can also be cultural. That is, despite the ideas of honesty
and probity usually found in bureaucracies, the acceptance of corrupt practices is endemic in some cultures
(Rose-Ackerman, 2010). This is especially true for forms of corruption such as nepotism that involve benefit-
ting family members of the public official. When there is a strong commitment to the family, then not providing
a cousin or a niece a public job can be seen as corrupt. It is very easy to condemn corruption, but it is some-
times more difficult to understand the roots of that apparent misuse of public power.
Given that corruption can be deeply ingrained in administrative systems, how can it be overcome, and a more
bureaucratic system of administration established? If we look at some of the more successful cases in rooting
out corruption, several strategies become apparent. One is to pay members of the civil service adequately,
so they have less incentive to augment their income through accepting bribes. Second, vigorous enforcement
of anti-corruption laws is essential and can be achieved through autonomous anti-corruption organizations.
Finally, the emphasis on training and creating an esprit de corps among the civil servants, can also help to
overcome the temptations to receive extra income.
Bureaucratic Effectiveness and Policy Capacity

Although widely denigrated in popular literature and also in some academic literature, the bureaucracy is key
to the governing capacity of political systems. Legislatures and political executives may be capable of making
policy and perhaps monitoring the effects of those policies, but to make government work effectively, they
require a public bureaucracy. More precisely, they require a public bureaucracy that can take rules and policy
ideas coming from the political actors and make them work in the economy and society. To do this requires a
bureaucracy that can perform the rather daunting tasks mentioned above.
Bureaucracies in developing and transitional societies tend to face the most significant problems in creating
policy and governance capacity. Those bureaucracies are often working in societies with well-established
patterns of clientelism and patronage that make developing a professional and effective civil service difficult.
Those societies may also have a history of endemic corruption that siphons off scarce resources and increas-
es public discontent with, and distrust of, the public sector. Moreover, they are often working with limited re-
sources – human and financial – that makes the achievement of policy goals difficult or impossible. Further,
donor organizations have imposed many of the same reform programs, such as NPM, on bureaucracies in
these countries with apparently little concern about whether they can implement them effectively (Manning,
2001), often with the effect of exacerbating problems rather than ameliorating them.
A number of empirical analyses have established a link between the form of the public bureaucracy and the
capacity of governments to manage economic development. For example, Evans and Rauch (1999) argued
that the ‘Weberianess’ of public bureaucracies in developing societies was closely associated with the level
of growth. They focused on the personnel aspects of the Weberian model, notably merit recruitment and the
existence of a career system for public employees. In particular, countries such as the Asian ‘Little Tigers’
that have been able to create extremely well-qualified public bureaucracies have been able to prosper while
growth in many other countries has faltered.
More recently, scholars have tended to discuss the role of a strong state in development more than focusing
on the bureaucracy per se (Acemoglu and Robinson, 2012; Bardham, 2016). However, in these analyses, the
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bureaucracy is an essential element of that strong state. International organizations such as the World Bank
have also emphasized the need to reduce corruption in the public bureaucracy and to create a more Weber-
ian state as essential to development and good governance. In these analyses the Weberian bureaucracy is
significant not only for its capacity to process the work of the public sector but also as a means of controlling
corruption and establishing the rule of law.
Other scholars have extended the analysis to link the bureaucracy with the capacity to deliver good gover-
nance. Dahlström and Lapuente (2017) demonstrate the linkage between the Weberian model of bureaucracy
– again conceptualized primarily in terms of the personnel system – and several measures of good gover-
nance. The evidence does provide substantial support for the idea that a Weberian bureaucracy is associated
with better performance by government as a whole. The merit system for recruiting bureaucrats is often justi-
fied in terms of producing political neutrality, but it can also be related to the performance of government.
But why should a better bureaucracy necessarily produce better government performance? First, the bureau-
cracy may be central in advising the political elites on what policies to make and in helping them avert policy
disasters. The task of the policy analyst to ‘speak truth to power’ (Wildavsky, 1987)7 is also a task for the
public administrator. Members of the bureaucracy have experience and often have expert knowledge which
politicians may lack, and hence their role in policy advice can be essential to creating effective policy. Unfortu-
nately, as already noted, many contemporary reforms of the public sector have tended to remove, or at least
diminish, the policy role of the bureaucracy. These reforms may also tend to reduce the quality of the policies
being produced (Page, 2001).
The central role of the bureaucracy in implementation is also essential for effective governance. Implementa-
tion is not a simple, almost mechanical, enforcement of the law but also requires good judgment and, increas-
ingly, political skills. Some policies can be enforced in the manner of a ‘machine’ organization (Mintzberg,
1995), applying the same rules again and again to relatively similar cases. While many of these repetitive
functions in government organizations are now largely managed by information technology, the image of the
bureaucrat sitting at a desk endlessly stamping forms still abounds, especially in less developed countries.
That mechanical form of implementation is not where the real skills of the implementing bureaucrat come into
play. Implementation increasingly involves collaboration with private actors, whether they be market-based or
not-for-profit (Ansell and Gash, 2007). And this collaboration in turn requires some bargaining and negotiation
among the parties involved. For example, the use of public – private partnerships involves the capacity of the
public sector to work with private actors in programs involving large amounts of money and significant levels
of discretion in the use of those funds.
Even when implementation does not involve non-State actors, it may still involve a great deal of judgment on
the part of the public employees. Public bureaucrats have a great deal of discretion and how they exercise
that discretion is crucial for the success or failure of programs and for a more pervasive effect on public trust
of government. If we assume, for example, that the police are uniformed, and perhaps armed, bureaucrats,
then they must exercise very high levels of discretion, often in dangerous situations and with limited time.
Even when not in extremis, public employees such as social workers and school teachers make largely au-
tonomous decisions that have profound consequences on the lives of citizens – those decisions also deter-
mine how effective government is as an institution.
Third, bureaucracies make rules using the powers delegated to them by legislatures, and this power can en-
hance their effectiveness in governance. However, this power also heightens the possibilities of conflict with
other institutions in the public sector, especially in an era of distrust of government in general and bureaucra-
cy in particular. Although governed by legal constraints such as the Conseil d'Etat in France and the Admin-
istrative Procedures Act in the United States, and bringing a great of expertise to bear on the writing of the
regulations, rule making through the bureaucracy appears undemocratic and an usurpation of powers.

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Likewise, the bureaucracy also adjudicates millions of cases each year concerning their own application of
the law (Bruff, 1991). Much like rule making can be seen as usurping legislative powers, the use of these
powers within the bureaucracy has been seen as usurping the powers of the courts. Further, as administrative
courts may be located within the same organizations that are parties to the adjudication, these courts can be
seen as having a conflict of interest. But the power of the bureaucracy to manage so much of the business
of governance not only enhances its own power, but also makes the overall conduct of public business more
efficient. For example, the Department of Veterans Affairs in the United States tries millions of cases each
year, a number that would overwhelm the regular court system.
In addition to these specific tasks performed by the bureaucracy, the presence of a permanent and profes-
sionalized institution can promote the policy capacity of a government. The very factors that cause critics to
bemoan the place of the public bureaucracy in governance – permanence, stability, insulation from immediate
political pressures – may also be the factors that are essential for it to play the important role that it does in
governing. Political leaders are not necessarily elected because of their knowledge about public policy or pub-
lic management, so therefore having the permanent expert bureaucracy influencing policy choices will tend
to benefit governance.
The danger in thinking about linking bureaucracy to the performance of the public sector is that this may ap-
pear to assume that better performing governments will be dominated by the executive – that is, be perhaps
less democratic. Certainly, while many less democratic regimes do rely more on their bureaucracies than
more democratic governments and in more economically developed countries, even in democratic regimes
a more capable bureaucracy is related to better governance. Despite the importance of the bureaucracy for
governance, many contemporary populist governments have been attacking the role of the bureaucracy and
the remainder of the ‘Deep State', albeit with no alternatives for improving the performance of government
(Peters and Pierre, 2018).
Conclusion: Bureaucracy as Virtue and Vice

As should be apparent from reading this chapter, bureaucracy can be a virtuous form of organization, but it
also has the potential for being pathological. The form of organization may not be the cause of these more
or less virtuous outcomes per se, but it is rather the leadership of the organizations and the contexts within
which they function that are the principal causes. Bureaucracy as a form of organization is relatively value
free, but in practice it can have significant normative consequences, both positively and negatively.
Moreover, the presence of an effective, Weberian public bureaucracy appears to be related to the capacity for
economic development. The ability to manage the economy and to impose the rule of law on the part of the
public bureaucracy creates conditions in which businesses can thrive, but there is the danger that too much
bureaucracy can stifle economic development. For example, if there is too much red tape and too many rules,
this will make managing businesses difficult and slow the development process. What appears a virtue at one
level of institutional development may be a vice when taken too far. The difficulty, of course, is recognizing
when the bureaucratic model of organization has been taken to the extreme.
In summary, bureaucracy is a powerful weapon for government and a potential impediment to the effective
delivery of services to citizens. It can be conceptualized as the highpoint of modernity or as the barrier to
creating more humane and effective public programs. The form of organization is in of itself neutral, but the
way public sector bureaucracies are managed, and the popular reactions to public organizations, can have a
major impact on performance.
Notes
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1 Without malice or consideration.
2 As already noted, the concept of bureaucracy had a strong element of modernization just as did the pattern
variables of Talcott Parsons, including ascription vs. achievement, and particularistic vs. universalistic criteria.
3 Fortunately, as I will discuss below, there are very few organizations with this degree of rigidity in contem-
porary governments and the tendency has been to expand the discretion exercised by public employees.
4 This is the language of the Administrative Procedures Act in the United States, but other systems of admin-
istrative law contain similar statements.
5 This represents, to some extent, the move from classical categorization to the ‘family resemblance’ style of
conceptualization (Collier and Mahon, 1993).
6 The first major implementation of the agency model was in the UK. This was meant to be a copy of a long-
standing model of administration in Sweden, but the version developed in the UK did not provide nearly as
much autonomy to the agencies as the original model.
7 Although now applied to policy analysis, this term was originally used by the Quakers (the Society of
Friends) to describe their commitment to non-violent resistance to evil.
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• bureaucracy
• bureaucratic effectiveness
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• organizations
• attitudes
• institutions
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n60

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Corruption
Contributors: Bo Rothstein
Chapter Title: "Corruption"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Corruption
Bo Rothstein
Corruption and the Political Science Discipline

Since the mid 1990s, many international aid and development organizations have become interested in is-
sues related to the problem of corruption. Since corruption tends to be a sensitive issue, the ‘coded language’
for this policy re-orientation has been to stress the importance of ‘good governance'. In academic circles,
concepts such as ‘institutional quality', ‘quality of government’ and ‘state capacity’ have also been used. How-
ever, a central problem in this discussion is a serious lack of conceptual precision (Rothstein and Varraich,
2017). Moreover, until the late 1990s, the interest in researching political corruption in political science and
related disciplines, such as public administration and policy analysis, was very modest. As shown in Figure
58.1, the total number of articles published in journals listed in the major bibliographical database, Thomson
ISI, that had the term ‘political corruption’ in the title, as a keyword or in the abstract for the year 1992, was 87.
Since the database covers about 1,700 scholarly social science journals, each publishing about fifty articles
per year, this is a surprisingly low number.
Figure 58.1 Corruption as keyword in scientific articles
As stated as late as 2006 by one of the most prominent political scientists in this field, Michael Johnston
(2006: 809): ‘American political science as an institutionalized discipline has remained steadfastly uninterest-
ed in corruption for generations'. This lack of an interest in issues about corruption can also be seen from
a look at the many handbooks in political science that have been published during the last decade. Looking

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at ten important Oxford Handbooks in areas related to political science, none has a chapter, a section of a
chapter or even an index entry on the term ‘corruption'.1
This lack of interest in research about corruption in political science stands in sharp contrast to what seems
to be the opinion of the ‘general public'. According to a BBC poll in 2010, surveying 13,353 respondents in
26 countries, corruption is the most talked about issue globally, surpassing issues such as climate change,
poverty and unemployment (Katzarova, 2011).
A reason for why political science should pay attention to issues related to corruption is to do with unexpected
and, for many – including this author – also normatively unwelcome, results. The problem pertains to the ef-
fects of democratization. The waves of democracy that have swept across the globe since the mid 1970s
have brought representative democracy to places where it seemed inconceivable 50, 30 or even 10 years
ago. This is certainly something to celebrate but there are also reasons to be disappointed. One example is
South Africa, which miraculously managed to end apartheid in 1994 without falling into a full-scale civil war.
As Nelson Mandela said in one of his speeches, the introduction of democracy would not only liberate people
but also greatly improve their social and economic situation. The slogan that his political party (ANC) used
in the first democratic elections was ‘a better life for all’ (Mandela, 1994: 414). Available statistics give a sur-
prisingly bleak picture for this promise. Since 1994, the country has not managed to improve the time that
children on average go to school by even a single month. Economic inequality remains at a world record lev-
el, life-expectancy is down by almost six years and the number of women that die when they give birth has
more than doubled.2 Simply put, for many central measures of human well-being, the South African democ-
racy has not delivered. Another example has been provided by Amartya Sen in an article comparing ‘quality
of life’ in China and India. His disappointing conclusion is that on most standard measures of human well-be-
ing, the communist-autocratic Peoples’ Republic of China now clearly outperforms liberal and democratically
governed India (Sen, 2011).Using a set of 30 standard measures of nationallevels of human well-being, and
also some variables known to be related to human well-being such as the capacity for taxation, including data
from between 75 and 169 countries, Holmberg and Rothstein (2014) find only weak, no, or sometimes even
negative, correlations between these standard measures of human well-being and the level of democracy as
defined above. Maybe the most compelling evidence about the lack of positive effects of democracy on hu-
man well-being comes from a study about child deprivation by Halleröd et al. (2013) using data measuring
seven aspects of child poverty from 68 low- and middle-income countries for no less than 2,120,734 cases
(children). The result of this large study shows that there is no positive effect of democracy on the level of
child deprivation for any of the seven indicators (access to safe water, food, sanitation, shelter, education,
health care and information3 ).
The picture that emerges from the available measures is this: representative democracy is not a safe cure for
severe poverty, child deprivation, economic inequality, illiteracy, being unhappy or unsatisfied with one's life,
infant mortality, short life-expectancy, maternal mortality, access to safe water or sanitation, gender inequality,
low school attendance for girls, low interpersonal trust or low trust in parliament. Why is this so? One expla-
nation was given by Larry Diamond in a paper presented at the National Endowment for Democracy in the
United States as it celebrated its first twenty-five years of operations:
There is a specter haunting democracy in the world today. It is bad governance – governance that
serves only the interests of a narrow ruling elite. Governance that is drenched in corruption, patron-
age, favoritism, and abuse of power. Governance that is not responding to the massive and long-
deferred social agenda of reducing inequality and unemployment and fighting against dehumanizing
poverty. Governance that is not delivering broad improvement in people's lives because it is stealing,
squandering, or skewing the available resources. (Diamond, 2007: 119)
If we follow Diamond's shift of focus from representative democracy and turn to measures of corruption and
the quality of government (henceforth QoG), the picture of what politics can do for human well-being changes

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dramatically. For example, the above-mentioned study on child deprivation finds strong effects of measures of
quality of government on four out of seven indicators on child deprivation (lack of safe water, malnutrition, lack
of access to health care and lack of access to information), controlling for GDP per capita and a number of
basic individual level variables (Halleröd et al., 2013). Other studies largely confirm that various measures of
control of corruption and quality of government have strong effects on almost all standard measures of human
well-being, including subjective measures of life satisfaction (aka ‘happiness') and social trust (Norris, 2012;
Holmberg and Rothstein, 2012; Helliwell et al., 2018). Recent studies also find that an absence of violence,
in the form of interstate and civil wars, is strongly affected by levels of quality of government and more so
than by the level of democracy (Lapuente and Rothstein, 2014; Teorell, 2015; Norris, 2012). As Sarah Chayes
(2015) has pointed out, corruption is an important cause behind the rise of terrorist and insurgent military
groups that has hitherto been ignored both by research and in the academic analyses of security policy.
Some may argue that the normative reasons for representative democracy should not be performance mea-
sures like the ones mentioned above, but political legitimacy. If people have the right to change their gov-
ernment through ‘free and fair elections', they will find their system of rule legitimate (Rothstein, 2011). Here
comes maybe an even bigger surprise from empirical research, namely that democratic rights do not seem to
be the most important cause behind people's perception of political legitimacy. Based on comparative survey
data, several studies show that variables such as control of corruption, the integrity of public officeholders
and the rule of law trumps democratic rights and representation in explaining political legitimacy (Gilley, 2009;
Gjefsen, 2012; Dahlberg and Holmberg, 2014; Murtin et al., 2018). The argument is certainly not that repre-
sentative democracy is unimportant, but without a reasonably competent, impartial, uncorrupt and effective
public administration, representative democracy is unlikely to deliver human well-being. Thus, if the relevance
of research in political sciences is understood as to how it may improve human well-being and/or improve
political legitimacy, research has to a large extent been focusing on the least important part of the political
system, namely how the ‘access to power’ is organized (that is, electoral and representative democracy and
processes of democratization). This focus on ‘input’ variables ignores the more important part of the state
machinery for increasing human well-being, namely how power is exercised or, in other words, the quality of
how the state manages to govern society. As argued by Fukuyama (2013), this seems to have been driven
by an underlying ideological view inspired by neo-classical economics and is particularly strong in the United
States, which emphasizes the need to limit, check and control (and also minimize) the state which is basically
seen as a ‘predatory’ organization. In other words, how to ‘tame the beast’ has been the central focus, not
what ‘the animal’ can achieve.
Corruption as Taboo
In the late 1960s, the Swedish economist (and Nobel Laureate) Gunnar Myrdal pointed out that the term
corruption was ‘…almost taboo as a research topic and is rarely mentioned in scholarly discussions of the
problems of government and planning’ (Myrdal, 1968: 937–51). According to Myrdal, there were different rea-
sons for the lack of an academic focus on corruption, especially for research concerning developing countries
– one being a general bias of ‘diplomacy in research'. This ‘diplomacy’ stems from the historical setting of
when Myrdal's article was published, that is, in the midst of the Third Wave of Democratization. The fact that
Myrdal's essay formed part of a lengthy book titled ‘An Enquiry into the Poverty of Nations', which focused
on the Asian continent, is evidence of the prevalent prejudice of the time, which may explain the need felt by
many academics to remain ‘neutral’ or ‘diplomatic', thereby avoiding touching upon a sensitive issue like cor-
ruption. Matters were of a similar nature on the policy front, where this type of reasoning was also utilized by
international organizations, such as the World Bank, effectively avoiding research and discussion of the topic.
The official stance of these organizations was that problems related to corruption constituted ‘a national issue’
that was beyond the purview of the organization's mandate, which stated that interference into national polit-
ical issues was not allowed. As Pearson points out, the reluctance of these institutions to address corruption
can also be attributed to their ‘perception of themselves as politically neutral, the limitations of their charters
and because of the sensitivities of many of their member States’ (Pearson, 2013: 31). This all changed when
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former World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn redefined corruption as an economic problem in the mid
1990s. In an interview in 2005, he stated the following: ‘Ten years ago, when I came here, the Bank never
talked about corruption, and now we are doing programs in more than a hundred countries, and it is a regular
subject for discussion’ (cited in Holmberg and Rothstein, 2012: 287). It is noteworthy that it was a policy or-
ganization that broke the ‘taboo’ surrounding corruption and that academia, and not least the political science
discipline, came around later.
Definitions of Corruption
The concept of corruption is an age-old concept, perhaps as old as human civilization. The first chapter in
the recent volume titled ‘Anticorruption in History’ starts with the sentence ‘In 323 BCE, a corruption scandal
erupted across Athens’ (Taylor, 2017: 21). Another chapter in this volume points at the many anti-corruption
measures established in the later Roman Republic (Arena, 2017). The stability over time of the general un-
derstanding of corruption is presented in another chapter in the following way: ‘In the later Middle Ages, as
today, behavior identified as corrupt characteristically involved two things: the promotion of one's own inter-
ests above those of the public and the bending of rules or official powers under the influence of bribery or
affection’ (Watts, 2017: 94). Analyses of what counted as corruption in very distant pasts, such as the Roman
Empire or 13th-century France, give the impression of it not being different from contemporary notions of the
concept (MacMullen, 1988; Jordan, 2009).
This line of thought indicates that the concept of corruption is not specifically Western or new but also rein-
forces the concept as very much universal and not limited to the modern, liberal West. The classic conception
of corruption as a general disease of the body politic was also central to the thinking of Enlightenment thinkers
such as Machiavelli, Montesquieu and Rousseau, aptly described by Friedrich (1972) in mapping the histori-
cal evolution of the concept.
A Universal Definition of Corruption?

As pointed out by the Council of Europe, ‘no precise definition can be found which applies to all forms, types
and degrees of corruption, or which would be acceptable universally as covering all acts which are consid-
ered in every jurisdiction as contributing to corruption’ (Pearson, 2013: 36). This poses many problems, one
of which is bringing together the different forms of corruptions such as, for example, clientelism, patronage,
nepotism and patrimonialism into one comprehensive analytical landscape. Philosophically, concepts such as
these all share a ‘core’ with corruption, which appears to be the reason justifying why these are often exam-
ined hand in hand. It is perhaps in lieu of this that some scholars have attempted to identify a ‘core’ that can
be pinned down and which binds these different forms of corruption together, thereby going beyond the cultur-
al or relativist understandings that tend to dominate within much of the empirical research. It is true that using
the same concept for a situation when a policeman demands a small sum in return for not giving a speeding
ticket and the huge sums that are reported to be paid for securing governments’ arms deals can seem a bit
awkward. However, biologists call both hummingbirds, hens, eagles and ostriches ‘birds', but they are, to say
the least, quite different ‘birds'. This analogy may indicate that it is not the size of the matter that is important,
but some qualitative core or aspect of the phenomenon we want to define.
The development of the international anti-corruption regime since the late 1990s has not been without its
critiques. One point that has been stressed in this critique is that the international anti-corruption agenda rep-
resents a specific Western, liberal ideal that is not easily applicable to countries outside that part of the world
(Bukovansky, 2006; Bratsis, 2003; Hindess, 2005; de Maria, 2010). There are at least two arguments against
this type of relativistic conceptual framework. The first is normative and based on the similar discussion in the
areas of human rights and democracy; the right not to be discriminated by public authorities, the right not to

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have to pay bribes for what should be free public services and the right to get treated with ‘equal concern and
respect’ from the courts are in fact not very distant from what counts as universal human rights. For exam-
ple, for people that do not get the health care they are entitled to because they cannot afford the bribes the
doctors demand, corruption can result in a life-threatening situation. The same can occur for citizens that do
not get protection by the police because they do not belong to the ‘right’ group. The second reason against
a relativistic definition of corruption is empirical. Although the empirical research in this area is not entirely
unambiguous, most of it points to the quite surprising result that people in very different cultures seem to have
a very similar notion of what should count as corruption. Survey results from regions in India and in sub-Sa-
haran Africa show that people in these societies take a very clear stand against corruption.
For example, the Afrobarometer survey asked whether respondents considered it ‘not wrong at all', ‘wrong but
understandable’ or ‘wrong and punishable’ if a public official: (1) decides to locate a development project in
an area where his friends and supporters live; (2) gives a job to someone from his family who does not have
adequate qualifications; and (3) demands a favor or an additional payment for some service that is part of his
job. The result was that between 60 and 74% of the more than 25,000 respondents in the 19 sub-Saharan
countries deemed all three acts both ‘wrong and punishable’ (Rothstein and Varraich, 2017: 47). Widmalm
(2005, 2008) finds similar results in a survey study of rural villages in India. Although an absent figure in these
villages, Widmalm finds that the Weberian civil servant model (impartial treatment of citizens, disregarding
income, status, class, caste, gender and religion) has a surprisingly large amount of support among the vil-
lage population for handling common issues. In other words, the idea that the public acceptance of what is
commonly understood as corruption varies significantly across cultures does not find much empirical support
(see also Rotberg, 2017).
Especially in so-called post-colonial theory, the existence of a universal understanding of corruption has been
questioned (Apata, 2018; de Maria, 2010). However, it can be pointed out that in Frantz Fanon's classic book
‘The Wretched of the Earth', which in many ways is ideologically the most important and founding text for the
post-colonial approach to development issues, the author himself points to corruption among the new political
elite as a serious malady for West-Africa. In Fanon's words: ‘Scandals are numerous, ministers grow rich,
their wives doll themselves up, the members of parliament feather their nests and there is not a soul down to
the simple policeman or the customs officer who does not join in the great procession of corruption’ (Fanon,
1967: 67).
The reluctance of many scholars in the post-colonial approach to look at corruption as a serious problem is
thus difficult to understand. In sum, there are both normative but also strong empirical grounds for opting for
a universal understanding of corruption and the opposite to corruption. However, this does not exclude that
there are different types of corruption and that the connection between corruption and the political system can
differ. This is not different from saying that while we can have a universal definition of what constitutes repre-
sentative democracy, the specific institutional configuration of democracies varies a lot. The Swiss democra-
cy is institutionally very different from the Canadian version, which in turn is different from what they have in
Denmark.
The reason why people, although condemning corruption, participate in corrupt practices seems to be that
they understand the situation as a ‘collective action’ problem where it makes little sense to be ‘the only one’
that refrains from using or accepting bribes and other kick-backs (Persson et al., 2010). As Gunnar Myrdal
stated in his analysis of the ‘soft state’ problem, in relation to developing countries in the 1960s, ‘Well, if every-
body seems corrupt, why shouldn't I be corrupt’ (Myrdal, 1968: 409). In his anthropological study of corrup-
tion in Nigeria, Jordan Smith (2007: 65) concludes that ‘although Nigerians recognize and condemn, in the
abstract, the system of patronage that dominates the allocation of government resources, in practice people
feel locked in'. It makes little sense to be the only honest policeman in a severely corrupt police force, or to
be the only one in the village who does not pay the doctor under the table to get one's children immunized
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if everyone else pays. This may also be caused by a distinction pointed out by Bauhr (2017) between need
corruption, which she defines as paying a bribe to get a service (like health care) that you are legally entitled
to, and greed corruption, which is demanding a bribe for a service that you otherwise would not give even
though it is your legal obligation to do so.
Measuring Corruption
Unsurprisingly, there has been a very long debate about the possibility and meaningfulness of measuring cor-
ruption. The very first efforts to create a comparative measure of corruption was produced by the international
anti-corruption organization Transparency International (TI) in the mid 1990s and was mainly based on sur-
veys of experts. TI's corruption perception index is carried out annually. Many other research institutes and
organizations are producing similar indexes of either corruption or related issues such as the rule of law, gov-
ernment effectiveness, quality of government, the level of ‘black market’ activity and fairness in the system for
public procurement. While corruption is certainly difficult to conceptualize in a way that makes it possible to
operationalize and measure its frequency and prevalence, so are many other central concepts in the social
sciences (democracy, power, conflict, equality etc.) and there is no reason why corruption should be more
complicated than other important concepts. The main impression from the discussion is that at the country
level, the existing measurements of corruption and related concepts, such as the rule of law etc., correlate
on a surprisingly high level (Fazekas and Kocsis, 2017; Holmberg et al., 2009). Moreover, measures mainly
based on expert surveys and surveys with representative samples of the population also correlate on a very
high level (Svallfors, 2013; Charron, 2016). The problem is that in some countries, for example Italy, there
are surprisingly large differences between different regions (Charron et al., 2018). That implies that giving a
country like Italy one single figure for its level of corruption seriously underestimates the corruption problem
in some parts of the country (and of course overestimates it in other parts of the country). The same seems
to be the problem when corruption in various sectors, such as education, health care and the police, is mea-
sured. Some sectors in a country are much more hurt by corruption than others. The conclusion is that while
corruption, like other central concepts in the social sciences, is difficult to measure, the strong correlations
between different measures gives us some assurance that the problem should not prevent us from using this
data, though with necessary caution. The regional and sectoral variation that exists is mainly not a measure-
ment problem but a question of how finely grained a measure it is possible to produce.
The Public Goods Approach to Corruption

One way to understand why there seems to exist a universal understanding of what should count as cor-
ruption despite its enormous variation both in types, frequency and location, is what we would call a public
goods approach to this problem. In all societies and cultures, in order to survive, all groups of people have
had to produce at least a minimal set of public goods, such as security measures, a basic infrastructure or
organized/collective forms for the provision of food. The very nature of a good being ‘public’ is that it is to be
managed and distributed according to a principle that is very different from that of private goods. The public
good principle implies that the good in question should not be distributed according to the private wishes of
those who are given the responsibility of managing them. When this principle for the management and distri-
bution of public goods is broken by those entrusted with the responsibility for handling the public goods, the
ones that are victimized see this as malpractice and/or as corruption. This is why corruption is a concept that
is related to the political and not the private sphere, and why it is different from (or a special case of) theft and
breaches of trust in the private sector.
Much of the confusion about cultural relativism in the discussion about what should count as corruption stems

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from the issue that what should count as ‘public goods’ differs between different societies and cultures. For
example, in an absolutist feudal country where the understanding may be that the central administration is the
private property of the lord or king, the state is not seen as a public good. In many indigenous societies with
non-state political systems, local communities have usually produced some forms of public goods; for exam-
ple, for taking care of what Ostrom (1990) defined as ‘common pool resources', which are natural resources
that are used by members of the group but which risk depletion if overused. Such resources are constantly
faced with a ‘tragedy of the commons’ problem and are thus in need of public goods in the form of effective
regulations to prevent overuse leading to depletion.
Our argument departs from the idea that it is difficult to envision a society without some public goods. The
point is: when these public goods are handled or converted into private goods, this is generally understood
as corruption, independent of the culture. A conclusion that follows is that we should not expect people in
developing countries, whether indigenous or not, to have a moral or ethical understanding of corrupt prac-
tice that differs from, for example, what is the dominant view in Western societies. An example could be the
case in which there is not a system for taxation, yet there are certain individuals that have been selected to
perform functions as arbitrators or judges. These functions are to be understood as public goods because
it makes it possible to solve disputes between village members and/or families in a non-violent way. These
arbitrators may, in several cases, receive gifts from the parties involved for their services. Such gifts may, for
a Westerner, look like bribes, but they are usually not seen as bribes by the agents, who make a functional
distinction between bribes and gifts (Sneath, 2006; Werner, 2000). The reasons for why they are not seen as
bribes by the local villagers are: (1) the gifts are publicly given, and (2) there is a culturally defined level for
how big such gift can be. This implies that the giftis to be seen as a fee for a service, not a bribe. It would
only be a bribe, and seen as such by the local populace, if it was given in a way to influence adjudication
by favoring one party over another. In this case the public good is converted into a private one and it is this
which is perceived as corruption. To support this argument, Rothstein and Torsello (2014) have used data
from the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF), which is the single most comprehensive and largest ethno-
graphic database of world cultures. The HRAF database has been compiled by Yale University and includes
data on 258 world cultures and over 600,000 pages of ethnographic descriptions made by professional an-
thropologists. The cultures covered are divided among 8 world regions: Africa, Asia, Europe, Middle America
and the Caribbean, the Middle East, North America, Oceania and South America. Their analysis shows that
the word ‘bribe’ is found in 113 of the 258 cultures – that is 48% of the whole HRAF sample when excluding
European countries. It is also found in all four general types of societies (foragers, horticulturalists, pastoral-
ists and agriculturalists). The agriculturalists’ societies/cultures (which are also monetarized and commercial)
contain the largest number of bribery entries, which supports the thesis that corruption is widely spread where
public and private arrangements for the use of and access to resources and goods can be expected to vary.
Even more interesting is their finding that pastoralist societies are apparently the least exposed to corruption
among the subsistence types. This also supports the ‘public goods’ theory since it is in this economic type of
society that one should expect to find the least ambiguity between private goods (herds and land) and public
goods.
Anti-corruption Policy
From a policy perspective, anti-corruption policy is looking quite good compared to the situation in the 1990s.
The ‘institutional turn’ in the social sciences, embodied for example by Nobel Laureates Douglass C. North
and Elinor Ostrom, paved the way for studying why some societies had ‘good’ and others ‘not so good’ in-
stitutions. Thanks to their work, we now have quite good theoretical models of why collectively dysfunctional
institutions (formal and informal) are common, stable and detrimental to prosperity and human well-being.
In addition, there is now a large amount of comparative, and to some extent also longitudinal, data as well
as many good case studies and historical studies of corruption and anti-corruption. In addition, compared to
the 1990s, we have more stringent laws against corruption in many countries, more countries with special
anti-corruption units, and in 2003 the United Nations Convention Against Corruption was signed and is now
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ratified by more than 170 countries. In addition to this fact is that many national and international development
and aid organizations have put anti-corruption high on their agenda. Thus, compared to the situation 20 years
ago, there is room for quite some optimism since many of the ‘weapons’ needed in this conflict seem now to
be in place.
However, the results ‘on the ground’ from the many anti-corruption policies and initiatives that have been
launched so far have not been that impressive. It seems to be very difficult to trace any major results from the
many ‘good governance’ programs that the World Bank and many other international development organiza-
tions have launched since the mid 1990s. Alina Mungiu-Pippidi (2015: 207) summarizes the situation in this
way: ‘By and large, the evaluations piling up after the first fifteen years of anti-corruption work showed great
expectations and humble results'. Francis Fukuyama (2014: 25) adds that the international development and
aid community ‘would like to turn Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya and Haiti into idealized places like “Denmark”
but it doesn't have the slightest idea of how to bring this about'. In a recent book, Dan Hough (2017: 123)
adds that ‘success stories are depressingly thin on the ground'. There are countries that have improved, but
not much of the change can be attributed to any donor-led programs or initiatives (Rotberg, 2017).
A particularly difficult result is that democratization seems not to be a safe cure against corruption. Keefer
and Vlaicu (2008: 378) show that: ‘…in 2004 more than one-third of all democracies exhibited as much or
more corruption than the median non-democracy'. Their argument builds on the fact that in a country that has
recently democratized, politicians have no or low reputation and thus no means of making credible electoral
promises to the citizenry. Politicians must therefore rely on local patronage networks and provide targeted
goods to their supporters in a direct exchange for votes. In other words, in order to attain office and to stay in
power, they undermine the quality of public institutions by, for example, handing out public sector jobs and/or
targeting benefits directly to their presumed political supporters. Consequently, a young and fragile democra-
cy will typically overprovide targeted goods, such as public sector jobs and public works projects, etc., while
at the same time underprovide non-targeted goods, such as universal health care, education, the rule of law
and the protection of property rights (Keefer, 2007). This argument is supported by a recent study by D'Arcy
showing that between 1985 and 2008 scores for measures of corruption for countries in sub-Saharan Africa
have increased to a considerable extent and that this negative development is ‘primarily driven by the 38
countries which have experienced increased levels of democracy’ (D'Arcy, 2015: 111). Systemic corruption,
which is when citizens and public officials take corrupt practice as being the default position when they inter-
act, seems thus to be a hardened and difficult enemy implying that current anti-corruption strategies seem to
be in need of some serious rethinking (cf. Persson et al., 2010)
What Should be the Opposite of Corruption?

One way to handle the definitional problem is to figure out what we should think of as the opposite of corrup-
tion. More precisely, what state of affairs are we looking for when we can say that corruption is under control?
One should be clear that a society free from corruption is as likely as a society free of crime. But as with crime,
there are important degrees. The intentional homicide rate in Brazil is more than 30 times higher than in the
Nordic countries.4 As mentioned above, the problem with the standard definitions is that what should count
as ‘abuse’ or ‘misuse’ of public office is not specified. Or to put it otherwise, the norm that is transgressed
when we can say that an act is corrupt is not defined. One solution is ‘good governance', but this becomes
problematic because the term ‘governance’ is used very differently in different approaches in the social sci-
ences (Rothstein and Varraich, 2017: 125). An alternative has been put forward by Rothstein and Teorell
(2008) in what they call ‘the quality of government’ (QoG) approach. For the understanding of what should be
understood as the opposite of corruption, Heywood and Rose (2015) have made an important point, namely
that we would not be satisfied with just ‘no-corruption'. The reason is that this is a far too low a threshold for
what we ought to demand from those who are entrusted to handle our ‘public goods'. Our demand is not just
that these agents should refrain from corruption, but that we as citizens (and taxpayers) are entitled to expect

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something more than the absence of corruption. This could of course just be competence, but we can argue
that there should be a more basic normative standard for how people entrusted to provide public services
ought to behave.
There are four reasons a normative definition is necessary. First, terms like ‘good' (as in ‘good governance')
or ‘quality' (as in ‘quality of government'), not to mention corruption, are inherently normative. Something is
‘good’ or has high/low ‘quality’ in relation to a certain norm (or norms) and it is therefore necessary to specify
this norm. To state that something or someone is corrupt is doubtless a normative judgement. Trying to de-
fine good governance while ignoring the normative issue of what should constitute ‘good’ simply defies logic.
Second, the empirical results show that when people make up their mind on whether they find their govern-
ments legitimate, how a state's power is exercised turns out to be more important for them than their rights
pertaining to the ‘access’ side of the political system. Moreover, as mentioned above, the procedures at the
‘output side', such as the rule of law and the absence of corruption, turn out to be more important for political
legitimacy than the ‘outcomes’ in the form of public services or benefits. Since perceptions of political legiti-
macy are inherently normative, we have to conceptualize this norm(s). It should be noted that the legitimacy
of how the access side of a democratic system should be organized is, according to Robert Dahl, based on
a single basic norm – namely political equality, which in practice is equal voting rights and an equal right to
stand for office (Dahl, 1989, 2006). Thus, if the procedures that take place at the ‘output side’ of the political
system are more important for citizens when they make up their mind on whether their government is to be
considered legitimate, then with the procedures at the ‘input side', we should be able to find the parallel basic
norm for this part of the political system. Obviously, it cannot be ‘political equality’ since most laws and public
policies entail that citizens should be treated differently (pay different taxes, get different benefits, subsidies
and services dependent on their specific situation and circumstances).
Third, the risk with empirical definitions is that they have a tendency to become equal to the outcome we want
to explain so that, in practice, they become tautological. One example is the definition of good institutions pro-
vided by Acemoglu and Robinson (2012). Their well-known argument is that it is institutions of a certain kind
that promote economic prosperity. Such institutions should”secure private property, an unbiased system of
law, and a provision of services that provides a level playing field in which people can exchange and contract.
Moreover, such institutions”also must permit the entry of new business and allow people to choose their ca-
reers”. The list goes on, the institutions that are needed for economic prosperity should also”distribute power
broadly in society and ensure that ‘political power rests with a broad coalition or plurality of groups’ (Acemoglu
and Robinson, 2012: 73, 80). The problem with this definition is that it is very close to what the theory intends
to explain. It seems self-evident that a society with such ‘inclusive’ institutions will be a good and prosperous
society. What they are saying is that a good society will produce a good (or prosperous) society.
The central issue is this: if a society decides to organize its public sphere according to a certain norm (or set
of norms) which states, for example, who will work in this administration and according to which principle(s)
civil servants and professionals will make decisions, will this result in higher organizational capacity and com-
petence? Furthermore, will this make it more likely that the politicians will entrust this administration with a
certain degree of autonomy? The empirical answer to this question seems to be in the affirmative. For exam-
ple, if civil servants are recruited based on the norm of impartiality, which means that factual merits for the
job in question is what decides recruitment and promotion, this will lead to higher competence and thus to
higher state capacity, which in turn is likely to lead to increased levels of human well-being (Dahlström and
Lapuente, 2017). Thus, the procedural principle of impartiality translates in practice into meritocracy which,
inter alia, leads to increased competence and capacity in the public sector. The question raised by Fukuyama
(2013: 349) – that is, if impartiality as the basic norm for how the state interacts with its citizens will result in
increased state capacity – is thus no longer only ‘simply asserted', but empirically grounded. Simply put, there
are now a number of reasonably good empirical indicators showing that impartiality as the procedural norms
will lead to better outcomes in terms of lower corruption and higher state capacity.
A fourth reason for a normative definition of QoG instead of pointing at specific empirically existing institutions

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is that if we look at countries that are judged to have high levels of QoG, their political and legal institutions, as
well as their systems of public administration, show remarkable variation (Andrews, 2013). This implies that
simply exporting such institutions (or a specific state's institutional configuration) from high QoG to low QoG
countries will not work to improve QoG. When this has been tried, the results have not been encouraging
(Andrews, 2013). The reason seems to be that it is not the specific institutional configuration of the state and
the public administration, but the basic norm under which the institutions operate, that is the crucial factor.
Political Procedures or Policy Substance?

Is QoG something that should be defined by reference to a set of political procedures or should it be defined
by reference to certain policies or outcomes? An example of the latter is the well-known definition of ‘good
governance’ provided by Daniel Kaufmann and colleagues at the World Bank which, among other things,
include ‘sound policies’ (Kaufmann et al., 2009). Political philosophers, on the other hand, have argued for
including the ‘moral content’ of the enacted laws or policies into the definition (Agnafors, 2013). The well-
known problem with any substantive definition of democracy and thereby QoG is why people, who can be
expected to have very different views about policies, should accept them. Since we are opting for a definition
that can be universally accepted and applied, including specific policies becomes problematic. To use Rawls’
terminology, political legitimacy requires an ‘overlapping consensus’ about the basic institutions for justice in
a society so that citizens will continue to support them even when they have incommensurable conceptions
of ‘the meaning, value and purpose of human life’ and even if their group would lose political power (Rawls,
2005: 135). This is of course less likely to be the case if specific (sound) policies or moral content of the laws
are included in the definition of QoG.
Including, as the World Bank does, ‘sound policies’ in the definition also raises the quite problematic question
of whether international (mostly economic) experts really can be expected to be in possession of reliable an-
swers to the question of what ‘sound policies’ are. For example, should pensions, health care or education
be privately or publicly funded (or some mix of these)? To what extent and how should financial institutions
be regulated? Second, such a definition of QoG, which is not restricted to procedures but includes the sub-
stance of policies, raises what is known as the ‘Platonian-Leninist’ problem. If those with superior knowledge
decide policies, the democratic process will be emptied of most substantial issues. The argument against the
‘Platonian-Leninist’ alternative to democracy has been put forward by one of the leading democratic theorists,
Robert Dahl, in the following way: ‘its extraordinary demands on the knowledge and virtue of the guardians
are all but impossible to satisfy in practice’ (Dahl, 1989: 85).
All this implies that a strictly procedural definition of QoG is to be preferred. This also follows from the ambition
to strive for a definition of QoG that is parallel to how the ‘access side’ for liberal representative democracy
is usually defined, which speaks for a strictly procedural definition. The system known as liberal representa-
tive democracy should not in itself favor any specific set of policies or moral standards (except those that are
connected to the democratic procedures as such). There is, however, a well-known drawback to all proce-
dural definitions of political processes for decision-making, namely that they cannot offer a guarantee against
morally bad decisions. As is well known, there is no guarantee against perfectly democratically made deci-
sions in a representative democracy that will result in severe violations of the rights of minorities and individu-
als. As Mann (2005) has argued, there is a ‘dark side’ to democracy. This is also the case for any procedural
definition of QoG, be it ethical universalism (Mungiu-Pippidi, 2015), impersonal rule (North et al., 2009), bu-
reaucratic autonomy and capacity (Fukuyama, 2013) or impartiality in the exercise of public power (Rothstein
and Teorell, 2008). In this procedural approach, we think the strategy suggested by John Rawls is the right
one. His central idea is that if a society structures its procedures for making and enforcing collective decisions
in a fair way, this will increase the likelihood that the outcomes are normatively just. As Rawls stated: ‘… sub-
stantive and formal justice tend to go together and therefore that at least grossly unjust institutions are never,
or at any rate rarely, impartial and consistently administered’ (Rawls 1971: 59).

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Conclusions: The Opposite to Corruption as Quality of Government

A state regulates relations to its citizens along two dimensions. One is the ‘input’ side which relates to the ac-
cess to public authority. This is where we in democracies find rules about elections, party financing, the right
to stand for office and the formation of cabinets. The other side of the political system is the ‘output’ side and
refers to the way in which that political authority is exercised. On the input side, where the access to power
and thereby the content of policies is determined, as stated above, the most widely accepted basic regulato-
ry principle has been formulated by Robert Dahl (1989) as being that of political equality. This is also John
Rawls’ (2005) basic idea on how to construct a non-utilitarian society based on his well-known principles of
justice. Political equality certainly implies impartial treatment on the input side of the system, and this makes
political equality and impartiality partially overlapping concepts (Rawls, 2005). Elections have to be adminis-
trated by the existing government but if they are to be considered free and, in particular, fair, the ruling party
must refrain from organizing them in a manner that undermines the opposition's possibilities to obtain power.
That is, in order to be seen as legitimate, free and fair, elections must be administered by impartial govern-
ment institutions (Norris, 2012; Schedler, 2002). But again, the impartial organization of elections does not
imply that the content or outcome of this process is impartial. On the contrary, the reason for why many, if not
most, people are active in politics is that they are motivated by very partisan interests. A working democracy
must thus be able to implement the partisan interests produced by the input side of the system in an impartial
way. In this context, impartiality is not a demand on actors on the input side of the political system, but first
and foremost an attribute of the actions taken by civil servants, various professional groups in public service,
law enforcement personnel and the like. In order to effectuate this ideal, it may, however, also be necessary
to inscribe impartiality as an ideal into the mindset of these actors. Empirically, this is actually what many gov-
ernments try to do. In an analysis of ethical codes for the public administration from 22 countries (of which
a majority are non-Western countries), it was found that these codes show remarkable similarity regarding
their core values, and that impartiality is the most important value throughout these 22 codes (Rothstein and
Sorak, 2017).5
To see why the impartiality definition of QoG is universal, it is useful to compare it to Dahl's idea of political
equality as a basic norm for democracy. Every particular democratic state is, in its institutional configuration,
different. It should suffice to point at the extreme variation in the electoral systems in, for example, the Swiss,
Danish and British democracies. There are, in fact, innumerous ways of organizing a national democracy
(presidentialism vs. parliamentarism, uni- vs. bicameralism, proportional vs. majoritarian electoral systems,
variation in the power of the courts, federalism vs. unitarianism, the role of referendums, the strength of local
governments, etc.). As long as the principle of equality in the access to power is not violated (for example by
giving one specific political party the right to rule, or by refusing to give some specific group of citizens the
right to stand for office or take part in the public debate), we call such differing political systems as in Finland
and in the United States democracies. The reason is that all institutional arrangements on the input side in a
representative democracy should be possible ways to ensure ‘political equality'.
Impartiality as the parallel legitimatizing and defining principle for the ‘output’ side can in a similar way also
encompass various administrative practices. As shown by Andrews (2013), the specific administrative and
organizational configurations of governments deemed to be of high quality are in effect quite different. QoG
as impartiality is of course in line with the idea of a procedural definition which means that it can encompass
very different policies and does not rule out support for specific groups or interests.
Notes
1 They are: The Oxford Handbook of Political Science, The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics, The
Oxford Handbook of Public Policy, The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Institutional Analysis, The Oxford
Handbook of Political Theory, The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State, The Oxford Handbook of Political
Institutions, The Oxford Handbook of Law and Politics, The Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology and The
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Oxford Handbook of Political Leadership.
2 Data from the Quality of Government Data Bank, www.qog.pol.g.u.se. Accessed March 3rd, 2019.
3 Children with no access to radio, television, telephone or newspapers at home are defined as lacking infor-
mation.
4 United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, Statistics 2017, https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analy-

sis/statistics.html. Accessed 14 December 2018.
5 The others are Openness, Integrity, Legality, Loyalty, Equal Treatment, Reliability, Service and Profession-
alism.
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• corruption
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• well-being
• representative democracy
• democracy
• governance
• political corruption
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n61

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Governance
Contributors: Carlos R. S. Milani

Chapter Title: "Governance"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Governance
Carlos R. S. Milani
Introduction
In 1975, a major report on the governability of democracies was published by the Trilateral Commission. This
report was based on the hypothesis that governability problems, at least in Western Europe, Japan and the
United States, would be related to the cleavage between the increase in social demands on the one hand,
and the lack of the state's financial, managerial and human capacities and resources on the other. In a more
general perspective, the report argues that the political crisis in developed societies is due to the accelera-
tion of technological progress and the complexity of their social fabric, conditions to which traditional public
management could not respond properly. As a result, the authors recommended that state institutions and
governmental policies should change in view of this new reality, but also that individuals should adapt their
behavior and expectations towards the state and its capacities in public good provision (Crozier et al., 1975).
The Trilateral Commission Report aroused interest in international organizations, which have since then
broadened the scope from ‘governability’ to ‘governance', often associating it with adjectives such as ‘good’
and ‘democratic'. Particularly after the end of the Cold War era, governance has also been presented as com-
plementary to global market regulation mechanisms, without pointing out contradictions between market in-
terests, state regulation, social policies and human rights. In addition, the reference to questions of citizens’
participation and public management, without necessarily mentioning the pertinence of contextual politics and
the role of states, has frequently made governance a malleable instrument for international organizations and
policy experts. Therefore, during the transition between the 1980s and the 1990s, a normative vision of gov-
ernance was disseminated in World Bank (WB) reports and in action plans or final declarations of United
Nations (UN) conferences, programs and agencies.
This international circulation of the concept has not only resulted in biased uses and abuses of governance,
it has also reinforced its potential mystification as a social science construct and produced the risk of its ma-
nipulation and decontextualized uses as a world-wide policy recipe. The fact that I acknowledge these bi-
ases and abuses related to governance diffusion does not mean, however, that contemporary societies are
not complex or that the world-system is not composed of much more self-governing subsystems. Moreover,
neither does it imply that societies are not currently experiencing a deep crisis in their democratic models, es-
pecially in terms of representativeness, participation, responsibility, legitimacy, recognition, redistribution and
social cohesion.
In fact, debates on governance stemming from its global circulation in the field of development cooperation
and its policy diffusion by international organizations have seldom reflected the in-depth epistemological and
methodological efforts of renewal within political science, in particular in the fields of public policy and interna-
tional relations, when analyzing problems of collective action. Policy-wise, governance presented normative
and prescriptive dimensions related to the world visions supported by national and international agencies,
whereas in their scholarly work political scientists attempted to carve out new concepts that would take into
consideration both public and private actors, and both governmental and non-governmental interests, in the
construction of public goods from local to global levels.
In this chapter, I argue that debates on governance, in spite of the effects resulting from its international circu-
lation by interest groups and regional and global organizations, have had the merit of reopening fundamental
discussions about the public space from local to international levels. Such qualified debates have revealed
that the rationale of procedures in complex societies has become as important as the substance of deci-
sions or the content of public decisions and governmental policies. In fact, governance as a political science
concept goes beyond government because it encompasses control mechanisms that are outside the strict
jurisdiction and regulatory sphere of the state. It goes beyond liberal democracy because it implies notions

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of efficiency, sustainability and social justice that should concomitantly feed debates on democracy and de-
velopment. Governance refers not only to the political system as a whole, but also to subsystems in which
social groups control the process or parts of the process from which the actions of diverse stakeholders re-
sult. Bearing such origins of the concept and these complexities in mind, this chapter is organized around the
following topics: (i) a short history of the subject; (ii) the international circulation of governance and regional
differentiation; and (iii) visions, definitions and typologies related to the subject. In the conclusion, I wrap up
the main argument of the chapter and present some research implications for political science and interna-
tional relations.

Etymologically, the word ‘governance’ derives from the ancient Greek kybernetes, a term used to define how
to conduct, drive or navigate something. The first appearance of the word dates back to the 15th century in
French (gouvernance), coming into the Anglo-Saxon world at the end of the 17th century, and since then it
has been circulated as related to the exercise of power or the activity of government. In the modern world
the term has been used to imply the provision of means of collective steering for markets, societies and pol-
itics. In 1904, S. Low used the word governance, but gave it the same definition that one could then find for
government (Low, 1904). In 1949, J. Fesler defined local governance as linked in many ways with processes
of decentralization, since the author considered that decentralization dealt with the distribution of power on
a territorial base (Fesler, 1949). In 1975, M. Crozier, S. Huntington and J. Watanuki emphasized the govern-
ability of contemporary market–state relations as a central issue for Western societies (Crozier et al., 1975).
In the 20th century, many other publications in the transition between the 1970s and the 1980s stressed the
need to improve governance as related to the economic costs of bureaucratic management, to the decentral-
ization of governmental activities, to risk analysis, as well as to the need to increase efficiency in public affairs
(Baden and Stroup, 1981; Fleishman, 1982; Henderson and Abney, 1977; Mead, 1977; Mirtimer and Richard-
son, 1977; Zimmerman, 1982). In the field of economics and management, the term ‘corporate governance’
was also introduced in the 1970s and used as a synonym for a better management of businesses in their
relations with public and private stakeholders (Williams, 1975; Sommer, 1977). In this context, it is therefore
clear that at the national level, the term has historically been very much associated with public and private
efficiency within institutional spheres.
In the field of Administrative Law, national and local governments have often been responsible for implement-
ing public policies and programs. Bureaucracies play a central role in shaping the implementation process
but may also share it with non-governmental actors, such as local associations and service providers. New
Public Management (NPM) has been the main subfield within Public Administration to capture the new mean-
ings of public service provision and public–private partnerships. In some versions of NPM, not only would the
managers resume a central role in public policy implementation, but citizens (often conceived as customers)
could also be called upon to participate in the process, either as co-implementers or as evaluators of public
services. Different to the experiences of participatory democracy in which citizens would also play a deci-
sion-making role, in NPM, conceptions and practices of citizens’ or customers’ participation have tended to
be restricted to results-based management and service quality evaluation (Mayntz, 1993; Peters, 2011).
In the field of International Relations, the term has varied in its usages and meanings. In general, governance
has been presented as a combination of cooperation and coordination efforts among interdependent units
(mostly states, but not only). Interdependence would give rise to cooperation or coordination for purposes of
economic development, prosperity, international trade, reduction of transaction costs and regional interaction
or integration among units (Keohane and Ostrom, 1995). However, in international politics, global governance
has also meant that conflicts of interests could rise when units had to define goals or whenever they had
to debate its norms (Finkelstein, 1995). The Commission on Global Governance, established by UN Secre-
tary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali in 1992 and co-chaired by Ingvar Carlsson and Shridath Ramphal, made
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global governance widely popular in the field of International Relations thanks to the publication in 1995 of the
Our Global Neighborhood report. While some scholars considered that global governance implied the plural-
ization of actors, which have in increasing numbers injected unexpected voices into international discourse
about numerous problems of global scope (Gordenker and Weiss, 1995), others criticized the Commission's
excessive ideological confidence in market-oriented public policy-making to solve distributive conflicts and
political problems (Broadhead, 1996; Falk, 1995).
Indeed, the use of global governance both as a policy tool and a concept was highly controversial in the
1990s, and the debate around its applications appealed to a variety of criticisms stemming from defenders
of the sovereignty principle, supporters of a world-federalist viewpoint or those who considered it as a rebirth
of traditional domination patterns in world politics (Senarclens, 2001; Uvin and Biagiotti, 1996; World Bank,
1994). In this regard, L. Finkelstein (1995) stated that global governance was presented as the (new) field of
(future) international politics, although its conceptual contours had not clearly been identified and its empirical
implications remained under-demonstrated. The author recalled that, due to the interconnectedness of the
decision processes among and within states in international politics there would, in fact, be many new ac-
tors, such as non-governmental organizations, which tend to play increasingly significant roles in internation-
al negotiations that involve what had once been termed ‘two level games’ (Putnam, 1988) or ‘double edged
diplomacy’ (Evans et al., 1993). However, because governance overlapped categories of functions performed
internationally (information creation and exchange, formulation and promulgation of principles, good offices
and mediation in conflict resolution, regime formation, maintenance of peace and order, etc.), L. Finkelstein
wondered what conceptual differences between global governance and international regime would actually
exist in the field of IR. As the author concludes, ‘global governance appears to be virtually anything’ when it
comes to its conceptual development (Finkelstein, 1995: 368).
Irrespective of such critical remarks, one must recognize that at both national, international and global levels,
governance is a concept that can be used to respond to economic, social and political changes that have
occurred world-wide. Concepts have history and can present secondary layers of meaning in addition to their
explicit or primary meaning; however, these changes from local to global levels are all related to what is now
encompassed by the multidimensional phenomenon of globalization. The steering activity that local, nation-
al, regional or global governance has implied in the use of the term ‘governance’ is usually associated with
relationships between both governmental actors (and with the formal institutions of the public sector), social
actors and market actors, which have deeply changed in the last 30 years.
In a nutshell, governance owes its initial success to the diagnosis of post-Second World War forms of gov-
ernment or public policy-making in Western countries that galvanized its conceptual development. Very often
the welfare state and Keynesian-inspired policies were criticized for their inability to cope with the budgetary
difficulties arising from the crisis of the years 1975–1990. These essentially redistributive policies consisted of
a tax collection on economic sectors to provide benefits to organized groups that were socially and economi-
cally disadvantaged. Globally, the collapse of the dollar-gold standard in 1971 and the growing financialization
of the economy, among other factors, have rendered such welfare policies extremely difficult or inexecutable
within the context of macroeconomic stability precepts.
Led by a relatively centralized administrative apparatus, welfare policies functioned in developed countries
from the end of the Second World War to the mid 1970s in an economic environment marked by significant
growth and in the political context of the Cold War era. In the developing world, these welfare policies were
extremely limited in scale (% of GDP) and scope (% of population), and only semi-industrialized countries
such as Argentina, Brazil, India, Mexico and Turkey could partially implement such policies. The economic
crisis of the 1970s and the end of the Cold War in the transition between the 1980s and the 1990s have halted
this pro-welfare wave first in the West and later world-wide: inflation continued while growth went down, mak-
ing the interplay between equality and efficiency in Western and industrialized no longer a functional equation
according to the emerging macroeconomic parameters (Hirschman, 1980; Leca, 1996; Venkataraman, 1994).

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As a result, there would be at least four difficulties related to governance, as listed by R. Mayntz (1993): (i) an
implementation problem: the inability to implement the rules; (ii) a motivation problem: the refusal of groups to
recognize the legitimacy of governmental action; (iii) a knowledge problem: the misunderstanding of causality
links between means and ends; and (iv) a governability problem: the absence or lack of instruments of gov-
ernmental action. The term governance, whose content was relatively vague from an analytical point of view
when the first articles and reports were published, therefore appeared within the framework of a critique of
the welfare state and governmental policies. According to the defenders of governance, the solution to the
various problems then encountered in developed and developing countries would stem from the recognition
of roles played by organized social actors and economic operators that do not necessarily go through the
government filter. To speak of governance has therefore meant to emphasize the role of organized groups of
actors, be they more or less formal (NGOs, communities, networks, foundations), in the definition and imple-
mentation of collective actions aimed at a certain common good which was not comparable to public actions
aimed at the public interest implemented by governments. Governance, at both national and global levels,
has contradicted the central role of states and governments to refer to a set of cognitive and organizational
capabilities and techniques to improve decision-making processes and, at large, ‘public’ policy-making. Along
these lines, it is possible to argue that the actual definition of governance supposes developing a given the-
ory of the state and its role in the public realm – an aspect which some political scientists frequently tend to
disregard in their analysis of governance issues.
International Circulation and Regional Differentiation

Aside from the 1995 report published by the Commission on Global Governance, the UN promoted a series
of summits in the 1990s, the action plans or final declarations of which regularly called for new governance
structures, mechanisms and procedures to fight against global problems: that was the case of Rio de Janeiro
on environment and sustainable development, Copenhagen on social development, Cairo on population, Vi-
enna on human rights, Istanbul on human settlements and Beijing on women. Put together, the UN confer-
ences, their follow-up plans and the Our Global Neighborhood report steered the international circulation of
governance as a policy tool that should reflect the different processes and methods through which individuals
as well as public and private institutions manage collective problems. The Commission's report forthrightly
stated that
governance corresponds to a continuous process by which conflicting interests are regulated and
cooperation can be developed. The process comprises the constitution of formal institutions and
regimes capable of strengthening the relations of subordination, it also includes informal agreements
that people and institutions establish or intend to establish in the protection of their interests. (Com-
mission on Global Governance, 1995: 2)
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) embraced governance and spread it out in the developing
world as the exercise of political, economic and administrative authority in the management of collective prob-
lems at different levels. According to the UNDP, ‘sound’ governance would correspond to the complex set
of mechanisms, processes, and institutions through which citizens and social movements articulate their in-
terests, exercise their rights, fulfill their duties and resolve differences. So as to be effective, governance
should be, inter alia, participatory, transparent, effective, equitable, and founded on legal principles. In addi-
tion, sound governance would encompass the state, civil society and the private sector, and be understood
in three main perspectives, namely: economic governance, comprising decision-making processes that affect
national and international economic activities; political governance, which refers to the design and implemen-
tation of development policies; and administrative governance, which includes what the UN frames as innov-
ative management systems (UNDP, 1996).
In the work of the WB, governance was first launched in the late 1980s in several reports dealing with failures
of structural adjustment programs (particularly in Africa) and introducing new political conditionalities for in-
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ternational aid. Requesting from beneficiary countries to accept and implement ‘good’ governance programs
became a first condition for these countries to have access to loans and credits from the Bank (Nunnenkamp,
1995). Afterwards, the WB sophisticated its approach and started setting up surveys, indicators and perfor-
mance measures to deal with governance in the developing world. It attempted to support performance activi-
ties in developing countries mainly through two types of activities: (i) what the Bank called ‘civic engagement',
which focused on a bottom-up process by which NGOs defined performance outcomes and were involved in
assessing the achievement of those outcomes; and (ii) based on New Zealand's experience, the Bank pro-
moted a top-down effort emphasizing efficiency and market-based solutions (Radin, 2007). Therefore, the WB
associated governance with social capital and civic culture. By using these concepts as policy instruments in
its function of a knowledge bank, the WB sought to explain in general terms the reasons why some societies
are more developed than others, often mechanistically and in a neo-Darwinian fashion (Nelson, 2000).
One of the issues related to this knowledge-policy bridge-building function deployed by the Bank is that the
academic discourse has also concerned itself with both the causes and consequences of quality of govern-
ment or quality of democracy (Altman and Perez-Liñan, 2002; Meny and Surel, 2002; Morlino, 2011; Putnam,
1993). Morlino et al. (2011), for instance, proposed a framework which avoids not only ranking countries ac-
cording to their alleged democratic virtue (in the singular), but also assuming a priori that all democratic ele-
ments must go together. The authors therefore consider that countries may perform differently in distinct do-
mains and dimensions of democracy. Domains would include procedure, content and outcome, whereas di-
mensions would comprise procedure (rule of law, electoral accountability, inter-institutional accountability, po-
litical participation and political competition), content (freedom) and outcome (equality and responsiveness).
The theory underlying the WB's proposals posits that governance (in the singular) and social capital are fun-
damental pieces to promote economic development and to shape incentives for different actors in society.
Again, academic research has also highlighted the importance of civic culture and social capital for a demo-
cratic development. The concept of social capital, for example, was used by Robert D. Putnam in order to
understand the developmental differences between North and South Italy. According to Putnam, social capital
refers to the set of norms of mutual trust, cooperation networks, sanction mechanisms and rules of behavior
that can improve the effectiveness of society in solving problems that require collective action. Social capital
would thus be a public good, a by-product of other social activities founded on horizontal networks and trust
relationships (Putnam, 1993).
On the basis of Putnam's work, the WB argued that any social structure based on vertical networks, hierar-
chical relations, neo-clientelist practices or different forms of submission would produce a non-optimal and
non-cooperative equilibrium. Any society founded, however, on a complex structure of horizontal relations of
associations, social movements, cultural entities and interactive professionals would produce a good level of
social capital, mutual trust and civic commitment. It is not taken into account, in the WB's attempt to under-
stand governance, that practices of democratic governance differ according to existing democratic systems
in contemporary states. An essential part of the democratic vision of governance is precisely the commit-
ment to individual freedoms and personal responsibilities in the exercise of such freedoms. Moreover, popular
sovereignty and political equality are also at the center of democratic governance, as well as individual and
collective reason in the management of social problems. Ultimately, democratic governance emphasizes the
stability and effectiveness of institutional procedures and the regulation of arbitrary powers in exchange for
socio-historical and cultural mechanisms (March and Olsen, 1995).
On the one hand, it is true that particularly at the end of the Cold War era, many countries have displayed an
increasing similarity in governance mechanisms and procedures. The WB and other agencies have played a
role in this process of ‘locking in’ national political and policy contexts. Nevertheless, there are important vari-
ations in terms of regional and national traditions of governance, collective action and statehood. That is the
case of the welfare state in Europe, the developmental state in Asia or the on-going debates on neo-develop-
mentalism in Latin America. As there are varieties of capitalism, it seems appropriate to speak of qualities of
democracy and varieties of governance models world-wide.

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Through its international policy diffusion programs, the WB has tended to ignore contextual variations when
disseminating the governance agenda, its initiatives being paralleled or followed by other development banks
(such as the Inter-American Development Bank or the African Development Bank), the OECD and main bi-
lateral aid agencies. The WB would not explain, for instance, that concepts such as social capital and NGO
participation in local governance aim to explain why it becomes very difficult to transpose models of collec-
tive action from one society to another. Moreover, by disseminating good or sound governance as a policy
solution, UN agencies and the WB did not specify what governance should be good for, or to whom. Implicitly
in their practices one could systematically find out that for governance to be good or sound it should guar-
antee stability in market terms. The concept of governance was then restricted to the quality and capacity of
governments and the governed peoples to manage social transformations according to the criteria set up by
market economy organizations. Criteria would include, inter alia, governmental efficiency, trade liberalization,
privatization, financial openness and transparent regulatory mechanisms (Crane, 2010; Prats Catala, 1996).
The 1997 World Bank Report, for example, focused on rebuilding the state as a sine qua non condition for
a market economy. Three main elements in the Bank's conception about governance can be summed up as
follows: (i) the economic role of the state, which was restricted to setting up the legal foundations, maintaining
the macroeconomic stability, investing in basic social services and infrastructure, protecting the most vulner-
able people and safeguarding the environment; (ii) the role of the Bank in promoting policy reforms in several
key sectors (fiscal, financial, exchange rate, trade, investment, privatization); and (iii) the need for states to
promote electoral democracy, as well as transparency and accountability policies (Guhan, 1998).
In fact, in their efforts in favor of policy transfer, international organizations also produced a certain confusion
between means and ends, as if development were necessarily and exclusively aimed at a liberalized market
economy, as if privatizing and opening up national markets constituted an end in itself (Hadjinsky et al., 2017).
In this sense, governance would be limited to the notion of governmental stability and the means used to
guarantee it. There would be little room for other social values, ethics, behaviors and parameters that could
be proposed and legitimized by civil society organizations, unions, environmental movements, human rights
organizations and social justice networks. In this perspective, the international policy diffusion promoted by
UN agencies and the WB reduced governance to isolated dimensions (economic, social and political institu-
tions) and sectoral reforms (governance in the area of education, environmental governance, decentralization
and provision of justice, etc.) in the executive, legislative and judicial capacities of states in developing coun-
tries.
Visions, Definitions and Typologies

There are at least two broad world visions which underlie assumptions used to construct governance as a
concept. The first one is usually described as ‘liberal’ or ‘minimalist’ because of the role it attributes to gov-
ernance as a set of rules and institutions for managing voluntary exchanges between citizens and political
actors. Under this vision, it is assumed that governance is based on actions depending upon individual ra-
tionality and voluntary consent from political actors. The individual enterprise – more than the public action –
constitutes the source of innovations and social transformations. Therefore, governance does not play a role
in the construction or modification of identities, capacities and mechanisms of adaptation of the actors.
This first vision implies two main corollaries: (i) voluntary exchanges among actors aim at the constitution
of coalitions according to the preferences and interests of the individuals, who establish formal and informal
mechanisms of bargaining that are considered exogenous to the political system; and (ii) individual actors
are directly responsible for social transformations, and in this connection governance can be considered as a
process of converting individual wills and resources into collective action through coalitions that tend to follow
Pareto's model of social exchanges based on a search for optimum satisfaction for each of the individual ac-
tors.

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In fact, this liberal view of governance prescribes that the satisfaction of the common good comes from the
freely agreed exchange between the actors involved, frequently known as stakeholders. As far as global gov-
ernance is concerned, private companies, NGOs and international experts are seen as key agents in the
quest for global governance, together with international organizations (mainly the OECD and the WB). Such a
perspective follows utilitarian reasoning that places all the actors around the negotiating table without estab-
lishing hierarchy among them, without worrying about asymmetry or phenomena of domination and exclusion
of the weaker actors.
A second broad world vision is generally called ‘democratic governance'. Building on institutional learning
processes and notions of identity and ownership by the actors themselves, this vision of governance goes
beyond coalitions and negotiations by individual actors within the limits established by law, institutions, pref-
erences or availability of resources. The main assumption or normative belief of this vision is that individual
agents bear different capacities to transform norms, institutions and society. Democratic governance would
also admit the influence of the governed on the process by which boundaries are established, but not all of
them weigh the same in negotiations. In this connection, democratic governance would consist of four main
stages: the development of democratic identities (by citizens and institutions); the development of capacities
for political action among social groups, associative movements and formal institutions; the development of
options for historical and democratic control of the institutional outcomes; and the development of a political
system capable of questioning itself and, as a result, able to adapt to the different historical and cultural envi-
ronments (March and Olsen, 1995).
This democratic vision of governance would therefore entail a series of on-going tensions between participa-
tion and representation, freedom and control, social demands and institutional autonomy, social needs and
state capacities, bureaucratic politics and relations between politicians and bureaucrats, as well as between
globalization and national autonomy. Under such a vision, governance can be defined as a complex and con-
tinuous process through which self-organizing networks, collective action mechanisms and institutions shield
and uphold local, national and global public goods. These networks, mechanisms and institutions are formal
and informal settings that create legitimate regimes and reinforce allegiances among and within state and
non-state actors. In this connection, governance would allow citizens, social groupings, economic operators
and the state to articulate their interests, defend their rights and fulfill their duties, solve their problems and
attempt to avoid the de-stabilizing effects connected with power relations.
Hence, the state and the public authorities play a key role in organizing and setting up basic rules within the
public realm; however, this vision of governance supposes the democratic division of responsibilities and the
decentralization of decision-making. The ‘public’ is not equivalent in meaning of ‘government', non-govern-
mental organizations and associative movements can also engage in this complex building process of the
public good. Therefore, democratic governance implies acknowledging the interdependence of organizations,
contextual variations, as well as the dialectic relationship between and within governmental and non-govern-
mental forces in the public realm – which is broader than the institutional system. Under this vision of demo-
cratic governance, it is crucial to understand the ways through which the challenges of collective action are
met, to analyze how the tensions mentioned beforehand evolve contextually, but also to monitor the process-
es associated with the shift in the traditional patterns of government.
Nonetheless, in between such broad visions of governance, which correspond to the two extreme positions
on a continuum, there are several possible combinations or models of governance. As J. Pierre and B. G.
Peters analyzed in their proposed theory of governance, typologies can be set up in between a state-centric
governance model and, at the other end of the spectrum, a network-based governance model. Therefore,
the authors believe that there are variations in governance models around the world that may attribute to the
state, to economic operators and to social actors largely different roles and degrees of relevance (Pierre and
Peters, 2000).
In this regard, and based on a review of specialized literature available in 1996, R. Rhodes established a ty-

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pology based on six uses of governance (Rhodes, 1996):
• (i) Governance as the minimal state: this use of governance refers to a new form of public interven-
tion and the use of markets and quasi-markets to deliver public services. Regulation replaces own-
ership as the preferred form of public intervention and the government created regulatory bodies.
• (ii) Governance as corporate governance: corporate governance is not concerned with running the
business of a company, but with giving overall direction to the firm. That is the reason why corporate
governance foresees transparency, accountability, oversight and controlling measures to satisfy in-
terests and expectations of stakeholders beyond the corporate boundaries.
• (iii) Governance as New Public Management: NPM merges managerialism and new institutional eco-
nomics. Whereas managerialism refers to introducing private sector management methods to the
public sector, new institutional economics refer to introducing incentive structures (such as market
competition) into public service provision. R. Rhodes recalls that to understand how the transforma-
tion of the public sector involves less government and more governance, one can think of the follow-
ing metaphor: if the public sector were a boat, it would thus need less ‘rowing’ and more ‘steering'.
• (iv) Governance as good governance: the term ‘good governance’ was originally made up by the WB
in order to define its lending policy towards developing countries. Since good governance involves
public services efficiency, the WB encourages competition and markets, privatization of public en-
terprises, the introduction of budgetary discipline, as well as the decentralization of administration
services.
• (v) Governance as a socio-cybernetic system: R. Rhodes cites Jan Kooiman (1993), according to
whom governance can be seen as the pattern or structure that emerges in a socio-political system
as common result or outcome of the interacting intervention efforts of all involved actors. This use of
governance stresses the multiplicity of governance actors, wherein government is no longer supreme
and its main responsibility should be restricted to enable socio-political interactions in the fields of
self-regulation and co-regulation, public–private partnerships or co-operative management. If gov-
ernment refers to activities backed by a formal authority, then this use of governance will refer to
activities backed by shared goals and interests.
• (vi) Governance as self-organizing networks: governance is about managing networks that are self-
organizing. Since government is only one of the actors that play a role in a societal system, it does
not have enough power (or should not have power) to exert its will on other actors. Integrated net-
works should thus develop their own policies and mold their environments.
Governance can also be classified according to the different levels of its policy application, such as in the
cases of local, regional and global governance. First, governance has very often been thought of as a useful
tool for decision-makers at the local level. D. Wilson (1998: 90) defined local governance as ‘the division of
decision-making authority and service provision between local authorities and a range of non-elected organi-
zations'. When analyzing local governance models, J. Fesler argued it was important to distinguish between
devolution and de-concentration. Devolution would refer to the distribution (or re-distribution) of authority to
allow for decision-making by local governments which could then act in a more independent way from a cen-
tral administration. Central (national) governments might retain overall legal control (equal protection under
the laws, voting eligibility, allocating authority to raise revenue, ensuring general law and order, and regulating
fraud and corruption) and the authority to alter local government powers. Within those boundaries, devolution
would exist if local entities had substantial authority to hire, fire, tax, contract, expend, invest, plan, set priori-
ties and deliver the services they chose. De-concentration, in contrast, would occur when local entities acted
largely as the local agents of central governments, thus bearing authority to manage personnel and to spend
resources allocated to them by central authorities. De-concentration would essentially refer to the redistribu-
tion of central resources to localities under a looser coordination of central government (Fesler, 1949).
Another level of policy application is regional governance, which has been used to refer to regions within
states and to regional integration processes such as the EU (and to a lesser extent the MERCOSUR, the
SADC and ASEAN). Within states, regional governance has regularly been used as a synonym for regional
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planning, and its policy application would be justified by the improved efficiencies generated by a regional
management of public goods (transportation, education, health). Authorities such as mayors or governors
would benefit from regional economies of scale, for instance, through regulation of land use, common im-
plementation, control and monitoring of policies; however, on their way to regional governance they would
be challenged by institutional coordination needs and cooperation tradeoffs related to responsibility sharing
throughout the public policy cycle.
Regional governance can denote social demands in regions for greater autonomy from the central institutions
of their state. However, the unfolding story of designing appropriate governance structures for the region illus-
trates both the changes and the continuities in the linkages between local, national and global politics of glob-
alization. This means that the challenges of regional governance may not be confined only to national bor-
ders, since regions show an increasing tendency to identify and pursue interests that can be divergent from
those expressed in international or European organizations by their respective central authorities (Evans,
2003).
That is one of the reasons why, among states, regional governance has become an important catchphrase on
the global economic and political scene. The reemergence of regions has also been part of the new debates
on international political economy and international security. In the EU two concrete manifestations of regional
governance are the institutional construction of the Union itself (council, parliament, courts, programs, net-
works, etc.) and a non-anticipated effect of regional integration, i.e. what Europeans themselves call the ‘Eu-
rope of regions’ (Catalonia, Brittany, Lombardy, etc.). In the case of the EU, regional governance mechanisms
have also been set up to deal with the resurgence of these regions within states but inserted in a broader re-
gional integration process, thus changing the scale of policies, potentially intervening in the relations between
European central states and subnational spaces, but also rejuvenating old cultural meanings and identities
on local and regional territories.
Finally, a third level of policy application has been global governance, which has gained currency in recent
years, although it is sometimes shorn of realistic aspirations due to the reemergence of nationalisms and
far-right movements both in the global North and South (Dingwerth and Pattberg, 2006; Groom and Powell,
1994; Halliday, 2000). Global governance can be seen as having several components: the strengthening of
existing international and regional institutions, the evolution of law and norms at the international level, as
well as the protection and promotion of global public goods (such as the environment, climate change, space,
the high seas). At the normative level, global governance has also enshrined human rights, democracy and
anti-corruption as global norms, but the repeated inconsistency between norms and enforcement, between
discourse and practice, and the politics of selectivity by Western powers in their interventions and denuncia-
tions of practices in the developing world, among other factors, have compromised this moral basis and polit-
ical justification of global governance. Another risk associated with the policy use of global governance stems
from the fact that global civil society organizations, global governance scholars, global governance norms,
etc. come mainly from the North. Yet as another fallout of global asymmetries, the overwhelming majority of
international NGOs (especially advocacy NGOs) are European and North American. Therefore, it is inevitable
that the concept of global governance tends to be characterized almost exclusively by Western ethics, which
also brings about a debate on how to adjust ‘global’ governance to a truly universally accepted vision of gov-
ernance, North and South, West and East.
Concluding Remarks: Research Implications for Political Science and Interna-

tional Relations
In this chapter I have discussed how debates on governance within governments, policy networks, interna-
tional organizations and academia have re-signified the public realm and its political relevance at local, re-
gional and international levels. Based on the assumption that theoretical work on governance stems from the
interest that social scientists have in changing patterns and new methods of governing from local to regional
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and global levels, these concluding remarks posit some research implications that such governance debates
may have for political science and international relations. Despite the different visions and the multifarious
usages of governance as a concept, its emergence in academia has suggested a series of relevant on-going
research agendas. To conclude this chapter, I focus on two of these research agendas: (i) public policy and
bureaucracy; and (ii) new actors in a post-intergovernmental conception of IR.
First, as G. Stoker mentioned, discussions about governance in public policy have contributed to structure
five relevant propositions for policy-makers and scholars: (i) governance refers to a set of institutions and
actors that are drawn from but also beyond government; (ii) governance identifies the blurring of boundaries
and responsibilities for tackling social and economic issues; (iii) governance identifies the power dependence
involved in the relationships between institutions involved in collective action; (iv) governance is about au-
tonomous self-governing networks of actors; and (v) governance recognizes the capacity to get things done,
which does not rest on the power of government to command or use its authority. It sees government as able
to use new tools and techniques to steer and guide (Stoker, 1998).
Within public policy studies, one of the main contributions coming from critical scholars has been to challenge
a functionalist conception of governance which tended to emphasize markets as an efficient mechanism for
making individual choices, somehow neglecting that there is also a need to make some decisions for the so-
ciety as a whole. In addition, as far as societal decisions are concerned, decision-makers need to consider
a range of human values – from social justice to freedom, from solidarity to individualism. That means that
decision-makers must not only consider the economic dimension of development policies, rather, they also
need to consider social, cultural and environmental dimensions, thus trying to accommodate influences and
interests stemming from a broader scope of political, economic, social and environmental actors (Auer, 2000;
Paterson, 1999; Winchester, 2009).
This compromise among different stakeholders within public administration is particularly discernible when it
comes to the implementation of public policies. Policy implementation is of great relevance for the success
of any government: the political system may be legitimate and equitable, its goals may be virtuous, but its
organizational structure and capacities must be robust and rigorous for the implementation of a public policy
to succeed. Shaping public policy implies a complex and multifaceted process in which numerous individual
and collective actors compete and cooperate to influence decision-making according to their interests. Politics
matters in the success or failure of a public policy, but effectiveness in policy implementation also depends
on the way policies are shaped and on the state capacities to deliver them. Implementing public policies and
programs is part and parcel of any development strategy, wherein apart from political and socioeconomic ac-
tors, public bureaucracies play significantly expanding roles. Public bureaucracies have expertise, bear insti-
tutional memories and are often those who are more regularly in direct contact with citizens; in spite of this, at
the beginning of the 21st century, political science tends to underscore their roles and forms of organization
(Pierre and Peters, 2000; Souza, 2015).
Second, debates on governance have also contributed to the further development of a sociology of the actors,
agendas and networks in the world order, thus moving beyond traditional conceptions of international rela-
tions rooted in the monopoly of the state as a global player. Irrespective of intellectual and ideological choices,
such debates gave social visibility to actors who tended to be ignored or underestimated in their capacities to
influence and intervene in the global arena (Badie, 2008). Classical-realist IR theory was so firmly based on
the exclusive analysis of states as rational actors living in an anarchical system that it tended to give little pri-
ority to international organizations, international law, changes in capitalism and the role of non-governmental
agents in decision-making processes. Liberalism emphasized non-governmental actors and their agendas,
but their conception of the state's roles in trade, regional integration and international cooperation tended to
undermine issues related to asymmetry, hierarchy and inequality in world politics. Constructivism, critical the-
ory, Marxism, neo-Gramscian and Durkheimian approaches to IR were among the main schools of thought to
benefit from global governance debates in the 21st century.

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Therefore, even though IR theory was a late-comer in acknowledging the significant presence of NGOs in
world politics, let alone in beginning to conceptualize their influence on and even direct involvement in gov-
ernance both within and across state boundaries, in the past two decades, global governance has been a
research field that has become increasingly impossible to ignore (Rosenau and Czempiel, 1992). Global gov-
ernance debates have drawn attention to concepts such as the international society, the public international
arena, as well as global and international mechanisms of dialogue and participation, thus making IR spe-
cialists connect with national political sociology traditions of research, comparative politics, area and cultural
studies. IR specialists have also engaged more rigorously with field and comparative research. However, as
M-C. Smouts recalls, one cannot neglect that the concept itself of global governance is based on a certain
representation of social life which tends to disregard phenomena of domination, the unequal distribution of
power world-wide, the fragmentation of territories and the increasing social exclusion in developed and de-
veloping societies. Due to its attachment to public choice theories, global governance's underlying ontological
criterion is effectiveness, i.e. it is interested in analyzing problems that are to be managed and solved, as well
as conflicts of interest that are to be accommodated for the benefit of consensus building (Smouts, 1998).
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• governance
• global governance
• public policy
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n62

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Implementation
Contributors: Harald Sætren

Chapter Title: "Implementation"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Implementation
Harald Sætren
Introduction
The aim of this chapter is to provide an updated, state-of-the-art assessment of policy implementation re-
search since its early days, based on bibliometric data. This implies charting both the evolution of this re-
search field over time as well as analysing how that has affected its composition/content along a number of
salient dimensions. We will use a ‘research generations’ metaphor to describe and analyse how this field of
study has evolved over close to half a century towards a ‘third generation research paradigm'. The indicators
and motivation of the latter will be used as a benchmark in our assessment with respect to scientific progress
in more qualitative terms. The findings and conclusions reported here may be unexpected to many. Especially
those who have thought that implementation research is a ‘yesterday's’ research topic, almost extinct, largely
irrelevant and hence also quite unfashionable. To readers interested in the academic discipline to which this
Handbook is devoted, we think and hope that what we have to say about the state of affairs with regard to
research on policy implementation is pleasantly surprising and comfortingly good news.
Research Methodology and Data Sources

Our state-of-the-art assessment is based on a systematic review (Cooper, 2010) which entails detailing sev-
eral explicit, transparent and reproducible steps with respect to identifying the relevant implementation re-
search literature as well as extracting a manageable sample for synthesizing results in a reliable and valid
manner. Implementation has become an immensely popular research topic in most academic fields. Accord-
ing to the Web of Science Core Collection, by late 2018 some 81,000 journal articles had implementation or
implementing as a title word (see chart 60.1). At least two-thirds of these are published in Computer Science,
Engineering, Physics and Medicine journals, where implementation and even policy refers to mathematical
and technical solutions as well as medical treatment procedures. We deem these micro-level fields of study
to be not very relevant for our more holistic policy analytical purposes. This includes an intervention-oriented
strand of implementation research in life sciences like health, medicine and psychology called implementation
science, which has its own journal and biannual conferences with the same name (cf. Nilsen et al., 2013).
Chart 60.1 Web of Science Core Collection articles in all academic fields pub-
lished in 5-year increments with title words implementation or implementing.
Total N = 81182

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Briefly stated, the database for our systematic review was limited to the Web of Science Core Collection jour-
nals in the academic fields of political science, public policy and public administration and management. A
challenge here is that even these journal categories are very broadly defined academically, thus including to
some extent area studies, business, economics, law and sociology journals. Weeding out the latter type of
irrelevant journals reduced the initial sample of journals from approximately 1,600 to well over 800, thus pro-
ducing the more refined, genuine journal sample we aimed for. Furthermore, we limited ourselves to exam-
ining only articles in these core journals as we call them that used the title words ‘implementation’ or ‘imple-
menting'. See appendix 1 in Sætren (2005) for a listing of the journals we classified as belonging to the core,
which we later supplemented with some public management journals. The selection of journals and related
articles was premised on the assumption that they would be more committed to a general theory development
of the policy-making process, of which implementation is an integral part, than journals outside this core field
and articles not using implementation or implementing as title words. This selection procedure generated a
sample of 836 articles published between 1952–2017 which was subjected to content analysis with respect
to a number of salient features for our analytical purposes that were registered and coded in an electronically
retrievable database program called Cardbox. Thus, while our sample clearly has some limitations in a larg-
er sense, it is justified in terms of our political science, public administration/management and public policy
orientation as well as consistency, manageability, simplicity, transparency and replicability. It should also be
noted that this chapter is an expanded and updated version of a similar empirical assessment of the imple-
mentation research literature conducted half a decade ago by Sætren (2014).
The three generations of implementation research identified so far (Goggin et al., 1990; Sætren, 2014) will
each be analysed in terms of how they have dealt with conceptual, methodological, regional and theoretical
issues challenging implementation scholarship since its infancy.
First-Generation Implementation Research: 1970s and Earlier

The period from the mid to late 1970s into the early to mid 1980s was in many ways the golden era of im-
plementation research, accompanied with great enthusiasm and excitement. Perhaps there was even some
hubris among policy scholars claiming to have discovered implementation as the missing link in the study
of the policy process so far (e.g. Hargrove, 1975). Previous evaluation studies had documented that many
ambitious welfare programmes in the United States enacted under political slogans like ‘War on Poverty’ and

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‘Great Society’ in the mid 1960s did not work out in practice, as intended by policy makers. However, valuable
as these studies were, they could not say much about how and why this happened as they did not focus on
the intervening transformative process between policy objectives and programme outputs and outcomes: the
implementation part of the policy process. The seminal case study by Pressman and Wildavsky of one such
programme, published in a book pointedly titled Implementation in 1973, is usually and rightfully credited with
turning policy scholars’ research attention towards opening this hitherto black box in the policy process.
Nevertheless, and before we proceed in detailing this sudden surge of interest in implementation research
during the 1970s, we must point out that there are some other, and earlier, seminal studies, for instance in
the fields of public administration and sociology of law, that have focused on the execution stage of public
policies without ever using implementation as a key term. Phillip Selznick's (1949) famous case study of the
Tennessee Valley Authority, where co-optation of local farmers by the TVA impacted on its programme imple-
mentation in a manner not anticipated or intended, is just one example. Another is the well-known study of
the corps of forest rangers by Herbert Kaufman (1960). A last example here is the sociology of law research
traditions dating back to the 1950s that examined both the execution and impact of laws (e.g. Aubert, 1969).
Valuable as these and other similar classical studies still are with respect to their observations and findings,
they were not devoted to theorizing about the execution stage of the policy process. A significant number of
journal articles published before 1970 used the title word implementation without having the same seminal
impact as the 1973 book by Pressman and Wildavsky (Sætren, 2005).
First-generation implementation research was important as it brought about a shift of focus in policy research
from how a bill becomes law, to problematizing how laws are translated into implemented programmes. These
scholars gave detailed accounts of how a single authoritative decision was carried out, usually at a single
location, or more rarely at multiple sites, and their focus was on identifying the numerous barriers to effec-
tive policy implementation (Linder and Peters, 1987). The seminal pioneering work of Pressman and Wil-
davsky (1973) is a classic example. It was a study of a federal economic development programme aiming
at reducing unemployment among ethnic minority groups in Oakland, California. Pressman and Wildavsky
identified a fairly large number of ‘clearances’ needed at each decision point of the implementation process
which they interpreted to be a major source of the observed policy/programme failure. They thus conclud-
ed that the more critical clearance points in the implementation process, the smaller the chance for overall
policy/programme success. These complexities of joint action, as the authors called them, are fairly common
in the implementation of most policy programmes (Hall and O'Toole, 2000). Another pioneering implementa-
tion scholar, Derthick (1970, 1972), chronicled and tried to explain the dismal fate of seven federally funded
public housing projects. There were a few exceptions to this bias in research focus towards failed policy pro-
grammes – e.g. Eugen Bardach (1977) – but even he found that policy success required quite extraordinary
individual efforts and skills by a dedicated policy entrepreneur during both policy formation and implementa-
tion. No wonder, then, that Pressman and Wildavsky (1973) concluded that most federal policy programmes
were doomed to fail.
Some basic conceptual issues related to policy implementation were dealt with by pioneering scholars. Thus,
when first presenting a more comprehensive and analytical framework intended to guide the research focus
in future implementation studies, Van Meter and Van Horn (1975: 447) offered the following definition:
policy implementation encompasses those actions by public and private individuals (or groups) that
are directed at the achievement of objectives set forth in prior policy decisions. This includes both
one-time efforts to transform decisions into operational terms, as well as continuing efforts to achieve
the large and small changes mandated by policy decisions.
The authors also refer to Pressman and Wildavsky (1973: xiii), who said it even more clearly:
Implementation to us means just what Webster and Roger say it does: to carry out, accomplish, fulfil,
produce, complete. But what is being implemented? A policy naturally. There must be something out

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there prior to implementation: otherwise there is nothing to move towards in the process of imple-
mentation. A verb like ‘implement’ must have an object like ‘policy'.
Many later authors would offer similar but slightly different definitions of implementation (e.g. Sabatier and
Mazmanian, 1980), yet, according to Hill and Hupe (2014: 7–8), they all seem to boil down to ‘what happens
between the establishment of a policy and its impact in the world of action’ (O'Toole, 2000: 273).
While most definitions are relatively clear about where implementation begins, some are less clear about
where the process ends. Nevertheless, Pressman and Wildavsky (1984) and Van Meter and Van Horn (1975),
like most later policy scholars (e.g. Winter, 2012; Hill and Hupe, 2014), seem to agree with O'Toole (2000)
above that the logical end point is when all actions to carry out a policy as intended have been completed (i.e.
implementation outputs) and before efforts to evaluate their societal effects and impacts have started (imple-
mentation outcomes) (Hill and Hupe, 2014: 12).
Finally, and not least importantly, it should be noted that, although the definition of the implementation process
by Van Meter and Van Horn (1975) is relatively open with respect to who might participate in this process
(e.g. non-governmental actors), there is little doubt that the criteria for judging implementation outputs and
outcomes by the authors and their contemporaries were primarily premised on the goals and values of demo-
cratically elected policy makers at the top of the political-administrative system in question.
The main contribution of the first wave of implementation studies (during the 1970s) was to describe and con-
ceptualize policy implementation as a complex and dynamic process that involved multiple participants with a
wide range of interests and interpretations regarding authoritative decisions. They were predominantly (69%)
studies of a single policy programme at a single geographical site (i.e. single case studies) by overwhelmingly
male authors (78%) located for the most part in North America (79%) and relying overwhelmingly on quali-
tative data (84%) and non-statistical methods (97%) of analysis. Furthermore, only a slight majority of these
would have had some sort of theoretical reference or framework and very few of these again would have had
some derived and explicitly formulated hypotheses to guide their research as such constructs only started to
emerge from the mid 1970s onwards (see tables 60.1–60.4). After a slow and gradual start with journal arti-
cles predating even the seminal book by Pressman and Wildavsky (1973), a rapid and exponential growth in
articles published took place from the mid 1970s and continued unabated through the remaining decade (see
chart 60.2).
Chart 60.2 Web of Science Core Collection and Cardbox core journal articles
by 5-year increments of publication. Total N is 1,219 and 748 respectively

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Table 60.1 Type of data in core journal articles by time period published. Percentage base: empirical
articles
1953–1979 1980–89 1990–99 2000–09 2010–17 Total
Single case study 69% 40% 32% 30% 27% 37%
Only qualitative data 84% 63% 55% 60% 54% 59%
Only quantitative 10% 19% 27% 25% 33% 26%
Questionnaire data 10% 12% 15% 19% 15% 15%
Comparative research 31% 51% 52% 50% 47% 49%
Longitudinal study 25% 17% 21% 17% 17% 19%
(N)=100% (32) (147) (108) (156) (205) (649)
Table 60.2 Level of empirical analysis in core journal articles by time periods. Percentage base: em-
pirical articles
1953–1979 1980–89 1990–99 2000–09 2010–17 Total
Some form of hypotheses testing 16% 37% 42% 52% 54% 46%
Statistical analysis 3% 17% 29% 24% 30% 24%
Regression analysis 0% 12% 24% 18% 23% 17%
(N)=100% (32) (147) (108) (156) (205) (649)
Table 60.3 Core journal articles by regional focus/origin and time period published. Percentage base:
all sample articles

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1953–1979 1980–89 1990–99 2000–09 2010–17 Total

US & Canada 79% 69% 61% 48% 32% 54%
Europe 16% 24% 23% 43% 48% 35%
Latin America 0% 1% 1% 2% 5% 2%
Africa 0% 1% 3% 2% 2% 2%
Asia 4% 5% 7% 4% 9% 7%
Middle-East 2% 1% 3% 1% 2% 2%
Oceania 2% 1% 5% 3% 6% 4%
(N)=100% (57) (211) (141) (193) (234) (836)
Note: Percentages add to more than 100% since some articles have authors and/or data from more than one
region.
Table 60.4 Core journal articles by most frequent type of policy studied and time period published.
Percentage base: articles with a policy focus
1953–1979 1980–89 1990–99 2000–09 2010–17 Total
Administrative change & reform 19% 7% 18% 25% 29% 22%
Environmental & Energy policy 5% 24% 22% 12% 12% 17%
Social policy 7% 16% 21% 20% 13% 16%
Health policy 9% 9% 11% 12% 19% 14%
Economic policy 14% 12% 14% 13% 11% 12%
(N)=100% (43) (179) (125) (174) (218) (739)
Second Generation of Implementation Research: 1980s

The transition in implementation research from the 1970s to the 1980s was large in many respects, especially
during the first half of the latter decade. The increase of empirically oriented articles and advances in their ap-
plied research methodology is especially noticeable. This implied a substantial weakening of the dominating
position of the single case study research design from the 1970s down to 40% of all empirical studies in the
1980s. Conversely, approximately half of all studies now had a comparative research design, compared to
less than onethird in the 1970s. Similarly, the use of a statistical analysis of a more sophisticated nature – re-
gression analysis – increased even more from the 1970s (0%) to the 1980s (12%). The latter trend implied a
substantial weakening of the predominant role of only qualitative data in the 1970s (84%) to the 1980s (63%)
and a similar strengthening of the use of both quantitative and mixed method data (tables 60.1–60.4).
The transition from the 1970s to the 1980s was no less in theoretical terms. We have already mentioned the
pioneering analytical framework offered by Van Meter and Van Horn (1975). Fairly soon, this was followed up
by a sudden burst of other publications during a relative short time period lasting less than five years. Thus, in
the year 1980 alone, no less than 22 books were published focusing explicitly on policy implementation. Most
of these were efforts to offer an initial analytical and theoretical framework to guide implementation research
in a book format. It is quite telling of the US dominance at this time that less than a handful of all the authors

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of these books from the early 1980s were from Europe. Thus, in view of these watershed events in terms
of advances in new analytical-theoretical constructs and research methodologies, it seems very appropriate
and correct to refer to what happened from the 1970s to the 1980s as a transition from a first generation to a
second generation of implementation research.
The proliferation of analytical and theoretical constructs in the early 1980s also entailed a change from a rel-
atively harmonious earlier period, with little apparent disagreement among implementation scholars on con-
ceptual, normative/theoretical, and methodological issues, to a new decade characterized by much more con-
tention in these respects. Thus, some new implementation scholars criticized the pioneering analytical imple-
mentation models for being overly top-down in their nature, thereby privileging the empirical and normative
position of formal national policy makers at the expense of local level political-administrative units of govern-
ment and other more informal network- related actors (Elmore, 1980; Lipsky, 1980; Hjern and Porter, 1982).
These critics advocated an alternative bottom-up approach in implementation research to identify networks
of actors in service delivery at local levels as well as their strategies, goals, activities and contacts. This ap-
proach was founded on the assumption that successful policy programmes must be compatible with the de-
sires, wishes, interests and behavioural dispositions of lower level political-administrative bodies and target
groups. Thus, its conception of the implementation was that of bargaining and negotiation processes within
networks of multiple formal and informal implementers (Linder and Peters, 1987; Hill and Hupe, 2014). How-
ever, this alternative analytical approach to implementation research was also challenged on its implicit or
explicit normative-democratic model attributing too much autonomy to implementing agencies and networked
non-public organizations and interest groups. Furthermore, the inductive nature of their research approach
led to few theoretical generalizations and conclusions (Linder and Peters, 1987; Matland, 1995).
This debate between a top-down and bottom-up approach in implementation research turned out to be less
positive in the long run – in the sense that it came to dominate the discourse among policy scholars during
most of the 1980s, with a tendency of coalescing many of them into two opposing schools of thought later re-
ferred to as ‘top-downers’ versus ‘bottom-uppers'. Although perhaps necessary and useful at the outset, this
unfortunately developed into a protracted, entrenched and unproductive debate where ideological-normative,
methodological and epistemological-theoretical issues were intertwined (Sætren, 2005).
Nevertheless, the 1980s, especially the first half, was in many ways the golden era of research on policy im-
plementation. The rapid exponential increase of research publications since the previous decade suggested
this had become a new ‘growth industry’ in academia.
Furthermore, the most influential analytical and theoretical frameworks for understanding the policy imple-
mentation process were published and debated vigorously at this time and substantial advances in research
methodology were made in order to subject theoretical constructs to empirical testing.
Efforts to bridge the top-down/bottom-up approaches had started even before the debate about them became
heated, premised on the notion that each approach may be legitimate and relevant depending on somewhat
different circumstances and hence more supplementary than competing, both methodologically and norma-
tively. Thus, scholars like Berman (1980) and Elmore (1980) offered useful suggestions to settle the top-down
and bottom-up debate.
Berman's (1980) contribution has not received much attention; he focused on ‘designing strategies to improve
implementation'. Two strategies for policy makers, namely ‘programmed implementation’ and ‘adaptive im-
plementation', were outlined. Programmed implementation (i.e. top-down) was suggested as appropriate and
effective given some beneficial policy-relevant circumstances while the adaptive implementation approach
was assumed to be more appropriate and effective given less beneficial, similar circumstances. Thus, he at-
tempted to integrate and synthesize the top-down and bottom-up approaches by suggesting some kind of
contingency-theoretic approach to policy implementation.

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Elmore (1980), who is a more well-known ‘synthesizer', also proposed a two-pronged strategy for policy im-
plementation, similar to Berman (1980). His main thesis is that policy makers need to consider policy instru-
ments and other key resources at their disposal – forward mapping – and then consider the incentive pack-
age or structure of the ultimate target groups – backward mapping. Like Berman (1980), Elmore claims that
policy success depends on the blend of the two considerations or strategies. However, he was less explicit
in providing an analytical implementation model scholars could use in their research and explain the policy
implementation process (Matland, 1995).
Sabatier (1986) and his response to criticism levelled at the analytical-theoretical framework he developed
with his colleague (Mazmanian and Sabatier, 1983) is often erroneously credited with being another attempt
to bridge the top-down/bottom-up divide in implementation research. In fact, Sabatier heralded his departure
as an implementation researcher by abandoning the implementation concept in favour of the less precise con-
cept, policy change, premised on an interest group theoretic construct termed the advocacy coalition frame-
work.
The golden era ended with a systematic and comprehensive assessment of the state-of-affairs in policy im-
plementation research literature by one of the, by now, most seasoned implementation scholars, O'Toole
(1986). His assessment, based on more than 300 publications covering approximately 40 research journals,
concluded that despite the substantial advances noted above, there were nevertheless still many unsolved
challenges to address.
Thus, despite early efforts to define clearly what implementation is, O'Toole (1986: 183) noted that
implementation researchers are not in agreement about what constitutes the subject of their inquiry.
Some take implementation to refer to all that is part of the process between initial statement of policy
and ultimate impact in the world. Others restrict implementation to the actions of those charged with
handling a policy. [Furthermore, he observed:] Researchers do not agree on the outlines of a theory
of implementation nor even the variables crucial to implementation success. Researchers, for the
most part implicitly, also disagree on what should constitute implementation success, especially in a
multi-actor setting. (Ibid.: 184).
As to the causes of this state-of-affairs, he referred to leading contemporary implementation scholars who
had recently observed that: ‘the field thus far has a strong inductive orientation with numerous case studies
and most of the conceptual work consisting of loosely linked hypotheses and identification of critical variables
derived from the case material’ (Mazmanian and Sabatier, 1983: 152).
O'Toole (1986: 189) followed up this quote with his own diagnosis saying: ‘The typical situation in implemen-
tation research, even more so than for other types of social science, has been for there to be very little con-
scious efforts to develop and test systematically the insights generated in previous work, and thus to separate
the promising from the merely plausible but unproductive'. Despite this lack of knowledge cumulation plagu-
ing the observed multitude of analytical-theoretical frameworks, O'Toole nevertheless saw some possibilities
for theoretical convergence in this field of research. Thus, based on his investigation of the research literature
he, much like Van Meter and Van Horn (1975) intuitively had done a decade earlier, identified a similar hand-
ful of clusters of variables that authors tended to mention as important explanatory devices regarding policy
implementation performance (O'Toole, 1986: 189).
As the account above strongly suggests, the dominance of male North American scholarship remained strong
during the 1980s even though it had been reduced somewhat since the 1970s (to 69% from 74%) and Eu-
ropean scholars now accounted for approximately one-quarter of all articles published. The most important
input from Europe to the implementation research literature in the 1980s was undoubtably the work by Hjern
and associates in some seminal articles commented upon above. Their work was, again, greatly influenced
by other European-based leading policy scholars (Hanf and Scharpf, 1978; Barrett and Fudge, 1981), who

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advocated for a more network-oriented form of policy research.
Also, in terms of the volume of research publications, the golden era of implementation research ended during
the first half of the 1980s. After a fairly rapid increase through the late 1970s, the number of publications stag-
nated in the mid 1980s and then declined for a few years up until the mid 1990s (see Chart 60.2). The latter
trend suggested something even more sinister: that the golden years of policy implementation as a popular
and ‘hot’ research topic had ended.
Third-Generation Implementation Research: 1990s and later
Visions and Ambitions

We can date the beginning of the third generation of research to 1990. In that year Goggin et al. (1990) pub-
lished a book, with the subtitle ‘Toward a Third Generation', where they called for a new, improved and more
scientific mode of implementation studies. This was meant as a remedy against the shortcomings O'Toole
(1986) had identified in the second generation of implementation research, especially with respect to the ob-
served lack of theoretical cumulation. Hence, it is hardly a coincidence that the latter scholar was one of the
co-authors of the book in question here.
The third-generation implementation research paradigm must be understood more as an ambition and ideal
for researchers to work towards, rather than something the authors should expect to find fully implemented in
any single research project at any point in time. This begs the question of what this more scientific mode of re-
search was all about. According to its advocates, the quintessential characteristic of third-generation research
should be its rigorous research design. Two issues in particular were emphasized strongly: (1) addressing the
conceptual and measurement problems related to variables commonly identified to be important for policy im-
plementation; and (2) the manner in which hypotheses were formulated and tested. Goggin et al. (1990: 19)
defined the unique trait of third-generation research in this way: ‘… an explicit theoretical model; operational
definitions of concepts; an exhaustive search for reliable indicators of implementation and predictor variables
and the specification of theoretically derived hypotheses with analysis of data using appropriate qualitative
and statistical procedures as well as case-studies for testing them'. Furthermore, the principal aim of third-
generation research was to: ‘shed new light on implementation behaviour by explaining why that behaviour
varies across time, policies and units of government’ (Goggin et al., 1990: 17).
Thus, we can sum up the defining features of the third-generation research paradigm in the following six
points (see Goggin et al., 1990: 15–19):
• key concepts and related variables must be clearly defined and operationalized;
• hypotheses derived from theoretical constructs should guide empirical analysis;
• more use of statistical analysis using quantitative data to supplement qualitative analysis;
• more comparison across different units of analysis within the same policy sector;
• more comparison across different policy sectors;
• more longitudinal research designs (i.e. research timeframe of at least 5 to 10 years).
Last, but not least importantly, Goggin et al. (1990: 29–41) presented their own dynamic analytical model
of policy implementation in the US multi-level governmental system that was meant to bridge the divide be-
tween the top-down and bottom-up schools of thought. Here they tried to exemplify how their more scientific
methodological approach can be applied with respect to studying the implementation of three selected feder-
ally enacted policies at state and sub-state level, and using what they call a communication theory or model
to derive empirically testable hypotheses (Goggin et al., 1990: 171–197). As for the future of implementation
research, these scholars were quite upbeat in stating that: ‘…interest is likely to grow during the 1990s and
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continue well into the twenty-first century. In fact, the field of public policy in the next decade will very likely be
defined by its focus on implementation. The nineties are likely to be the implementation era’ (Goggin et al.,
1990: 9).
What Happened to the Third Generation of Implementation Research?

The 1990s did not turn out to be the implementation era that Goggin et al. (1990) had envisioned – at least not
in quantitative terms as articles published in core field journals fell by one-third compared to the 1980s. The
latter trend did not escape the attention of some implementation scholars towards the end of the 1990s who,
a little prematurely, started to worry about the fate of their field of study and call for its rediscovery and revival
(see Lester and Goggin, 1998 and responses to their comments in Policy Currents in the same publication in
1999 and 2000). This negative trend in published volumes did not translate into a similar trend in qualitative
terms relative to the third-generation research paradigm – on the contrary.
The use of quantitative data and statistical techniques of analysis to test theoretically derived hypotheses
all increased substantially from the 1980s with a doubling of research articles using multivariate regression
analysis. Conversely, implementation studies based solely on qualitative data dropped between the 1970s
and the 1980s to account for only a slight majority (55%). Use of the single case study research design fol-
lowed a similar, even stronger, trend from 40% in the 1980s to 32% in the 1990s. With respect to applying the
comparative and longitudinal research designs, there was little or no change in its application from the 1980s
onwards. As to the regional origin or focus of implementation research, the dominance of North American ar-
ticles during the 1990s was reduced further to 61% compared to 69% during the decade before. The gender
parity of journal authors was still quite uneven even in the 1990s (69% male/31% female), though female au-
thorship had improved slightly from 1980s. At the same time, regions other than Europe increased their share
of research articles while Europe's contribution remained to be around 25%.
Another attempt at bridging the top-down and bottom-up divide in implementation scholarship, and contribut-
ing towards a synthesized theory of policy implementation, happened in the mid 1990s when Matland (1995:
160) presented his ‘ambiguity-conflict’ model. The core idea here was that these two dimensions of policies –
the degree of ambiguity and conflict associated with them – affected their policy implementation. Thus, he hy-
pothesized that high or low levels of policy ambiguity and conflict respectively, in various combinations, would
tend to result in a specific type of implementation style termed administrative, political, experimental and sym-
bolic, respectively. This is one of the last theoretical constructs we are aware of that has been launched to
reconcile the top-down and bottom-up approaches in implementation research. Interestingly, it is also at this
time that the heated debate between the two contending approaches seems to dissipate, perhaps because
many leading voices in this respect had already exited this field of study and the remaining scholars started
to worry more of its survival.
The 2000s, compared to the 1990s, present a different and largely opposite pattern of implementation re-
search. This implied a rebound in published volumes almost back to the level of the 1980s but is now charac-
terized mostly by stagnation or even some slight setbacks in terms of some salient third-generation research
indicators (see tables 60.1–60.3). Most noticeable in the latter respect is a 5–6% reduction in research arti-
cles employing more advanced statistical techniques of analysis from the 1990s. More use of qualitative data
back to the level of the 1980s is another aspect of the same trend. On most other third-generation indicators,
changes from the 1990s are quite small. By far the largest change during the 2000s had to do with the region-
al focus/origin of all articles published. In this respect, Europe leaped ahead from 23% in the 1990s to 43%,
while the United States and Canada experienced a somewhat weaker reverse trend from 61% in the former
period to 48% in the 2000s. Another very important and noteworthy change here was that by the 2000s, only
male authorship in journal articles had been reduced to 51% from 69% the decade before.
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Our most recent data, concerning 2010–2017, offer another variation of previously observed trend patterns.
First there is a rebound back to the level of the 1990s in terms of the use of advanced statistical techniques of
analysis and application of only qualitative data. Second, the surge in published volumes from the 2000s has
continued at an even stronger pace, with an increase of more than 50% from the previous decade. On two
other salient third-generation indicators, we observe opposite trends. The first is positive in the sense that we
now find the single case study design in only one out of four research articles. The other is less positive in the
sense that the comparative research design in the same type of articles has dropped from 50% to 47%. The
decline in publications from North American scholars has continued at an even stronger pace than before,
now accounting for only 32% of the total since 2010, while the same figure for their European colleagues has
risen to 48% (see table 60.8). Last, but not least noteworthy is the fact that the positive trend towards gender
parity has continued as women, either alone or together with men, are now represented as authors in 55% of
all sampled core journals (see table 60.7).
Table 60.5 Core journal articles by region of focus/origin and research methodologies. Percentage
base: empirical articles
US & Canada Europe Other Regions
Single case studies 33% 37% 49%
Only qualitative data 51% 67% 70%
Only quantitative 33% 20% 13%
Questionnaires 20% 10% 9%
Comparison 54% 51% 30%
Cross-national 7% 20% 11%
Cross-state 26% 3% 6%
Cross-local systems 11% 10% 4%
Cross-agency site 7% 9% 0%
Cross-program/policy 6% 7% 2%
Longitudinal 19% 15% 29%
Statistical analysis 32% 16% 11%
Regression 24% 10% 9%
(N)=100% (327) (240) (97)
Table 60.6 Core journal articles by regional focus/origin and research methodologies before and af-
ter the mid 1990s. Percentage base: empirical articles
US & Canada Europe Other regions
1953–1995 1996–2017 1953–1995 1996–2017 1953–1995 1996–2017
Single case studies 40% 26% 41% 36% 59% 44%
Comparative studies 50% 59% 48% 52% 37% 27%
Qualitative data only 53% 48% 75% 65% 78% 67%
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Only Quantitative 29% 38% 7% 24% 7% 16%

Questionnaire data 15% 24% 9% 11% 7% 10%
Longitudinal data 21% 16% 27% 12% 22% 31%
Statistical analysis 26% 39% 4% 20% 7% 13%
Regression 17% 31% 2% 13% 7% 10%
(N)= 100% (167) (160) (56) (183) (27) (70)
Table 60.7 Core journal articles by regional focus/origin and gender profile of authors before and af-
ter the mid 1990s. Percentage base: all sampled articles
US & Canada Europe Other regions
1953–1995 1996–2017 1953–1995 1996–2017 1953–1995 1996–2017
Male authors only 72% 45% 82% 57% 82% 67%
Female authors as well 28% 55% 18% 43% 18% 33%
Total (N)= 100% (242) (194) (76) (285) (27) (61)
Missing data (N) (2) (4) (0) (6) (10) (24)
Table 60.8 Articles by type of core field journal published in and time period. Percentage base: all
sample articles
Type of core field journal: 1953–1995 1996–2017 Total
Public Administration and management 32% 51% 43%
Public Policy 49% 30% 38%
Political Science 18% 19% 19%
(N)=100% (349) (487) (836)
Summary and Discussion

Four main findings stand out in our analysis. The first is that, since the 1970s, implementation research has
made no small strides towards the application of more rigorous, scientific research methodologies prescribed
by the third-generation research paradigm, although progress in this respect has been more uneven and
mixed since the mid 1990s and onwards. The second finding is that this positive development has resulted
in little or no progress towards a theory of policy implementation that motivated these advances in research
methodology. Third, we have for over half a century observed a major shift in the regional focus of imple-
mentation studies from North America towards Europe and other regions as well as a major development
towards an increased gender parity in terms of journal authorship. Finally, we see a significant rebound of
implementation research publications starting from approximately the mid 1990s and continuing more or less
steadily and exponentially until the present time. The latter trend strongly suggests that implementation re-
search has now become fashionable again after its demise as a research topic from the mid to late 1980s. In
this final section, we will comment on these main observations, discuss their inter-relationships and links to
other simultaneously occurring changes as well as their impacts on contemporary scholarship and prospects
for theory building in implementation research.

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As to the first finding, we think advances in this respect (see tables 60.1–60.3) have been substantial enough
to justify the claim that implementation studies conducted after 1990 have made the transition into the third-
generation research paradigm as outlined by us above, based on Goggin et al. (1990). A somewhat puzzling
observation here was that progress in this respect has been more uneven and mixed across some salient
research methodologies since around the end of the last century. A closer investigation of our data reveals
that the latter observation is probably in no small part due to the influence from our third main finding: the
shift in regional origin and focus of implementation studies that increased substantially in pace from the early
to mid 1990s and onwards (see chart 60.3) away from North America, first towards Europe and then other
regions as well. The downside of this otherwise positive trend was that it meant that implementation studies
from the latter mentioned regions with less advanced research methodologies increasingly replaced those
from North America which employ more sophisticated research techniques. Table 60.5 clearly demonstrates
these regional differences in application of third-generation research methodologies. Furthermore, the trend
towards gender parity in journal authorship has been stronger among North American implementation schol-
ars than their colleagues from Europe and other regions of the world (see Table 60.7). Thus, we see how one
main positive developmental trend may have some adverse impact on another equally important and posi-
tive trend. The good news here is that these regional differences in application of third-generation research
methodologies and gender disparity are decreasing over time as tables 60.6 and 60.7 demonstrate. This,
again, suggests that, in the years to come, implementation studies from Europe, but particularly also from
less developed regions, will play a more important role in advancing the third-generation research paradigm
than they have in the past.
Chart 60.3 All sampled Cardbox core journal articles by region of origin/focus
and time of publication in 5-year increments. Absolute numbers here (763) is
larger than total number of journal articles (602) since some of these, due to
country comparison, sometimes cover more than one region
The next important question concerns why so much progress in terms of more advanced research method-
ologies has resulted in no visible progress towards what motivated their promotion: a theory of policy imple-
mentation. Instead of convergence, we observe more, rather than less, diversity with respect to theoretical
constructs and derived hypotheses subjected to some form of empirical testing. One simple explanation for
this apparent paradox may lie in the fact that quite a few new theoretical approaches in relevant academic
fields like organization theory, public administration/management and public policy date their origins back to
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the 1970s and 1980s but did not become more widely known and applied until the 1990s and later. Thus,
implementation scholars may have found it more interesting and exciting to pursue some of these new theo-
retical constructs and ideas than to provide another test of ones that are more established but not so new.
Another explanation of why so much comparative implementation research has been insufficient in this re-
spect is that comparison, per se, is no panacea, as its value for theory building critically depends upon the
way in which it is done. All too often, selection of units of analysis for comparison – e.g. in comparative public
policy research – are made on the basis of convenience and other pragmatic criteria rather than those pro-
mulgated in textbooks that are ideal for theory building purposes (Dierkes et al., 1987). There is no reason
to think that the situation in comparative implementation research in general has been much better in this
respect.
Nevertheless, despite this disappointing situation, but contrary to what O'Toole (1986) said, we would argue
that we are closer to an outline of a theory of implementation in the sense that there is more agreement now
than then on what constitutes some of the potentially crucial variables in explaining implementation perfor-
mance and outputs. In fact, O'Toole (1986) himself indicated this based on his comprehensive review of the
implementation literature by summing up his findings and pointing to the five most common clusters of vari-
ables that implementation scholars had found to be important in their studies.
These were: (1) policy characteristics, (2) resources, (3) implementation structure(s), (4) attitudes, percep-
tions and actions of implementing personnel, and (5) target group characteristics. This range of clusters of
variables that bridges the top-down and bottom-up divide is supposed to function as a ‘road map’ guiding
implementation researchers in the direction of potentially important explanatory variables in their research
projects. It has appeared in several state-of-the-art review textbooks since then (e.g. Winter, 1990, 2012).
Obviously not all these clusters of variables are equally important regardless of context and type of policy
issue. Hence, the only way to sort out which variables are important, when, where and under what conditions,
is to carry out comparative studies that are sufficiently well designed with respect to case selection in order to
establish some sort of control for some endogenous and exogenous model variables that enable narrowing
down the range of plausible explanatory variables.
The good news here is that there is a separate strand of systematic comparative implementation research
whose focus, until recently, has made it largely irrelevant for the implementation research community more
generally but is now not only highly relevant, but also quite promising with respect to research findings for
developing a more parsimonious theory of policy implementation. The theoretical, tentative conclusions from
this first strand of implementation research is to a large extent supported by another strand which is very
different from the first in many respects, but whose cumulative research findings and conclusions neverthe-
less point in the same direction. What they have in common are two things. First, their theorizing tends to
build on well-established theoretical constructs within their respective specialized fields, which is conducive to
theoretical knowledge accumulation. Second, they both try to integrate more levels of analysis regarding the
multi-layered governance structure of modern states into their research designs but from opposite directions
in that same context.
Until now, these two strands of implementation research have not communicated much with each other and
may not even be aware of what is going on outside of their respective specialized research fields. This is
unfortunate because a careful reading of recent state-of-the-art reviews by seasoned scholars within each
strand of implementation research clearly indicates a trend of convergence towards a common type of the-
oretical explanation with respect to policy implementation. This provides a good rationale for describing the
two, their backgrounds, differences and accomplishments, towards a common goal in more detail.
EU Implementation Studies

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Until recently, these studies have had little or no connection to other types of implementation research in our
sample of that universe. This seemingly odd fact may, in addition to the familiar myopia of specialized schol-
ars, be due to two other factors. First, these studies started to take off in the late 1980s and 1990s when
implementation research tapered off more generally and became unfashionable, as detailed above. Second,
they defined policy implementation in a manner that is more generally at odds with this field of research. Thus,
implementation was understood to be about whether and to what extent EU legislation and directives were
followed up and integrated into national laws in member states (legal implementation) without paying much
attention to whether these new laws and directives were actually implemented domestically (practical imple-
mentation). In the usual policy studies parlance, this legal implementation concept could of course be said to
entail implementation in the true meaning from the central EU level point of view, but it is nevertheless a case
of policy adoption, and not implementation, as seen from the member states’ viewpoint.
Despite impressive cross-national comparative research design, innovative theorizing and sophisticated sta-
tistical multivariate methods to analyse quantitative data, these studies and their findings have had limited
value for other implementation scholars because their dependent variable was not really about implementa-
tion. They were also faulted by poor data quality in measuring their already awkward dependent variable. The
good news here is that, during the last decade or so, some leading scholars in this field of research have
become quite critical of the predominant legal implementation orientation among their colleagues and have
argued that much more research needs to be devoted to the systematic study of the next stage of EU policy
execution, i.e. practical domestic implementation at the member state level (see e.g. Treib, 2014). One im-
portant fact bolstering this argument is that there are different types of actors with different logics of action
involved at the two policy stages in question here, with national-level politicians dominating legal implementa-
tion and administrative actors dominating the practical implementation stage. Hence, it cannot axiomatically
be assumed that the type of theoretical constructs found to explain legal implementation will do the same
with respect to practical implementation (Treib, 2014: 29). On the other hand, it is argued by the same crit-
ic that the practical implementation of EU policies in member states is not fundamentally different from the
implementation of laws that have a national origin, thus making theoretical insights from traditional domestic
implementation research highly relevant (Treib, 2014: 32).
One such theoretical insight is sometimes called the ‘goodness of fit’ or alternatively the ‘misfit’ hypothesis.
Its origin can be dated back to ‘top-down’ domestic implementation scholars in the early 1980s (Mazmanian
and Sabatier, 1983 [1989]) who then labelled it ‘the statutory coherence thesis'. The argument here is that
the degree of fit between the content and design of enacted laws and existing administrative and institutional
arrangements designated to implement them is crucial to subsequent policy success or failure. The misfit hy-
pothesis is consistent with the neo-institutional approach in political science, which assumes that political-ad-
ministrative institutions are characterized by path dependency and hence inertia towards substantial change
that is not compatible with established policy legacies and practices (March and Olsen, 1989). Efforts to test
the goodness of fit hypothesis by EU implementation scholars, mostly focusing only on legal implementation,
have revealed mixed support for it.
Moreover, Meier and McFarlane (1996) found much more support for the same goodness of fit or statutory
coherence thesis by studying the implementation outputs and outcomes of four US federal family policies in
all 50 states using quantitative data and a longitudinal (7 years) comparative research design. May (1993), in
a less comprehensive cross-state comparative study in another US policy area also using quantitative data,
did not find empirical support for the statutory coherence hypothesis as originally formulated and concluded
that while clear and coherent policy goals might be sufficient conditions for successful implementation, it is not
a necessary condition as other local factors might compensate for the adverse confusing impacts of incoher-
ent policy goals on policy implementation. The latter conclusion supports a criticism that the misfit hypothesis
often has been interpreted in too much of a deterministic, rather than a probabilistic, manner (Treib, 2014).

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We will conclude this section on the contribution of EU implementation studies to the broader field of imple-
mentation research by referring to a recently published study whose research design is probably the most
rigorous and advanced in terms of the third-generation research paradigm. It was conducted by Zhelyazkova
et al. (2016). Their database seems to remedy the shortcomings of previous research, not only by including
practical implementation in addition to legal implementation as dependent variables, but also by using more
valid and reliable indicators in this respect. Their findings and conclusions also shed new light on the relation-
ship between the legal and practical implementation of 24 EU directives within four policy areas in 27 member
states. First, the gap between legal and practical implementation observed in previous research (mostly case
studies) is confirmed here to not be a rare phenomenon at all, though not excessively widespread either.
Second, and more interesting and perhaps more surprisingly, they find more variation in the practical imple-
mentation performance between policy sectors and issues than between member states. Third, their findings
are also interesting in terms of the goodness of fit theoretical construct that they also tried to test. This is how
they summarize their study:
The findings from this study suggest that practical implementation is mostly shaped by the institu-
tional capacities of member states (management) and the perceived legitimacy of EU policies by
societal actors while the policy preferences of political actors (enforcement) have little impact on
practical implementation. In other words, political actors are generally unable to fully steer the imple-
mentation process in their most desired direction, even if their preferences are broadly aligned with
the goals of internationally agreed policies.(Zhelyazkova et al., 2016: 843)
In a follow-up study by some of the same authors (Schrama and Zhelyazkova, 2018) using more refined data
on civil society organization and activities, they find that high levels of civil society participation and routine
consultation with relevant implementing agencies also improve policy implementation, though this effect is not
observed in countries with low administrative capacities. In other words, in the practical implementation stage
and contrary to the legal implementation, it appears that institutional and societal factors trump the political
ones. Another recently published study of the implementation of federal labour market policies, aiming at inte-
grating asylum seekers in Swiss cantons using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis arrived at a similar
conclusion, namely that institutionalized policy paths trump politics (Sager and Thomann, 2017: 287).
We will end this section by mentioning an important caveat formulated in the exemplary study by Zhelyazkova
et al. (2016), stating that their analysis ‘does not directly capture the preferences or ideas of administrative
actors regarding legislative outcomes’ and acknowledging that ‘in-depth case study approaches are better
suited to analyzing implementers’ ideas and preferences towards EU policies’ (ibid.: 843). Fortunately for us,
there is another strand of implementation research that has worked for some 40 years to shed light on this
unchartered area of EU implementation studies. Hence, it can help us to assess the importance of not includ-
ing data on street-level bureaucrats’ preferences on policy implementation performance and outcomes.
Street-Level Bureaucracy Research

Contrary to the previous strand of implementation studies, this one is very much rooted in the traditional do-
mestic policy implementation research. It emerged as a reaction to the first-generation implementation schol-
arship and is predominantly top-down orientation both empirically and normatively, as outlined earlier in this
chapter. The most elaborate, and by far the most influential, formulation of the alternative bottom-up approach
to understanding the implementation process was Michael Lipsky's classic study published in 1980, titled
Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services. To this day, core ideas and concepts
from this book have continued to guide research on what happens at the lowest level of governance and in a
diversity of academic fields beyond political science and public administration (e.g. law, economics, criminol-
ogy). Initially the field developed in the United States, but over time it has spread to other regions, thus reduc-
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ing substantially the initial predominance of North American scholarship. In that sense the field and its empir-
ical basis is implicitly cross-national in character even though very few studies have an explicit cross-national
comparative research design. More common is comparing public service agencies at the lowest level within
and across counties/municipalities. Only one-third of published articles seem to be based on only qualitative
data, and a similar amount use quantitative data and statistical techniques of analysis (usually multivariate
regression).
The main dilemma facing street-level bureaucrats, according to Lipsky (1980), is that they often are stuck with
inadequate resources and excessive workloads forcing them to resort to informal coping mechanisms in order
to handle their work in a satisfactory, if not optimal, manner. The fact that street-level bureaucrats have and
need some discretionary space to apply rules and make judgements on their application in individual cases
facilitates this coping behaviour. Thus, as Lipsky (1980) famously claimed, street-level bureaucrats, in the fi-
nal analysis, become de-facto policy makers by exercising their discretion through coping behaviour in their
client/citizen interaction.
An extensive recent review of the literature revealed that three broad families of coping behaviour could be
identified (Tummers et al., 2015): moving towards clients, moving away or moving against them. Moving to-
wards clients may involve rule bending, rule breaking or use of other means, all aimed at helping the clients.
Moving away from clients, as the concept suggests, is about avoiding meaningful contact with clients, e.g.
through dealing with them in standardized ways (routinization) or making their access to public services more
difficult (rationing). Moving against clients can imply coping such as ‘rigid rule following’ or hostile, even ag-
gressive, responses to difficult clients as a way to relieve frustrations. The good news here is that negative
coping behaviour seen from the clients’ point of view seems to be infrequently used (Tummers et al., 2015;
Radlick, 2018).
Recent reviews of the street-level research literature seriously challenge some not uncommon interpretations
of Lipsky's aforementioned, famous claim with respect to the street-level bureaucrats’ role in the implemen-
tation process, namely that their exercise of discretion through coping behaviour tends to subvert the good
intentions of formal policy makers. Thus, Brodkin (2015: 32–33), a seasoned scholar in this field of research,
says that a striking thing emanating from a growing body of relevant studies is that they ‘rarely with only some
exceptions, indicate opposition or resistance to policy aims, at least as street-level practitioners understand
them'. Furthermore, she says that ‘practices that appear “deviant” or “subversive” from a principal-agent per-
spective may have little to do with practitioners’ personal preferences’ and ‘are better understood as adap-
tions to conditions of work'. Finally, her clinching summary conclusion in this respect: ‘These studies also point
to the limitations of seeking to explain street-level behavior as a consequence of individual level phenomena
(e.g. preferences, training etc.) without accounting for organizational conditions that affect what individual can
and are likely to do under certain conditions’ (ibid.: 33). Summing up research on the use of discretion in this
context from management studies, the same scholar reaches a similar conclusion by saying that ‘…a growing
body of management studies clarifies that discretion operates within limited degrees of freedom, embedded
in an organizational context that shapes the possibilities of its use’ (Brodkin, 2015: 36).
The theoretical insight that emerges from the two strands of implementation studies is that the implementation
process at the domestic and practical level is not influenced much at all by the preferences of either political
actors at the top or at the bottom of the political-administrative hierarchy. Rather, it is the capacities and mal-
leability of the intermediate institutions and administrative structures, combined with societal legitimacy and
participation from civil society actors, that seem to be most important in this context.
As political scientists, some of us may find this conclusion about politicians playing only a relatively minor role
in the execution process of policies not only surprising but also somewhat disturbing from a normative point of
view unless we believe strongly in a sharp distinction between politics and administration. An explanation for

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this, suggested by the EU implementation scholars themselves, could be that despite the diversity of policy
areas studied, a large part of their related directives are usually of a technical nature that are dealt with by
the national bureaucracies in a routine fashion (Treib, 2014: 23). Furthermore, they suggest that in policy is-
sues that are more party politically salient, and perhaps more contentious but also rarer, politicians may play
a much more important role.
To test the latter assumption, this author (Sætren, 2015) carried out a cross-national and longitudinal com-
parative case study of efforts by three Scandinavian governments to relocate some of their central agencies
from their respective capitals to other more peripheral regions. It involved comparing seven national reloca-
tion programmes (two in Finland and Sweden and three in Norway) launched over a period of five decades
with more failures in implementation than success (one success in Norway and Sweden and only failures in
Finland). The selection of policy cases was premised on Lowi's (1964) famous dictum that policies determine
politics and his insight that redistributive policies are among the most contentious and difficult of all to adopt
and implement as they, by their very nature, tend to create winners and losers.
This type of policy usually means that resources of various kinds are redistributed from those who have plenty
(losers) to those who have less (winners). The challenge from governments in implementing such policies is
that the losers in this context have not only stronger motivation but also more resources to mobilize in at-
tempting to thwart such policies. In this context the perceived losers constitute a powerful and broad-based
coalition of centrally located actors relative to policy makers such as the personnel and leaders of affected
central agencies, their trade unions and superior ministries, as well as the biggest newspapers located in the
capital. On the other hand, the potential winners had fewer strategic resources, constituted a more fragment-
ed and peripheral constellation of actors relative to policy makers, were poorly organized and often did not
know what was at stake. Thus, the odds were stacked heavily against any policy success which proved to be
correct. What this author found to be the more intriguing research question in this context was not why a ma-
jority of these relocation programmes failed, but rather why a few succeeded against very unfavourable odds.
It was assumed that the answer to this research question could also shed some light on the more crucially
contingent factors involved in policy implementation more generally.
The interest group politics so important to explaining policy failures turned out to not play a significant role at
all in explaining policy success. The same was the case with respect to public opinion, level of macro-eco-
nomic resources or the severity of policy problem the relocation programmes were supposed to address. In-
stead, it was the political will of central policy makers, a beneficial geographical distribution of agencies to be
relocated relative to legislators’ constituencies (programme design), the internal cohesion and stability of their
type of government, the number of institutional veto points in the political system more generally and the way
the relationship between central agencies and their mother ministries were organized that turned out to be
most important in this respect. Thus, even apparently strongly articulated political will to ensure the relocation
of central agencies by policy makers crumbled rapidly when their governments had low internal cohesion and
stability (due to oversized majority coalitions), faced multiple institutional veto points (e.g. in the parliament)
and affected agencies had easy access to their respective ministries. Again, the goodness of fit or misfit theo-
retical construct seems highly relevant here as well. The latter study also underscores the critical role played
by the duality of institutions as both constraining and enabling the policy-making process depending on their
design and policy issue at stake. To sum up, even in our very politically contentious policy case we end up
concluding as others have done before us that institutions are more important than politics and related inter-
est group activities as the former structure and regulate the latter (Steinmo et al., 1992).
Returning to our summary of major findings previously in this section, the steady and exponentially increasing
volume of articles published since the mid 1990s, mostly by European scholars, was among the least expect-
ed. This latter trend has been accompanied by a significant change among two types of core field journals
over time in terms of their share of all articles published (cf. Table 60.7). Thus, while public policy and man-
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agement journals published one-third of all articles up to the mid 1990s, and public policy journals published
nearly 50%, that position has been more than reversed since with public administration and management
journals now publishing 51% of all articles and public policy journals less than one-third. On the other hand,
political science journals stand out here with the smallest and most steady share of implementation articles
over time, hovering just below 20% both before and after the mid 1990s.
What may have caused this strong resurgence of interest in implementation research in Europe? A few fac-
tors may be worth mentioning here. First, the expansion of the EU's policy agenda since the early 1990s has
triggered increasing scholarly interest in how its policies are not only formulated, but also implemented. Thus,
while only 2% of empirical articles in our sample focused on the implementation of EU policies up to the mid
1990s, that portion has risen to 13% since then. Virtually all of these studies have been conducted by Euro-
pean scholars. Second, a new updated general textbook on policy implementation authored by two European
scholars, Michael Hill and Peter Hupe, published in 2002 with two subsequent reprints (2009 and 2014), ti-
tled Implementing Public Policy, soon became a standard reference for students and younger policy scholars.
Third, at approximately the same time (2003), a new Handbook of Public Administration with a European co-
editor (B. G. Peters and J. Pierre) contained no less than three separate chapters on implementation. Fourth,
for the first time since the late 1980s, several international journals such as Public Administration (2004), Pub-
lic Management Review (2012), Public Policy and Administration (2014) and Journal of Comparative Policy
Analysis (2015) had special issues with European guest editors devoted to policy implementation topics. Last,
but not least importantly in this respect, policy implementation has also regained its popularity as a regular
workshop theme at international conferences in political science and public administration and public policy.
To conclude, policy implementation research has made great strides towards implementing the more rigorous
research methodologies prescribed by the third-generation research paradigm, but not enough and not in a
manner that has resulted in a more parsimonious theory of policy implementation. However, recent third-gen-
eration studies in some strands of implementation research discussed above are promising in this respect as
they investigate more systematically and in a cumulative manner the dynamic contingent relationships of the
constituent parts of such a theory whose contour has been known for quite some time.
Implementation research is a multi-disciplinary enterprise (Sætren, 2005) which has grown exponentially in
volume during the last 20 years in all academic fields, but interestingly less so in our defined core fields than
most others, as charts 60.1 and 60.2 clearly indicate. Furthermore, our core fields constitute a fairly small part
relative to other relevant academic fields in this respect. Thus, Sætren (2005: 565) found that in 2000, their
share accounted for only 11%. Considering the more rapid expansion of implementation research in neigh-
bouring academic fields (e.g. education, health and management etc.), this number is no doubt even smaller
close to 20 years later. The downside of this fact is that implementation research in these other larger acad-
emic fields seems to be guided more by area- and sector-specific practical issues than theory development
more generally (see e.g. Nilsen et al., 2013).
A revival of interest in implementation research in our core fields started among public administration and
management scholars in Europe and later Asia and has more than compensated for a declining interest in
this type of research in North America. Conversely, political science scholars have shown the least interest
in implementation research, judging by the relative amount of volumes published in political science journals
and the absence of this research topic in previous handbooks of political science. Why this is the case is
a mystery to this author, considering the crucial role of implementation in any governmental policy-making
process. The fact that this is the first chapter on implementation in any handbook of political science ever may
hopefully signal a growing interest and recognition also among political scientists about the salience of this
field of research.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n63

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Informal Governance and Participatory Institutions
Contributors: Leonardo Avritzer

Chapter Title: "Informal Governance and Participatory Institutions"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Informal Governance and Participatory Institutions

Leonardo Avritzer
Introduction
Governance is a concept that emerged to study the post-Cold War consensus on the organization of the state
and public policies (see Milani, Chapter 59, this Handbook). During most of the 20th century, the definitions
of the state were based on the Weberian notion of coercion and administrative monopoly (Tilly, 1975; Weber,
1946: 78). Coercion is the state's capacity to employ physical force in a legitimate way. Alongside its coercive
capacity, the state also has administrative monopoly. Weber's focus has been on an administrative staff with
hierarchy, management by rules and specialized division of labor (Weber, 1978). For him, and some subse-
quent authors such as Tilly, all these characteristics were ‘universal’ in the sense that all states shared the
need for coercion but organized it differently. This was the justification of both authoritarian and top- down
forms of government. They both have a similar hierarchical organization and assume that bureaucracy could
play the role of getting access to information and organizing policy. This is the key idea at stake in the process
of informal governance.
After the end of the Cold War, the re-organization of the international order took place through a series of
changes that put at stake the Weberian notion of coercion and administrative monopoly. This conception was
weaker in the United States where several different institutional arrangements for the organization of public
policy were already in place during the post-war period (Dahl and Lindblom, 1953). After the end of the Cold
War, this structure of different designs for the organization of public policy became widespread and gave rise
to an important set of literature. The foundation of the new approach is the acknowledgment of the incapacity
of top-down institutions to steer democratic processes or to democratically organize public policy. Democracy
needs the input of citizens in the organization of policy for several reasons: the bureaucracy alone cannot
cope with the gathering of information (Fischer, 2006); bureaucracy is not a neutral institution and has estab-
lished its own interests in top-down processes of policy elaboration (Lowy, 1970); and there are social actors
whose integration into policy elaboration democratizes the policy and furthers democratic legitimacy. Informal
governance, as a field of research, focuses on the adaptation of the issue of governance and the organization
of public policy in the new democratic era. It associates a new understanding of the flaws of top-down mod-
els of bureaucratic organization (Fischer, 2012; Fung, 2006) with a new valorization of citizens’ input toward
democracy.
It is important to differentiate the emerging literature on informal governance from the literature on informal
institutions (Helmke and Levitsky, 2004). Informal governance is a literature within democratic theory whereas
informal institutions is a Latin American theory about informal arrangements that go around the formal insti-
tutions and have specific rules and practices (O'Donnell, 2000). In their work on informal institutions, Helmke
and Levitsky (2004) argue that rule-based incentives interact or compete with informal rules. In order to fully
grasp this problem, it is important to first of all understand what is meant by rules. According to Hall and Taylor
(1996: 949), ‘institutions are …formal and informal procedures, routines, norms and conventions embedded
in the organizational structure of the polity…'. This definition broadens the traditional approach to institutions.
Yet, it still falls short of recognizing the different forms that rules and norms of reciprocity can take in different
contexts that admit informal rules or norms (O'Donnell, 1996). Networks of trust, for instance, operate with
rules and norms that are not always embedded in the organizational structure of the polity. In addition, the
specific way that new rules are fixed or negotiated at the micro-level, which was not a major concern for new
institutionalism, is of key importance in understanding a few phenomena in Latin America, such as human
rights violation or the formation of political majorities in some countries. Thus, though this literature is radically
different from the literature of informal governance, it is still important to point out that informal rules operate
within multilevel arrangements among social actors and governance institutions for the production of public
policy.

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In this chapter, I will discuss the emergence of the concept of informal governance and its main characteristics
from the perspective of democratic theory, trying to differentiate the existing experiments according to their
capacity to further democracy. My aim will be to show the reasons for the emergence of the so-called ‘partici-
patory arrangements’ in different global contexts. I will discuss five models of informal governance: the North
American model centered on environmental issues; the Latin American model centered on urban issues; the
European model centered on subsidiarity and urban issues; the Chinese model centered on the differentiation
between national and local political organization; and the African model centered on accountability to interna-
tional donors. My point is that, due to its high level of flexibility, informal governance adapts itself to the needs
or demands that exist in specific contexts, even if they are non-democratic.
Informal Governance and the Emergence of Participatory Institutions

The end of the Cold War led to a new focus on processes of collaboration between social actors and the state
beyond the so-called top-down model with the bureaucratic organization that prevailed during the post-war
period. A few experiences anticipated the participatory models that emerged in Latin America, Europe, Asia
and Africa. The oldest model of informal governance and participation emerged in the United States in the
area of environmental policies. Habitat Conservation Plans are part of the Endangered Species Act of 1973
that develops a few specific policy designs in cases of risks for animals and wildlife. The very aggressive
stand of the Endangered Species Act that was still elaborated under a top-down understanding of governance
led economic interest to withdraw investments from areas in which species were declared in danger due to
excessive economic risks. This has led to new legislation in 1982, which allowed the submission of several
actors of Habitat Conservation Plans that involved multiple partners, could use large parts of public land and
could lead to both market-based controls or zones of restricted use (Thomas, 2003: 158).
The idea behind these plans involved two important aspects. The first one is that the coalition of multiple ac-
tors generate superior knowledge of the condition for governance on the ground. The second one is that bu-
reaucracy can be either substituted or associated with local actors’ input of information that otherwise would
not be available. Habitat Conservation Plans are an interesting way of introducing the issue of informal gover-
nance due to the way they leave to the applicants the decision to determine the institutional design that better
fits their aims. Thus, they involved multiple actors – economic actors, scientists, NGOs, among others – in
order to deal with issues that the top-down Weberian model could not deal with because it could only work
with the dual code of allowing/forbidding. They also introduced the issue of horizontally dealing with policy
issues that largely anticipated approaches in other parts of the world after the fall of the Berlin Wall. However,
Habitat Conservation Plans in the United States, from the very beginning, adapted themselves to the contex-
tual conditions of the country in the sense that they were local and thematic and did not involve changing or
democratizing broader political structures. On the contrary, they adapted themselves to the flexible logic of
American federalism.
The 1990s saw the broadening and the diffusion of informal governance experiences in recently democratized
countries in Latin America, Southern Europe, China and Africa. Latin America took the lead in this process
with the democratization of most of its countries between 1983 (Argentina and Bolivia) and 2000 (Chile). In-
formal governance in Latin America changes from country to country but has a common framework based
on the need to make public policy flexible and to incorporate social actors into decision-making. Most coun-
tries that have democratized rewrote their constitutions and approved new ones in which broad frameworks
of collaboration between state and civil society emerged. Brazil, Colombia and Bolivia are such cases and
Argentina and Mexico at the sub-national level also qualified for experiences of informal governance and local
participation. I will discuss some of these cases.
Constitutionalism, Participation and Informal Governance

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The constitutions in Brazil, Colombia and Bolivia introduced incentives to social participation and to both new
participatory drives and old institutionalized ones. Democratic design involved introducing a participatory el-
ement between organizations, citizens and the state. These institutions have specifically been designed to
increase and deepen citizen participation in the decision-making process (Smith, 2009: 1). Policies of income
distribution, democratization of access to urban land, gender inclusion, racial integration and environmental
policies gained participatory elements and established informal arrangements for the governance of public
policies.
Policy councils in Brazil are the result of a constitution-making process that accepts participation and ac-
countability and gives social actors an important role in the implementation of health and social assistance
policies. During the last two decades, the proliferation of health and social assistance councils in Brazil highly
improved the quality of these policies at the local level, particularly in cities with more than 100,000 inhabi-
tants. In all successful cases, technical knowledge was democratized, and efficiency was produced through
the participatory control of powerholders.
Participatory budgeting (PB) emerged in Porto Alegre in 1990 as the result of structural characteristics present
only in Rio Grande do Sul, a space for innovation opened by the 1988 Constitution. PB changed the process
of budget-making in Brazil (Abers, 2000; Avritzer, 2009; Baiocchi, 2005; Wampler, 2015). In its most impor-
tant application, in Porto Alegre (1990–2003), PB introduced new types of institutions, three of which involve
deliberation: regional and thematic assemblies, the Participatory Budgeting Council (COP) and the establish-
ment of rules for the decision-making process itself. Each of these created a new type of interface between
the state and civil society. However, what is the most important characteristic of all these deliberations is that
they are integrated with policy decisions in urban politics. In this sense, this deliberative institution is an at-
tempt to combine collective action logic with democratic innovation in one specific area of social policy.
Thus, PB is clearly an institution that challenges technical control over urban decisions and democratizes the
debates on the budget. To understand it better, it is necessary to comprehend the emergence of democratic
innovation in Brazil. PB is the result of the Brazilian process of democratization as well of its impact on the
region of the country that developed the most democratic tradition. It took advantage of the new legislation
that emerged in the constitution-making process as well as of the productive overlapping of a tradition of de-
mocratic associations in the South with a specific proposal for participation that emerged within the Workers’
Party (PT). PB is a local innovation that responded to the drive to overcome the prevalence of private interests
in urban policy. Both social actors (namely poor urban dwellers) and political actors (the local branch of the
PT that supported the initiative) participated in the process. This case was successful because of the positive
convergence of actors, social and political, in the elaboration of a bottom-up process of policymaking. Suc-
cess reflects both a deepening democratic (Fung and Wright, 2003) and distributive capacity (Avritzer, 2009).
Both of them together constitute a challenge to the bureaucratic and technical conception of budget elabora-
tion. However, the question of the likelihood of the replicability of the policy needs to be answered separately.
It may also function as limits to expansion and policy replicability. Thus, PB is part of a process of introducing
informal governance institutions in Latin America. And PB design is a response to top-down policies that did
not work well previously, in addition to bringing new actors to policymaking and to create new institutions that
deeply democratize urban policy in Brazil.
Comités de vigilancia in Bolivia are a consequence of the implementation of the Ley de Participación Popular
(LPP), which was the result of the long process of resistance of indigenous and rural populations that needed
to negotiate public policy demands with the central state. The Bolivian LPP was a key aspect in the process
of change of the Bolivian state. In its first article, the law recognizes the need to integrate isolated indigenous
and rural populations into the country's political life (Bolivia, 1994). The Bolivian 2009 Constitution maintained
all the elements of the LPP in Articles 271 and 272. The law decentralized local government in Bolivia and
transferred 20% of the federal budget to more than 300 municipalities where comités de vigilancia have been
active in the control of health and education policies. Comités de vigilancia performed the role of account-
ability and have allowed health and education policies to become more efficient than during the period of

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top-down technical implementation.
The LPP created approximately 16,000 territorial organizations (OTBs) to establish community priorities. The
law represented many advances, but the most important one was the creation of administrative references
for rural communities. Prior to LPP, most rural communities had to relate to an abstract and distant state in La
Paz that was very centralized and difficult to reach unless there were huge mobilizations toward the center.
The LPP changed this situation by decentralizing the state prerogatives on health, education and culture and
creating incentives for individuals to control government at the local level.
In addition to creating OTBs, the LPP established comités de vigilancia (monitoring or oversight committees)
(Oxhorn, 2001). These committees are made of canton representation (the smallest administrative unit in
Bolívia) and have their members elected by all grassroots territorial organizations. The LPP introduced two
new designs that were key in the democratization of local politics: the first is the creating of a mechanism to
coordinate the actions of the new local authority with the local community; the second is the creation of the
concept of a social-cultural unity that gave opportunity for those not represented to create their own form of
representation (Halkyer, 2000). Today, the LPP and the comités de vigilancia are perhaps the key participato-
ry and monitoring institutions in Bolívia in the role that they play in health and education policies, which were
also decentralized.
Thus, we have a second model of informal governance with the presence of participatory institutions in Latin
America. According to this model, informal governance emerges in situations in which there is a strong cap-
ture of the state1 through normal bureaucratic top-down policies. The introduction of horizontal bottom-up
policies responded to the need to change public policy priorities. This has been done in different ways in dif-
ferent countries: in Brazil, PB emerged as the most important among the democratic responses to unequal
access to public goods. However, it should be noted that despite its world-famous position, PB has shown
success in decision-making processes related to small infrastructure works in the outskirts of large Brazilian
cities. It did not involve, or could not carry, successful decision-making on social policies. Other less partici-
patory designs were more successful in relation to social policies.
It is also interesting to discuss the relation between PB, as an informal governance arrangement, and de-
mocratic participation. The model of PB that emerged in Porto Alegre was highly participatory. It involved a
system of open-entry regional assemblies that took place twice during the budgeting cycle. These assemblies
were highly democratic for at least two reasons: first, because they involved a significant part of the poor
population of the city; second, because they were mandatory and, as such, bind the public administration to
the assembly's decisions. The results of 14 years of PB were positive because they integrated a system of
informal governance with a process of democratic participation, each one synergizing the other. However, it
would be a mistake to assume that every other form of democratic participation and informal governance is
also democratic or has a democratic effect, as I will show in regard to the European and African models.
The European model of informal governance and participation is different from both the North American and
the Latin American models. The North American model of informal governance is more topic-based or the-
matic, but it also builds a lot on an existent tradition of flexible public administration which allows new modes
of governance in order to deal with emerging issues. In this case, as I have showed above, informal gover-
nance connects with a federalist and local democratic tradition.
With regards to the Latin American case, there is a tenuous connection with the European system, depending
on the different model adopted. Some European cases strongly resemble the Brazilian case of informal par-
ticipation, whereas other cases seem to draw upon the publicity of PB in order to establish a very limited
process of horizontal participation with almost no governance involved. I will differentiate three cases of in-
formal governance and participation in Europe in order to make this point: the first one is the German/French
cases of PB; the second is the Portuguese case; and the third is the Madrid and Barcelona cases of PB. Their
occurrence will be approached in terms of waves of informal governance and participation.
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The first wave of informal governance and democratic participation in Europe dates to the late 1990s and
was influenced by the success and visibility of PB in Brazil. It was also influenced by the emergence of global
alternative for new forms of governance such as the World Social Forum of Porto Alegre and networks of par-
ticipatory cities that emerged in Europe and Latin America, among them the Ur-bal network. In this wave, PB
emerged as a new solution to offset the lack of participation in Europe. Sintomer et al. (2008) systematized
this first wave, pointing out two models of participation introduced in Europe, one that they call ‘Porto Alegre
adapted for Europe’ and a second one they call ‘Participation of organized interests'. In the first model, mainly
left-wing administrations in Europe tried to reproduce the Porto Alegre model of participation. In this case,
the experiences dealt with investments and projects, whereas in the second model, city councils continued to
have decision-making over the budget (Sintomer et al., 2008). Most of the experiences of participation and
informal governance in this first wave have been marginal and did not have the democratizing and political
influence that PB has had in Porto Alegre.
A few conclusions can be gathered in relation to this first wave that, according to the authors, also has had
a few other marginal experiences. The first conclusion is that the reproduction of a very wide participatory
and informal governance model in Europe would be very difficult unless some sort of strong political renewal
would take place as it has had in the case of Spain with Podemos. Before the 2008 economic crisis, most of
the experiences belonged to left-wing administrations that did not have too much influence on the European
systems. A second issue that already emerged, even in these very early experiences, is linked to the fact that
a very well-established top-down form of political administration already exists in the European continent and
a mode of informal governance would be at best marginal in this scenario unless a country would be struck
by a major crisis. This has been the case in Portugal and Spain after 2008.
Portugal and Spain became highly participatory after the 2008 crisis and yet participation in the two countries
assumed different configurations. In the case of Portugal, there has been a widespread emergence of par-
ticipatory experiences across the political spectrum (Allegretti and Alves, 2012). After an initial unsuccessful
drive for participation that resembled the other European cases, Portugal developed what has been called
a second wave of PB. The main characteristics of these informal governance mechanisms are: (a) a large
range of means of participation in order to overcome low levels of face-to-face participation; (b) a strong con-
centration on training; and (c) a strong presence of external consultants interacting with the cities’ technical
personnel. Portugal has had 64 experiences of PB, but only 18 survived after a 10-year period. Among the
18, there is one truly meaningful experience, in Cascais, that places Portugal in the list of countries with a
strong top-down informal governance orientation with a mostly symbolic meaning. Participation and informal
governance have little influence in the design of key policies, but they do have a piecemeal presence in all
policies as a way of encouraging organized actors and key members of civil society to interact with the gov-
ernment.
The last case in Europe that we are going to discuss is the most meaningful among the experiences of infor-
mal governance that emerged in Spain with the rise of Podemos. In contrast with Portugal, Spain developed
many new forms of political mobilization after the 2008 crisis, among them Indignados and the Platform of
People with Mortgages. However, it was after the rise of Podemos (Bringel, 2015) that several new experi-
ences of participation emerged, including a new wave of PB in which Madrid plays a key role with the elec-
tion of Ahora Madrid. This local party unleashed a process of public consultation that included, among other
things, the vote on the pedestrianization of the Gran Via, a process that saw the participation of more than
210,000 people, reaching close to 10% of all eligible voters (Ramos, 2018). Madrid also introduced a PB with
the participation of 45,000 people and the approval of 188 proposals for public works in the city.
When we look closer to the Madrid model of participation that resembles participation in other large cities
governed by Podemos, like the city of Barcelona, we see an important difference vis-à-vis other European
models. The Madrid experience transfers effective decision-making prerogatives on to the participants of its
informal governance experiences whereas in most of the other European cases, the models of participation
are both restricted and top-down. The Madrid and Barcelona Podemos models differentiate themselves from

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the restricted European model for reasons similar to the ones that triggered participation in Latin America,
namely because there is a left-wing party that wants to differentiate its governance model from the other ex-
isting parties. Because there is a repressed demand for public goods, it is best approached through mecha-
nisms of informal participation transferring the pressure for delivery to the informal governance mechanisms.
The three models approached above – North American, Latin American and the European – allow us to pro-
pose the first typology on models of participation and informal governance (see Table 61.1). This typology
starts with the North American case, which is the oldest and has very specific characteristics such as the fact
that it draws on federalism and a local model of participation that goes way back to the early 19th century
(Rehfeld, 2005). This model made viable forms of informal governance in the moment in which most of the
international experiences of implementation of public policies were top-down and bureaucratically oriented.
Table 61.1 Models of informal governance

Country Levels of
Features of par-
or re- Type of informal governance Administrative result governance
ticipation
gion integrated
The state
Production of admin-
North Horizontal and and NGOs at
Local and based on federalism istrative efficiency in
America thematic the local lev-
thematic policies
el
Local but re-
Local and based on a relation be- Horizontal and Production of admin- lated to a
Latin
tween participation and representa- comprehensive istrative efficiency in new consti-
America
tion at the local level local policies tutional tradi-
tion
Horizontal and Production of efficien-
Variation from country to country. In Local gov-
comprehensive cy in local policies in
the Spanish case of Madrid and ernment with
Europe at the local level the case of Spain
Barcelona, it is based on the empow- informal EU
in the case of (Madrid and
erment of citizens at the local level support
Spain Barcelona)
Non-democratic Forms of Participation

During the last decade, informal models of governance made their way to other parts of the world, in particu-
lar, China and Africa. However, it is important to keep in mind that these experiences need to be sharply differ-
entiated from the three above models due to a lack of integration with democratic aims. China is the political
model that, following the end of the Cold War, did not make an attempt to pursue a transition to democracy
(Tsai, 2006). However, the fact that China did not pursue a clear strategy of democratization did not preclude
a strategy of using institutions of informal governance in order to deal with local demands. China introduced
many informal institutions or informal governance experiences in order to pursue much needed administrative
reforms that would cope with existing problems in the area of budgets and the struggle against corruption.
Even before PB had been introduced in China, Chinese villagers or village representatives had been monitor-
ing the budget with what we may call accountability aims. They wanted to insure ‘that village leaders collect
money for public goods, distribute village income in a fair way and invest village money effectively’ (He, 2011:
123). Thus, we may say that one of the main advantages of informal governance institutions is that their flex-
ibility can be both associated with participatory democracy and democratization or disassembled from this
broader aim as has been the case in China.

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PB in China was introduced mostly at the town level, though there have been cases at the city and province
levels.
In 1998, Heibi province introduced PB meaning that partial budgets were disclosed to the people's
deputies of the People's Congress for examination and deliberation. In 2004, Huinan township in
Shanghai undertook an experiment in public budgeting. Similar experiments in Xinghe and Zeguo
townships were conducted in 2005. They subsequently spread to 8 neighboring townships in Weiling
in 2009 and to 79 townships in Taizhou in 2010. (He, 2011: 123)
These experiments all share similar characteristics, namely that they create local mechanisms for participa-
tion on the budget, but they stop at this level and do not interfere with national politics (see Table 61.2).
Table 61.2 Expansion of informal governance to semi- or non-democratic contexts

Relation with partici-
Country or region Type of informal governance Administrative result
pation
Local and based on conces-
Horizontal and the- Production of admin-
China sions from the central govern-
matic istrative efficiency
ment
Portuguese-speaking Local and unleashed from the Selective and insulat- Production of ac-
Africa (Mozambique and top as part of the international ed from the rest of the countability to inter-
Cabo Verde) agencies agenda government national agencies
Finally, we have the case of informal governance and participation in Africa. Informal governance in some
African cases has had a different configuration because they do not emerge from the initiatives of the govern-
ment or civil society but rather through top-down policies of international institutions, in particular the World
Bank, which is associated with national governments. In the cases of Cabo Verde and Mozambique, there is
very little connection between the practice of informal governance and the introduction of participatory institu-
tions. PB was introduced by the World Bank in Africa with the intention to expand the Brazilian experiences of
PB. The detailed story of this incorporation of a left-wing practice by an international institution is yet to be told
and it is linked to the visit to Porto Alegre of a World Bank team for the overseeing of a loan and its approval
by the PB Council. PB and World Bank association is an indication of an additional dimension of informal
governance which is the way it connects different governance levels to the international institutions. However,
the type of adaptation needed in order to tackle the issue of informal governance in these African countries
has been larger than in other settings because this process intertwines with the huge need for international
financial aid, which, most of the time, comes tied to administrative conditions (Goldfrank, 2018; Nylen, 2014).
The cases of PB in Africa that are the most well-known are the ones in the Portuguese- speaking countries,
mostly Mozambique and Cabo Verde. In the case of Mozambique, one of the well-known cases, PB emerged
as part of a broader attempt of decentralization and deconcentration. This plan has led to experiences of PB
in some cities such as Quelimane, Beira and Nampula. These experiences involve a strong adaptation both
in what is the meaning of informal governance and what is its relation to participatory experiences. These
cases are driven by incentives produced by the World Bank and UN urban program resources (Jamal, 2017).
Independent analysts of these experiences suggest that, in spite of some goodwill of their carriers – par-
ticularly in Beira and Maputo – these experiences show the impossibility of moving beyond the meaningful
inclusion and distribution of resources due to the contextual politics where they are inserted (Jamal, 2017;
Nylen, 2014). In relation to Mozambique's case, Jamal (2017) points to the weakness of the local democra-
cy and the low quality of citizen participation in the local decision-making forum. For him, ‘the participatory
process in Mozambique is no more than a local community representation-based platform in which citizens
are represented through their traditional chiefs, religious leaders and influential individuals to form the local
consultative councils to interact with local governments’ (Jamal, 2017: 240). Even in cases where there is a

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strong willingness to implement horizontal informal participation, as has been the case in Maputo, this attempt
clashed
with the darker side of the party-state system he [Comiche] hoped to reform: the propensity of party-
based clientelism to easily morph into corruption and exclusion. Like many if not most non-compet-
itive systems, the Frelimo party-state is constructed upon and maintained through the continuation
and even expansion of this ‘darker side', all at the ultimate expense of a more generalized or univer-
salized public service'. (Nylen, 2014: 55)
Thus, the cases of informal governance in Africa are similar to the cases in Asia and they involve a topical at-
tempt to introduce informal governance at the bottom, keeping formal governance at the top (see Table 61.2).
Conclusion
To draw a line under this analysis, we can say that informal governance is a solution that emerged after the fall
of the Berlin Wall to integrate social actors into public policy in contentious cases where the top-down model
failed. This is the most important characteristic of informal governance in the way it intertwined with horizon-
tal forms of political participation, opening a new venue for tackling social problems. The specific democratic
cases which have taken place in North America, Europe and Latin America have significantly contributed to
a democratic deepening in these regions despite the limitations in some areas in terms of public policy and
in the scope of the experience in the territory. In these cases, informal governance is a democratizing tool as
long as it is effective. However, as I have pointed out in this chapter, informal governance, despite its democ-
ratizing intentions, can also be expanded to non-democratic settings with different consequences. The case
of China is emblematic in this respect because the introduction of participation in the budget has been asso-
ciated with the lack of intention to introduce democracy or representative institutions at the core. The cases of
informal governance in Africa that have been approached in this paper are somehow different because they
belong to authoritarian electoral settings (Levitsky and Way, 2010: Nylen, 2014) and participation is part of
the attempt of international institutions to have transparency over their funds rather than to introduce horizon-
tal relations. The results in each one of the cases are different because informal governance, per se, cannot
democratize undemocratic settings. It can only deepen democracy in contexts where it is already in place.
Note
1 Under the topic of ‘state capture', there is important literature on state regulatory policy through the insertion
of interest groups in policy arrangements. Though this literature devoted more attention to state development,
it has also been applied to state urban policy (Evans, 1995).
References
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• informal governance
• institutions
• public policy
• organizations
• actors
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n64

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Local Politics
Contributors: Hellmut Wollmann

Chapter Title: "Local Politics"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Local Politics
Hellmut Wollmann
Scope and Focus
Crucial Institutional Conditions of Local Politics

In taking up the issue of local politics, the article shall focus on and single out three institutional dimensions
upon which the viability and vitality of local politics crucially hinge.
First, decentralization: the position of local government in a country's multi-level governmental system es-
sentially depends on whether, and to what degree, relevant powers, competencies and responsibilities are
transferred (‘decentralized') from the upper levels to the lower (local government) levels.
Second, local territoriality: the size (‘scale') of the local territory essentially influences the democratic and op-
erational base and potential of local politics.
Third, democratization: the democratic quality of local politics essentially hinges on the choice of institutions,
rules and procedures of representative and/or direct democracy and on the forms of politico-administrative
leadership in local government.
Local Politics in a ‘Global Perspective'

In line with the ‘global perspective’ of this Handbook, the article aspires to attain a global coverage. In doing
so it will address, in a much used dichotomous classification, ‘developed’ as well as ‘developing’ countries or,
in another dichotomous parlance, ‘Global North’ as well as ‘Global South’ countries. However, preference will
be given to identifying and grouping the countries by their geographical allocation to continents and ‘global
regions', largely in line with the ‘mapping by continents’ method that has been used in the Global Reports
initiated, composed and published by United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) (UCLG, 2008).
Conceptual Scheme of Analysis

When attempting to identify the factors and events that have influenced the course of decentralization, territo-
riality and democratization in the respective countries, two sets of factors should be highlighted at the outset.
For one, emblematic of the ‘developed’ versus ‘developing’ country dichotomy, the countries differ greatly as
to whether local-level decentralization and democratization has long been, to a larger or lesser degree, part
and parcel of the country's history and fabric (which applies particularly to North American and European
countries) or whether local- level decentralization and democratization has only relatively recently been ush-
ered in as crucial elements of the country's political transformation (such as in Asia-Pacific and African coun-
tries at the end of colonial rule, in Latin American countries after the termination of military rule and Central
Eastern European countries following the collapse of communist regime). These differences in their historical
‘starting conditions’ and political contexts should be given particular attention in the analysis of the respective
countries.
Second, the socio-economic, politico-cultural, ethnic and other discrepancies and differences, which exist not
only between the ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries but also within them, need to be given prime attention

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as driving factors and forces that entail varied trajectories of local-level decentralization and democratization.
At this point it should suffice, by using the GDP per capita1 as an indicator, to highlight the glaring socio-eco-
nomic disparity which gapes between the United States with $59.530 and the (EU) European countries with
$33.715, on the one side, and Latin American/Caribbean countries with $8.313, Asia-Pacific countries with
$7.127 and Sub-Saharan African countries with $1.552, on the other.2 But great differences appear within
these global regions as well, for instance between India with $1.939 and the entire Asia-Pacific region with
$7.127 or the Sub-Saharan African countries with $1.552 versus South Africa with $6.160.
Towards a Comparative Analysis?

The intended global outreach of this account could, at first sight, suggest that this article should be carried
out as a methodologically sophisticated piece of comparative analysis, perhaps even along the ‘most similar’
or ‘most different cases’ research design (Przeworski and Teune, 1970, Lijphart, 1975). However, at a closer
look, the multitude of (methodologically speaking: both dependent and independent) variables such a global-
ly far-reaching investigation is bound to come to grips with virtually rules out the possibility of embarking on
such a methodologically demanding and rigorous analysis, let alone the lack of time and of resources. Yet a
methodologically less elaborate and, as it were, softer comparative approach appears to be worth attempting.
Instead of treating the three proposed institutional dimensions in a country by country manner, in this article,
each of the three institutional dimensions will be addressed in a separate section in an across-country com-
parative manner. Dealing with these three dimensions in separate chapters might allow a narrowing of the
range of relevant variables to a ‘researchable’ size and thus enhance the analytical potential of identifying the
(causal) relation between, say, the rate of decentralization or the profile of local autonomy on the one side and
the influencing factors (say, the specific historical ‘starting conditions', for instance, and at the end, colonial,
military, etc., rule) on the other. Such a methodologically ‘softer’ approach promises to reach (in alluding to
the distinction between ‘comparative’ and ‘comparable’ research aptly proposed by Derlien, 1992) ‘compara-
ble’ results and insights even if (methodologically rigorous) ‘comparative’ analyses appear to not be feasible.
At last a cautioning caveat needs to be voiced. In view of the great number of countries ‘around the globe’
(amounting, in the official counting of the UN, to 195) and of the ensuing multitude of local government sys-
tems, the following attempt at venturing a global perspective cannot help being selective, fragmentary and
‘broad brush’ in scope.
Decentralization
In addressing decentralization, this chapter deals with the transfer of powers, competencies and responsibili-
ties, etc., in multi-level government systems to subnational government levels with a focus on the (lower tier)
local government level (municipalities etc.), its autonomy and competencies.
Most European countries, being unitary States, are made up of three government levels, i.e. the central gov-
ernment, the regional/meso and the local government levels, the latter often having a two-tier structure (for
instance county and municipality). In federal countries, the meso level has a federal status in its own right (i.e.
Länder in Germany and cantons in Switzerland, as well as the ‘comunidades autónomas’ in Spain and the
‘regioni' in Italy, both ‘quasi-federal’ countries) (Kuhlmann and Wollmann, 2019: 146).
The legal regulation of local government lies at the central government level or (in federal countries) with
the regions (Länder, cantons). Since the 1980s, in EU member states, the supra-national level has come in
addition to the existing multi-level structure of the member states with its norm-setting and financial funding
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influencing (‘Europeanizing') the local level as well (Guderjan, 2019: 396).
Traditionally, in Continental European countries, local government has been provided, often constitutionally,
with a ‘general competence', which is at the core of the typical ‘multi-function’ model of local government
(Wollmann, 2004a). In the European Charter of Local Self-Government, which was adopted by the European
Council in 1985 and subsequently ratified by all European governments, the common understanding of the
‘general competence’ has been reiterated and confirmed in formulating that the local authorities have ‘the
right and ability, within the limits of the law, to regulate and manage a substantial share of public affairs un-
der their own responsibility and in the interests of the local population'. By contrast, in the UK, historically the
ultra-vires doctrine reigned, under which the local authorities could carry out only those functions assigned
to them by Parliament. However, in 2000, legislation has granted the local authorities a so-called ‘well-being
power', (‘to promote the economic, social and environmental well-being of their area') which now comes close
to a general competence clause (Wilson and Game, 2011: 169).
During the 1960s and 1970s, in some European countries, in particular in the UK, Sweden and Germany, the
political and functional role of the local authorities was significantly strengthened along with the post-war ex-
pansion of national welfare which climaxed in the 1970s when the implementation of public policy tasks was
increasingly transferred (decentralized) to the local authorities. Typically, the decentralization of tasks went
hand in hand with (in part massive) local-level territorial reforms that were meant to enhance the capacity of
the local authorities to cope with these tasks (see below in the section, ‘Territoriality'). As a result, Sweden,
being a unitary state, stands out as an exceptionally decentralized country marked by the politically, function-
ally and financially strongest local authorities in Europe. Exemplifying Sweden's peculiar ‘local Welfare State’
local-level personnel amounts to 83% of the total of public sector employees with the lion's share (70%) of
local government spending paid from local taxes (Kuhlmann and Wollmann, 2019: 102).
During the 1980s and 1990s some countries embarked upon decentralizing their hitherto (‘Napoleonic') cen-
tralist states. In 1982, France adopted a major decentralization act (Kuhlmann and Wollmann, 2019: 164) and
in the early 1990s Italy followed suit (ibid.: 169). In both cases, the decentralization measures implied a sig-
nificant political and functional upgrading of the regional levels (départements and regioni respectively) and,
albeit to lesser degree, some political and functional strengthening of the local government levels (communes
and comuni respectively) as well.
In Central Eastern European (CEE) countries, after 1989/1990, following the collapse of the communist
regimes, the previously centralist communist/socialist states was dismantled and ‘transformed’ by rampant
decentralization and the introduction of local self-government (for country reports see Baldersheim et al.,
2003; Marcou and Wollmann, 2008: 139). Hungary presents a doubly peculiar case. After 1989, this country
became the most decentralized one in the region, with the politically and functionally strongest local authori-
ties among the other transformation countries. By contrast, since 2011, under the right-wing government led
by Victor Orban, Hungary has experienced a radical re-centralization of the entire politico-administrative sys-
tem; the local authorities were stripped of many of their functions and put under stringent central government
control (Kuhlmann and Wollmann, 2019: 171).
As a result of different state traditions and different rates of decentralization, the scope of local government
functions varies significantly between European countries. Judging, as indicator, by the municipal expenses
as a percentage of GDP (in 2007) (Baldersheim and Rose, 2010b: 3, table 1.1), three ‘Nordic’ countries (Den-
mark, Sweden and Finland, unsurprisingly (with 32.2, 24.5 and 19.3 % respectively)) top the ranking, while
Italy and France (with 15.1 and 11.2 %) hold a middle rung and Greece (with 2.5 %) comes out at the low end
(For another largely congruent 2005 dataset, see Marcou and Wollmann, 2008: 143, figure 1).
Until the collapse of the Communist regime in 1990, the Soviet Union was marked by the post-Stalinist model
of extremely centralist one-party rule under which, premised on the doctrine of the ‘Unity of the State', all sub-
national (regional and local) levels (as well as societal spheres) were bereft of any autonomy and meant to

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serve as subnational and local cogs in the centralist state machinery (Wollmann, 2004b). In the wake of the
reforms (perestroika) initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev, since the late 1980s and following the break-up of the
Soviet Union in late 1990, Russia emerged as a federal country made up of 85 federal regions (‘federal sub-
jects'), including two ‘federal States’ (the capital Moscow and St. Petersburg). The new Constitution adopted
in 1993 gave the regions (which, during the turbulent transition period under President Yeltsin, had unfold-
ed almost ‘secessionist’ dynamics) far-reaching powers. At the same time, article 12 of the Constitution laid
down that ‘the bodies of local self-government shall not be part of the State power bodies’ (Gel'man, 2008:
71; Wollmann, 2004b: 112; Khabrieva et al.: 2008: 97), thereby conspicuously breaking with the Soviet doc-
trine of the ‘unity of the State'. Since becoming President in March 2000, Vladimir Putin has resolutely moved
towards re-centralizing the country's intergovernmental system and to establish a top-down ‘vertical power’
structure to bring the regions back under central government (‘presidential') control and to accordingly sub-
due the local authorities to the central government's rigid command and supervision. Flying in the face of the
constitutional promise of article 12, Russia has turned back to ‘statelize’ (ogosudarstvlenie) local government
(Gel'man, 2008: 71) thus reviving the centralist legacy and imprint of the Soviet past.
In the United States, the constitution (made effective in 1789) is based on the concept of ‘dual sovereignty’ ac-
cording to which the (now) 50 states and the federal government are deemed to have separate and indepen-
dent spheres, each having some sovereignty in their own affairs (Savitch and Vogel, 2005: 219). Hence, the
legislation on the local government level lies with the individual states each having its own legislative frame-
work on local government. Consequently, there are practically ‘some fifty American local government sys-
tems’ (Sellers, 2008: 238). Under the so-called Dillon's rule, which was historically inherited from the British
ultra-vires doctrine, the local authorities can exercise only the functions explicitly assigned to them by their
state. However, in the meantime, all but three states have granted the local authorities so-called ‘home rule’
powers, by virtue of which local governments have, in practice, reached a great deal of legislative, operational
and fiscal autonomy (Sellers, 2008: 237; Savitch and Vogel, 2005: 220).
The Latin American countries had gained independence from colonial rule in the 1810s and 1820s and fell
under military dictatorship during the 1970s and 1980s. Ending military during the 1980s, they embarked up-
on decentralization and democratization. This process was significantly propelled by the Inter-American De-
velopment Bank and the World Bank who emphasized and financially fostered the role of local government
in the promotion of economic development (Rosales and Carmona, 2008: 171; Kersting et al., 2009: 77).
A prominent example is Brazil (with some 200 million inhabitants, it is the largest Latin American country).
Following the end of the military regime, a new constitution was adopted in 1988, which defined the newly
established federal system as an ‘indissoluble union of states and municipalities and the federal district’ (i.e.
the capital), thus constitutionally recognizing the federal status of the municipalities (besides the 26 federal
States) and granting them full autonomy (Rosales and Carmona, 2008: 175, also on Mexico's similar devel-
opment). Strengthening the political autonomy of local government has been a major feature of the recent
decentralization process in Latin American countries (Nickson, 2019: 140). However, while national legislation
has usually granted local government a general competence-type autonomy, the municipalities have rarely
taken the initiative to expand their own mandate due to their continuing financial, technical and political weak-
ness (Kersting et al., 2009: 83) (For an overview on all Latin American countries see Rosales and Carmona,
2008 and Kersting et al., 2009 with country reports on Bolivia, Chile and Paraguay).
In (South) Asia-Pacific countries, following the end of colonial rule and their often conflict-ridden indepen-
dence process between 1945 and 1947, institution-building in these countries was typically confronted with
the problem of what has been aptly called ‘internal de-colonisation’ (Vajpeyi, 2003a: 11). That is, with the task
of coping with and overcoming the institutional and mental legacies left by their respective (British, French or
Dutch) colonial past. Thus, the new national elites took over not only many of the institutions inherited from the
colonial era, but also the mental attitude and pattern to govern from the centre and to treat the local level and
its native leaders as subject to a paternalistic and top-down rule (Baldersheim and Wollmann, 2006b: 117).
Consequently, when moves towards decentralization and democratization got under way during the 1990s
– also promoted by international donors – they showed a great variance in timing, scale and modality still
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shaped by the country's specific colonial legacy (Nickson et al., 2008: 53).
India (with about one billion inhabitants, it is the second largest country in the world – second to China with
some 1.4 billion people) is a case in point. Historically, rural India was marked by ‘panchayats’ (village assem-
blies) that date back to ancient times and which after 1857, when India came under British colonial rule, were
largely side-lined or instrumentalized for central British colonial administration (Vajpeyi and Arnold, 2003b:
34). The Federal Constitution of 1950, adopted after India's independence and laying the ground for the fed-
eral system, required that ‘the (federal) States shall take steps to organize village panchayats and endow
them with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as units of local self-
government'. But, during the years to come, the (federal) States failed to live up to the constitutional mandate,
particularly with regard to the bulk of rural villages. Finally, in 1992, an amendment to the Constitution was
adopted which explicitly recognized a three-tier local government structure as a third government level (be-
low the national and State levels) and stipulated that in every State ‘at the village, intermediate and district
levels…panchayats’ shall be constituted and elected ‘from territorial constituencies in the panchayat area’
(Vajpeyi and Arnold, 2003b: 39). Thus, the institutionalization of local government and local democracy has
made a significant step forward. However, the constitutional mandate to implement administrative and fiscal
decentralization has still not been applied with to the same extent in all (federal) states (Nickson et al., 2008:
57). Besides, as it was critically observed, the ‘panchayat system is often unable to function effectively due to
the embedded nature of bureaucracy, the low level of political consciousness and the feudal and patriarchal
structures of the society’ (Tremblay, 2003: 54), in other words, due, not least, to the still unfinished business
of ‘de-colonialization'.
In Indonesia (with 260 million people it is another major Asian country), the Regional Development Law of
1999 has triggered a sweeping (‘big bang') decentralization process which has significantly shifted resources
and responsibilities from the central and provincial levels to the urban and rural municipalities (Nickson et al.,
2008: 58; Kersting et al., 2009: 171) (on the development of decentralization and local democracy in other ar-
eas of South Asia, see the country chapters in Vajpeyi, 2003b and Baldersheim and Wollmann, 2006b: 117).
In the (some) 50 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa that, with the end of colonial rule, became independent
states during the 1960s and 1970s, decentralization reforms have been attempted since the 1980s. They,
too, showed marked differences depending on their (French or British) colonial past: Francophone countries,
such as Mali and Burkina Faso, tended to treat decentralization as a technique for managing a centralized
unitary state, while in Anglophone countries, such as South Africa and Nigeria, federal structures have been
adopted and decentralization has been associated with the constitutional recognition of the local government
level (Letaief et al., 2008: 24; Kersting et al., 2009: 130). In the majority of African countries, decentralization
was imposed from the top down, making it more a tool used by the central government to control the territory
and population. A crucial problem of making local institutions work was partly to reconcile traditional (tribal)
community structures (chiefdoms) with modern national institutions. Subsequently, despite constitutional and
legislative provisions and safeguards, the autonomy of local government has remained restricted by a cen-
tral government oversight of local government bodies and their actions (Letaief et al., 2008: 46). The latter
obstacle has been compounded by the spread of the one-party state in many African countries (Baldersheim
and Wollmann, 2006b: 116). Throughout the African countries, decentralization has often been fraught with
political instability and, most notably, with ethnic and tribal conflicts. In the meantime, the process of decen-
tralization and local-level government reforms has often been stalled and even reversed (Kersting et al., 2009:
128).
However, noteworthy progress in decentral and democratic institution-building has been made in South Africa
(with some 55 million inhabitants, it is the second largest Sub-Saharan African country). Following the end of
the Apartheid regime, the Constitution adopted in 1997 has installed, within a three-tier federal system (cen-
tral, provincial and local), a local government level (Cameron, 2007: 316; Kersting et al., 2009: 139). Conse-
quently, local government has undergone a significant transition from the previous apartheid setting towards
a more democratic system (Cameron, 2007: 322). Local elections that were peacefully held in 1994 and 2000

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signalled a viable future development (for a cautioning assessment, see Baldersheim and Wollmann, 2006b:
117).
Territoriality
Seeking and defining the (optimal) territorial size (scale) of local government has been marked in many coun-
tries by the choice and balancing (‘trade-off') between enhancing its operational efficiency of local government
and buttressing local democracy (Baldersheim and Rose, 2010b: 8).
In European countries, the local-level territorial structure was historically characterized by predominantly
small-sized municipalities. In the more recent territorial development, two country groups can be discerned
(De Ceuninck et al., 2019; Kuhlmann and Wollmann, 2019: 185).
On the one side, in the UK, Sweden and in some German federal regions (Länder) during the 1960 and
1970s, a first wave of territorial reforms got under way that aimed to territorially and demographically enlarge
(‘upscale') the municipalities by way of consolidation (amalgamation) and, if need be, through ‘coercive’ leg-
islation against local opposition (see the country reports in Baldersheim and Rose, 2010a). This reform drive
was premised on the then dominant ‘rationalistic’ assumption that the local-level territorial consolidation could
enhance the economic and operational efficiency of the local authorities and their capacity to cope with the
ever growing scope of tasks that were transferred to them by the expanding national welfare state. Thus, there
was a close conceptual and operational tie between local territorial reforms and decentralization/'functional’
reform (see above in the section ‘Decentralization'; Marcou and Wollmann, 2008: 136). The UK went furthest,
in 1974, in this strategy of large-scale amalgamation (often identified as the ‘North European pattern', (Norton,
1994: 40)) by reducing some 1,300 lower tier local (district and borough) governments to 369, resulting in the
unparalleled average of 129,000 inhabitants (Wilson and Game, 2011: 78; Kuhlmann and Wollmann, 2019:
187). In Sweden, too, in 1974 the number of municipalities (kommuner) was cut back from 2,282 (averaging
some 2,800 inhabitants) to 290 (averaging some 31,000) (Kuhlmann and Wollmann, 2019: 189) the average
population size per municipality. Since the 1990s, in some countries a second wave of large-scale territorial
‘upscaling’ has taken place – with Denmark's territorial reform of 2007 tackling a veritable ‘revolution in local
government’ (Mouritzen, 2010: 21) by cutting the number of municipalities from 275 to 98 with an average of
55,480 inhabitants (now the second largest average among European countries).
On the other side, in some European countries, exemplified by France, Italy and Switzerland, local-level ter-
ritorial consolidation has not been undertaken in what has been identified as the ‘South European pattern’
(Norton, 1994: 40). In these countries, the politically and culturally rooted principle of ‘voluntariness’ has pre-
vailed according to which the boundaries of municipalities can be redrawn only with local consent. An exem-
ple is France, where the boundaries of some 36,000 municipalities, averaging some 1,500 inhabitants, have
remained largely unchanged since the Revolution of 1789 or even earlier (Kuhlmann and Wollmann, 2019:
191). Another striking case is Switzerland which has very small municipalities (half of them having less than
840 inhabitants) whose boundaries have remained unchanged over the last 150 years (Kübler and Ladner,
2003: 140).
In CEE countries, after 1990, the fragmented structure of small-size municipalities inherited from the commu-
nist era has been largely retained, often due to the political motive of not impairing the newly restored small-
scale local democratic arenas. In addition, the number of small-scale municipalities has even increased as
local communities were given the right and opportunity to undo territorial amalgamations imposed under the
previous communist regime (see country reports in Swianiewicz, 2010). For instance, in Hungary the number
of municipalities jumped from some 1,600 before 1990 to 3,170 after (Kuhlmann and Wollmann, 2019: 198;
on the Czech Republic see ibid.: 199).
Depending on whether, or on which scale, local-level territorial reforms have been carried out, the average
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population size varies greatly, ranging between 139,000 (UK) and 1,700 (France), (for 2008 data covering 30
European countries on the number, average population size and percentage of municipalities with less than
5000 inhabitants, see Baldersheim and Rose, 2010b: 3, table 1.1).
While the purpose and ‘logic’ of (large-scale) amalgamation can be seen as an attempt to ‘internalize’ the
coordination of multiple functions and actors (intra-municipally) within the (enlarged) jurisdiction of local gov-
ernment (Wollmann, 2010), in contrast, in countries without amalgamation, an alternative strategy (and ‘logic')
to achieve such coordination of functions and actors can be seen in the creation of institutional forms of inter
municipal cooperation. In the European context, France is, in view of the historically small-sized pattern of
its municipalities, unsurprisingly, an example of such alternative strategy. Dating back to the 1890s, intermu-
nicipal bodies (établissements publics de coopération intercommunale (EPCI)) which are designed, be it as
single-purpose or as multiple-purpose entities, to assist their member municipalities in the provision of ser-
vices have been established. They are directed by councils that are not directly elected but appointed by the
member municipalities (for details see Borraz and Le Galès, 2005; Wollmann, 2010). The complex system
and network of intermunicipal bodies (intercommunalité) was (in 2015) made up of a total of 2,133 EPCIs,
all of different types that are endowed with taxing power (à fiscalité propre), comprising 36,588 member mu-
nicipalities and 62.9 million inhabitants (for details and data, see Kuhlmann and Wollmann, 2019: 195, table
4.7). Likewise, in other countries which, in the absence of territorial reforms, are marked by a multitude of
small-scale municipalities, similar intermunicipal bodies are galore (Marcou and Wollmann, 2008: 138).
Still, another variant of intermunicipal bodies has been embarked upon in France since 2018 with the creation
of metropolitan entities (so-called métropoles) in and around France's 21 major cities and urban areas. Con-
stituting the most integrated yet organizational form of intermunicipal cooperation, the métropoles vertically
combine most functions of their (continuing to exist) member municipalities, as well as some functions of the
territorially connected départements, and levy most of the municipal taxes. However, their decision-making
councils are still indirectly elected by the councils of their member municipalities. The largest métropole is
‘Grand Paris', in and around the capital city of Paris, with some 7 million inhabitants and 131 member mu-
nicipalities (Kuhlmann and Wollmann, 2019: 193; for a similar development in Italy, with the formation of 14
metropolitan intermunicipal entities: città metropolitane, see ibid.: 170).
The recent development of intermunicipal bodies, including metropolitan entities, hints at a trend towards
some gradual territorial consolidation as the institutions of intermunicipal cooperation appear, in the absence
of formal consolidation, to prepare the political and mental ground for fully fledged consolidation (for an
overview and differentiated conclusions, see Baldersheim and Rose, 2010b).
The Russian Federation, which resulted from the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1990, is still the territorially
largest country in the world with some 17 million square kilometres (and counting some 144 million inhabi-
tants). By 2005, the map of Russia's two-tier local government system has been extensively redrawn by the
regions (federal subjects). The number of municipalities almost doubled from 12,215 to 24,079 as the formal
local government was extended to all settlements of more than 1,000 inhabitants (Khabrieva et al., 2008:
104). At the same time, the municipal districts (munitsipal'nye raiony) have been introduced as units of a new
(upper) local government level whose decision-making bodies are made of mayors of the member municipal-
ities. While, the multitude of settlements are included in the local government structure, it is organizationally
ascertained that they serve as key links in the hierarchy of administration and its vertical power mechanism
(Gel'man, 2008: 81), thus reinforcing the vertical and centralist (presidential) power grip.
In the United States, the two-tier local government structure is made of 3,043 counties as well as 19,372 mu-
nicipalities and 16,629 townships and towns (Sancton, 2002: 186 et seq.; Sellners, 2008: 239). Despite the
great number of often small municipalities, hardly any territorial consolidation by way of amalgamation has
occurred over the years (Sellners, 2008: 239). This applies even to the larger cities and their mushrooming
suburban hinterland. The reason for this plausibly lies essentially in a racial and ethnic divide between ‘white’
suburbs and ‘ethnically diverse’ central core cities with either side politically blocking amalgamation (Sancton,

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2002: 190).
As an alternative strategy to provide local- level public services, typically ‘special purpose’ bodies (school
districts and special purpose districts) have been created outside the (‘general purpose') local authorities, of-
ten territorially transcending them. Comparable to the intermunicipal bodies frequent in European countries,
they are meant to perform specific (primarily single purpose) functions (schools, public utilities, services etc.),
sometimes possessing a local taxing power of their own (Sellers, 2008: 237). In some, the directing boards
are chosen by separate direct elections, in others they are composed of representatives of member local
authorities. Amounting in a total of 50,432 units (in 2007) they by far outnumber the some 36,000 (general
purpose) local governments. The rapid rise of special purpose districts from some 18,000 in 1962 to some
34,000 in 1997 (figures from Scanton, 2002: 186), they have observed growing importance in US local gov-
ernment besides, and also in place of, the ‘general purpose’ local authorities.
Moreover, in order to cope with the demographically and functionally mushrooming metropolitan areas, var-
ious strategies of intermunicipal cooperation have been embarked upon, among which different forms of
overarching metropolitan governments have come to loom large (Sellers, 2008: 239; Sellers and Hoffmann-
Martinot, 2008: 259). Typically, such (sometimes still informal but also formally institutionalized) metropolitan
arrangements, geared to specific functions, consist of multiple municipalities and counties mostly along with,
and revolving around, the respective central city. For instance, the city region of San Francisco comprises 90
municipalities and 9 counties with a total of 6.78 million inhabitants, of whom 10.9% live in San Francisco as
the central city proper.3 Reflecting the characteristic aversion to amalgamation, these processes of ‘metro-
politization’ have gone without annexation of or merger of municipalities.
In Latin American countries, the local level is marked by a somewhat paradoxical territorial structure. On the
one hand, it shows a high degree of territorial fragmentation, even called ‘atomization’ (Rosales and Carmona,
2008: 179), with around 90% of all municipalities in the region having fewer than 50,000 inhabitants (Nickson,
2019: 134). The countries have typically refrained from territorial consolidation (amalgamation) as redrawing
local boundaries has been politically resisted by the culturally embedded understanding of local autonomy
(Nickson, 2019; Kersting et al., 2009: 79). In addition, in some countries, the number of (small-sized) mu-
nicipalities has even increased and, as in the case of Argentina, even doubled.4 On the other hand, a small
number of municipalities of the region count among the largest cities in the world, such as Mexico City (with
26 million inhabitants) and Sao Paolo (with 24 million inhabitants). While the city boundaries, notwithstand-
ing the demographically exploding metropolitan areas, have hardly been redrawn (rescaled) (Nickson, 2019:
134), many forms of intermunicipal cooperation, such as mancomunidades, have emerged (ibid.: 140), partic-
ularly around central cities and adjacent metropolitan areas (Rosales and Carmona, 2008: 180). Remarkably,
in Brazil, under the military regime, nine metropolitan cities were created, such as the (Metropolitan) Munic-
ipality of Sao Paulo, with some 13 million inhabitants, it the largest South American city, while Sao Paulo's
metropolitan area comprises 22 million people. However, in only few of the metropolitan areas in Latin Amer-
ican countries a functioning metropolitan system of government has been put in place that would allow them
to manage their territory in an integrated manner (for details see Rosales and Carmona, 2008: 179; Kersting
et al., 2009: 80).
In the Asia-Pacific region there is a great variance in the number and population size of municipalities (for
an overview and list of the territorial organization of local government in the Asia-Pacific region, see Nickson
et al., 2008, tables 3 and 4). Japan stands out as having carried out large-scale local-level territorial reforms
that, in two waves (1953 and 2001), reduced the number from some 6,000 to 1,820 (Norton, 1994: 457; Nick-
son et al., 2008: 64). In South-Asian countries, there is often a mix of modern local government structures
and traditional or customary village institutions (Nickson et al., 2008: 60, table 3). Due to rampant urbaniza-
tion (the population dwelling in urban areas has multiplied by seven since 1950) the countries have experi-
enced a rampant expansion of metropolitan areas (Sellers and Hoffmann-Martinot 2008: 261). The top ten of
the hundred largest metropolitan areas in the world are all located in Asia-Pacific countries; of these, Tokyo

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Metropolis (or the Greater Tokyo Area) is the most populous (with some 38 million inhabitants) consisting of
Tokyo (with 9 million) and some 20 neighbouring cities.
In most Sub-Saharan African countries hardly any amalgamations have been carried out at the local level
(for an overview see Letaief et al., 2008; table 1). However, following the end of the Apartheid regime in the
early 1990s, in South Africa, a large-scale local-level amalgamation has been effected which, as an essential
component of its decentralization programme of 1998 and as a crucial political goal, aimed at abolishing the
racially separated settlement structure and at creating racially mixed and integrated municipalities (Cameron,
2007; Kersting et al., 2009: 139; Baldersheim and Wollmann, 2006b: 116): the number of municipalities was
drastically reduced from some 1,000 to 284, averaging 62,000 and 6,000 inhabitations (Kersting et al., 2009:
141). At the same time, six metropolitan municipalities were created by amalgamation, for instance, the City
of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality (with some 960,000 inhabitants) as the core city of the adjacent
metropolitan area (counting some 7.8 million people (Sellers and Hoffmann-Martinot, 2008: 271)).
Local Democracy
The theme of local democracy is taken up in the following section along two institutional tracks: the first ad-
dresses the (representative democratic as well as direct democratic) rights and procedures empowering local
citizens to influence local political decision-making and the second focuses on determining local politico-ad-
ministrative leadership.
In Europe, in a tradition dating back to the 19th century, Switzerland stands out singularly in giving citizens
at all (federal, cantonal and local) levels of government the (direct democratic) right to determine political de-
cision-making (Kübler and Ladner 2003). In 80% of Swiss municipalities, local political decision-making lies
with (direct democratic town-meeting type) assemblies of citizens instead of elected local councils. Moreover,
local referendums on a broad scope of issues (local taxes etc.) are galore. On average the Swiss citizens
are invited to vote in local, cantonal and federal referendums on up to 30 subjects every year (ibid, 144) (for
a cautioning assessment, such as on low voter turn and socio-economically ‘biased’ interest assertion, see
(ibid.: 144).
To contrast, in the other European countries, historically, the principle of representative democracy has pre-
vailed, according to which the local citizens are entitled (and restricted) to elect the local councils as the
supreme (parliament-type) local decision-making bodies. However, since the 1990s, in an increasing num-
ber of countries, as a complement to local representative democracy, local referenda – both consultative and
binding – have been introduced. In some countries, such as in Germany, binding local referendums have
gained increasing frequency and considerable impact on local decision-making, at times revoking decisions
made by the elected council (Vetter et al., 2016: 277).
Tellingly, even in countries in which the principle of representative democracy has been firmly entrenched in
the country's political tradition and culture, direct democratic procedures have been adopted. A striking case
is the UK, where in 1998 regional referendums were held in Scotland and Wales, resulting in establishing
regional parliamentary assemblies and ushering in a ‘quasi-federal’ regional autonomy (Wilson and Game,
2011: 98), and in 2014 a regional referendum was conducted in Scotland on its becoming independent (re-
jected by a thin majority). The most conspicuous example was the recent national referendum held on June
23, 2016 on whether the UK should leave (‘Brexit') or remain in the EU (with a thin majority of 52% voting to
leave). Similarly, on local-level matters, direct democratic procedures have advanced, for instance in the 2000
legislation giving local citizens right to decide, by local referendum, to opt for the direct election of mayors
(ibid.: 113).
As for local leadership in Europe, historically, two schemes have evolved, both based on the representative
democracy principle (see country reports in Berg and Rao, 2005; Reynaert et al., 2009; for comparative
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overviews, see Wollmann, 2009; Copus et al., 2016; Lidström et al., 2016). In the ‘government by committee’
variant, which was in place in the UK and in Sweden, sector-specific committees of the elected local councils
were in charge of making the relevant decisions as well as directing and overseeing the respective admin-
istrative units. By contrast, in the ‘council mayor systems’ that have been practised throughout continental
European countries, the elected councils are the prime decision-making bodies while, in a kind of local par-
liamentary system, a council-elected executive (mayor) carries out the council's decisions alongside some
responsibilities of his own. In reaction to growing criticism over democratic (accountability) and operative
deficits, both systems have, since the 1990s, been reformed. In the ‘government by committees’ scheme, the
politico-administrative leadership has been, grosso modo, shifted to a (parliamentary system-type) political
council leader. By contrast, the traditional council mayor systems have been changed, visibly leaning on the
US example, towards a kind of local presidential system by introducing the directly elected executive (‘strong')
mayor. Germany took the lead as, since the beginning of the 1990s, all Länder have introduced the directly
elected (executive) mayor – in some Länder this process has been accompanied by recall procedures. More-
over, the direct election of the mayors has been adopted in other continental European countries (with the
exception, for instance, of France) as well as, in the wake of post-communist transformation, in Central East-
ern European countries (Copus et al., 2016; Marcou and Wollmann, 2008: 155).
In the Russian Federation, after the collapse of the Communist regime, a first major step towards creating de-
mocratic local government and to ensuring its autonomy was set by the adoption of the law ‘on local govern-
ment’ on July 6, 1991, in which, among others, the election of the local councils as well as the direct election of
a mayor (‘head of administration') was laid down (Wollmann, 2004b). However, following the abortive putsch
by Communist Party hardliners in August 1991 and the ensuing, fierce power struggle, the already scheduled
direct election of the mayors was postponed; instead the mayors were appointed by President Yeltsin in a
move to consolidate the (presidential) ‘vertical power’ grip. Later on, in 2005, the mayors were to be directly
elected throughout the country municipalities and, since then, as soon as Putin became President in 2012,
the position of the mayors as pivots of local democracy has been gradually undermined on two scores. First,
borrowing from the US example, new legislation has introduced the position of a city manager who, as the
newly appointed local chief executive, rivalled and eventually side-lined the elected mayor; in the meantime,
the city manager scheme has been installed in most municipalities as directly or indirectly appointed by the
regional governor. Second, under new legislation, the direct election of the mayors can be abolished, and the
sitting mayors can be dismissed by the regional governor (as an arm of the President) (Bucklay et al., 2014).
As of 2018, in only seven out of 85 regional capital cities are the mayors still directly elected. It appears that
the elected mayors are about to vanish, signalling the political and functional degradation local government
has undergone in Putin's era.
In the United States, direct, democratic local citizen rights have long been part and parcel of the country's de-
mocratic tradition, making the United States, besides Switzerland, virtually the homeland of direct democracy.
Since the 1820s, the direct election of mayors, and even judges, sheriffs and other local position-holders, has
been introduced (Norton, 1994: 394). Currently, only three out of the 50 States do not have legal provisions on
some type of local-level direct democratic procedures, including binding local referendums. Moreover, ‘home
rule’ provisions have been adopted in some States that give the local councils the right to adopt direct demo-
cratic procedures on their own (Svara 2005: 131).
In determining local leadership, two main variants have historically been in place (Norton, 1994: 421). First,
the directly elected (executive, strong) mayor form, which is common in larger cities, and, second, the (coun-
cil-appointed) city manager system, which is being increasingly adopted (Sellers, 2008: 248). In the last
decade, a gradual mix or ‘hybridization’ of both forms has taken shape with a trend towards ‘executive-cen-
tred governance’ (Savitch and Vogel, 2005: 213). Besides, recall procedures for local officials are legally pro-
vided for in about half of the States.
When Latin America, after having fallen under military and authoritarian rule between the 1960s and early
1980s, returned to democratic government during the mid 1980s, they moved to reinstall local democracy as

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well (Rosales and Carmona, 2008: 171). By 2008, all countries in the region, except Cuba, had free local-lev-
el elections (Kersting et al., 2009: 79). Influenced by the US example, the directly elected (executive, strong)
mayor form made its entry in the Latin American countries, along with recall procedures in some of them.
However, the political practice is often still marred by the centralist legacy of caudillismo (‘political bossism')
and a personalist political culture that tends to accentuate one-person leadership and to marginalize the role
of the elected councillors (Nickson, 2019: 144). As for direct democratic citizen rights in Brazil, the Constitu-
tion of 1988 laid down various forms of direct popular participation besides regular voting, such as referen-
dums and the right of citizens to propose new laws, including direct democratic and participatory local citizen
rights. The local participatory budget process, which directly involves the local community in formulating the
plans for municipal investments, was first applied between 1989 and 2004 in the city of Porto Alegre. In at-
tracting world-wide attention and recognition as a remarkable direct democratic innovation, participatory bud-
geting has since spread to other Latin American countries and beyond (Rosales and Carmona, 2008: 196;
Kersting et al., 2009: 112; on the spill-over of participatory budgeting into European countries, see Kersting
et al., 2016). However, by the 2010s, there has been a widening gap between the envisaged and proclaimed
citizen participation in local government and the sobering reality throughout the region (Nickson, 2019: 146).
In the (some 50) Sub-Saharan African countries, from the 1970s onward, steps have been undertaken, prod-
ded by international financial donors, to establish democratic local government as an important lever for eco-
nomic development (Kersting et al., 2009: 128). In a positive assessment of the development, ‘local elections
are being held with a regularity unprecedented in the history of Africa’ (Letaief et al., 2008: 44).5 However,
with regards to the political reality, observers speak of a ‘systematic decline and death of local democracy’
(Kersting et al., 2009: 128) as ‘national as well as local, tribal and family loyalties and traditions impact on
civic behaviour at the local level’ (ibid.: 150).
Again, South Africa stands out as a positive example. The municipal legislation of 1998 laid down a parlia-
mentary-type local government system made up of an elected council and a council-elected executive mayor.
At the same time, it emphasized the direct democratic participation in local decision-making (for details, see
Kersting et al., 2009: 153; Cameron, 2007: 318). The latter can be seen particularly in the provision, within
each municipality, of ‘ward committees', which are considered crucial in allowing different (social, ethnic, etc.)
groups to participate, on a voluntary basis, in local decision-making (Kersting et al., 2009: 158; for a caution-
ing assessment, see Kersting et al., 2009: 159).
Conclusion
Brief Notes on the Development and State of Research on Local Politics and
Government
The following remarks on the ‘state of the art’ of the research on local politics and government are, again,
bound to be sketchy and of a ‘broad brush’ (for a more detailed and referenced discussion, see the chapters
in Baldersheim and Wollmann, 2006a, particularly the historical overview by Goldsmith, 2006 and the sum-
marizing article by Baldersheim and Wollmann, 2006b).
From the 1940s and well into the 1960s, political science research on local politics and government was pri-
marily led by US scholars teaching and working in numerous academic institutions and benefiting from the
abundant research funding that was then available in the United States.
Since the 1970s, the relevant research networks and topics have both internationally and thematically ex-
panded. In 1970, the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) was formed and has come to en-
compass more than 350 institutions throughout Europe, with associate members across the world and its
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Standing Group on Local Government and Politics (Hoffmann-Martinot, 2006: 92). In 1972, the Research
Committee on the Comparative Study of Local Government and Politics, first chaired by Franco Kjellberg,
was formed within the International Political Science Association (IPSA) (the latter having been founded in
1950). Similarly, in 1975, the Research Commission on Urban and Regional Development, first chaired by
Terry Clark, was established within the International Sociological Association (founded in 1952).
Thus, by widening the international outreach and composition of researchers, the ‘Anglo-Saxon-centricity’ that
marked the earlier research discourse and agenda has been significantly recalibrated and shifted. The annual
conferences and workshops of the ECPR and its Standing Groups, and the ensuing publications, have greatly
contributed to the European research community developing a profile and self-confidence of its own (Gold-
smith, 2006: 15). In addition, in the wake of the collapse of the communist regime abroad, an, albeit relatively
short-lived, stream of publication focused on the subnational/local political and administrative transformation
in Central-Eastern European countries and in the Russian Federation occurred.
The research on subnational/local politics and government in European countries has, recently, been signifi-
cantly promoted by an EU-funded international research consortium (within the EU's COST programme) that
focused on ‘on local public sector reforms in Europe. It has generated a ‘wave’ of publications, among oth-
ers, on ‘Local Public Sector Reforms in Times of Crisis’ (Kuhlmann and Bouckaert, 2016) and on ‘Public and
Social Services in Europe. From Public and Municipal to Private Service Provision’ (Wollmann et al., 2016).
Thus, while the focus and arena of the ongoing political science debate and research on local politics and
government have become somewhat ‘Europeanized', research and publications in and on the ‘developing
countries’ appear to have remained quite scarce.
An important impulse to close this gap and to open up a global perspective, particularly on the ‘developing’
countries, has recently come from the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) (the world-wide umbrella
organization for cities, local and regional governments, and municipal associations) as the UCLG has initiat-
ed, organized and edited a series of ‘global reports’ that are researched and authored by scholars and experts
both from and on these ‘global’ regions. Tellingly, the UCLG's first ‘global report’ was on ‘decentralization and
democratization’ (GOLD I, see UCLG, 2008). Its ‘regional chapters’ make for a valuable research and infor-
mation source which has accordingly been amply drawn on and quoted in the writing of this article. In the
meantime, other equally important and substantive reports have been published by UCLG, on ‘local govern-
ment finance’ (GOLD II), ‘basic services’ (GOLD III) and on ‘co-creating the urban future’ (GOLD IV) (UCLG,
2010, 2014, 2017 respectively).
Convergence or Divergence in a Global Perspective?

In conclusion, the question shall be addressed as to whether, to which degree and why the institutional de-
velopment highlighted in the preceding account shows convergence or divergence in a global perspective.
Although varying in phase, dynamics and contents, world-wide, there have been convergent general (‘macro')
trends since 1945 towards decentralization and a strengthening of local government and local democracy.
The trends have been triggered and carried forward by politically, historically and contextually different factors
and events: as for the ‘developing’ countries, in Latin American countries (during the 1980s), following the end
of military rule; in Central Eastern European countries and Russia (after 1990), on the heels of the collapse
of communism; and in South Asian (after 1945) Sub-Saharan African countries (from the 1970s onwards),
following the end of colonial rule. In other, ‘developed’ countries, decentralizing and the strengthening of local
government gained traction with the post-war expansion of the national welfare state and the related transfer
of tasks to the local authorities while further democratization has, since the 1970s, been promoted by the ris-
ing demands for enhancing (local) citizens’ rights to both influence and hold policy-making accountable.

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However, while falling in line with these ‘macro trends’ the countries have shown significant variance in the
course and outcomes of these developments due to different political, historical and cultural givens and
forces. In South Asian and Sub-Saharan African countries, decentralization and local-democracy-targeted re-
forms have, after promising start-ups, been slowed down or stalled by persisting institutional and mental lega-
cies of their colonial past, by continuing tribal, ethnic and religious conflicts, their often dismal socio-economic
and financial conditions and, last not least, by corrupted political elites (Baldersheim and Wollmann, 2006b:
121). In post-communist countries, such as Russia and Hungary, the decentralization and democratization
process has been reverted by the return to quasi-authoritarian and centralist government under Orban and
Putin.
The rampant urbanization and massive rural-urban in-migration that transcends the existing territorial struc-
ture of the local government has become a world-wide crucial challenge. This applies particularly to Asian,
African as well as Latin-American countries, where, along with rampant population growth, urbanization and
agglomeration in and around mushrooming metropolitan areas has continued (Sellers and Hoffmann-Mar-
tinot, 2008). Hence, in the global perspective, the number and size of the metropolitan regions have expe-
rienced an explosive growth. While by 1975 there were five metropolitan regions with more than 10 million
inhabitants, (nota bene: three of them in developing countries) by 2000, the number of metropolitan areas of
this mega-size jumped to 16 (notably, twelve of them are in the developing region) (Sellers and Hoffmann-
Martinot, 2008: 259). At the same time, world-wide, the number of middle- and smaller-sized metropolitan
regions with big and larger municipalities as core cities in their midst have been increasing as well.
One of the strategies to cope with the challenges of the urbanization process has been to territorially and
functionally consolidate (amalgamate, fuse) the local authorities. This strategy has been embarked upon only
in a relatively small number of countries and cases (in some European countries during the 1970s, in Japan
in 1999 and in South Africa in 1999). Instead, different forms of intermunicipal cooperation and coordination
have been sought and experimented with. These various modalities range from informal voluntary and flexi-
ble agreements among municipalities to the creation, by way of amalgamating the municipalities concerned,
of a new territorially and functionally integrated metropolitan city (Sellers and Hoffmann-Martinot, 2008: 272).
However, in any case, the ensuing formation mostly covers only part of the actual extension of the surround-
ing metropolitan region.
Internationally, in the face of a world-wide, ‘globalized’ competition of transnational corporations within both
national and local markets, these ‘mega-cities', who because of their economic and financial potential and
global outreach are also identified as ‘global cities’ (Sassen, 1991), are eager to attract international compa-
nies to invest and relocate to them. In turn, ‘globalized’ companies experience a ‘dialectical process (in that)
global economic activities become more dispersed but also more embedded in particular territorial settings’
(Clarke, 2006: 39) – i.e. ‘localised’ in certain urban sites. This dialectical logic, which both ‘global’ cities and
globally operating companies have in common, has been dubbed ‘glocalization’ (linguistically fusing global
and local). In other words, global (politics) become local and vice versa.
Notes
1 To view data for 2017, see https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD.
2 Nota bene: not counting the high-income OECD countries such as Japan, Australia and New Zealand
3 For a list of the 20 US city regions with over 2 million inhabitants, see Sancton, 2002: 186.
4 See data on all Latin American countries in Nickson, 2019: 134, table 10.1 and Kersting et al., 2009: 3.2.
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5 For an overview of voting systems in municipal councils and of appointment modes of local executives in
15 Sub-Saharan countries, see Letaief et al., 2008: 45, table 5.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n65

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Policies beyond the State
Contributors: Eva G. Heidbreder & Daniel Schade

Chapter Title: "Policies beyond the State"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Policies beyond the State

Eva G. Heidbreder Daniel Schade
Definition
Policies beyond the state are the product of steering the public realm in contexts other than a territorially de-
lineated, hierarchically ordered state. Even though policies have never been exclusively contained within the
modern state, the explicit concern with policy-making beyond the state is rather young. Logically, it follows
from the shift to governance perspectives in International Relations (IR) and Public Policy research. In IR,
debates about globalisation and the independent impact of international organisations have widened the per-
spective to questions of global governance short of a hierarchical ordering system on the global scale (Rose-
nau and Czempiel, 1992). In Public Policy research, the turn to governance widened the notion of steering
as a hierarchical and state-led process to an understanding of a more permeable state whose policy-mak-
ing includes non-state actors of various kinds (Rhodes, 1996). The theoretical introduction of non-hierarchical
modes of governance, both in the international and within-state context, entail the logical consequence that
policy-making is no longer limited to the state represented by elected and administrative actors. At the same
time, hierarchical, state-limited policy-making continues to exist. Governance does by no means replace such
traditional forms of steering. Therefore, the traditional understanding of policy-making needs to be comple-
mented by the notion of policies beyond the state as the product of policy-making by non-state actors and
with an effect across borders or fully detached from state structures.
Accordingly, we introduce the following definition: Policies beyond the state are the product of policy-making
processes that are conducted in networks spanning beyond or detached from state-limited territories and ju-
risdiction, that are prone to involve non-state actors and have a significant impact beyond territorially defined
states.
Like the notion of governance (for a conceptual overview: Kjær, 2004), this definition remains somewhat blurry
and needs specification to capture its theoretical core. First, and most relevantly, policy-making actors per-
form in specific network formations that can take varying forms (Marsh and Rhodes, 1992 first introduce the
term policy networks). Policies can accordingly be produced by a wide range of interaction modes that do
not exclude hierarchical steering but rely mostly on alternative modes of policy-making. The notion of varying
modes of governance (Benz, 2007) captures these diverse forms of producing policies.
Second, the decisive networks are not limited to state actors. On the contrary, they are prone to include or
be fully made up of non-state actors such as civil society groups, non-governmental organisations (NGOs),
companies, experts and epistemic communities, but also supranational or international bureaus and their of-
ficials. What makes the outcome of policy-making involving such actors a policy spanning beyond the state is
both their status as non-state actors and their linkages and interactions beyond the territory and jurisdiction of
the state. In IR, this has sparked a wide literature on the question of whether international organisations mat-
ter and, if so, how (Keohane and Nye, 1974; Barnett and Finnemore, 1999), as well as questions regarding
the global impact of non-state networks such as social movements (Mattli and Büthe, 2005; Hafner-Burton
and Montgomery, 2006). Inside the state, it is equally the recognition that public policies are not exclusively
shaped by state officials or elected decision-makers (Marsh and Rhodes, 1992; Rhodes, 1996), in part linked
to the normative claim that governance should include civil society and private actors (Bennett, 2005; Keck
and Sikkink, 2014). Exemplary research is offered by studies on the highly institutionalised policy-making con-
text of the EU, which offers a set governance framework for policy-making context of of the European Union
(EU). The EU is in fact a governance system beyond the state that allows us to study the influence of non-
hierarchical steering (Héritier and Lehmkuhl, 2008), lobbying (Quittkat and Kotzian, 2011) and civil society
involvement (Kohler-Koch, 2013b; Heidbreder, 2012).
Finally, the outputs and outcomes of such de-territorialised and non-hierarchical policy-making span beyond

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the boundaries of the single (unitary) state. Again, this feature is not uniquely new. Strictly speaking, all foreign
policy-making meets this criterion. Yet, in combination with networked actor interaction and the openness to
non-state actors, the notion of policies beyond the state captures precisely policies that are not explicitly di-
rected at external actors but inevitably produce externalities that go beyond a clearly defined territory that
coincides with a delineated political system and jurisdiction. Hand in glove, this produces new venues rang-
ing from the global to regional and local level with varying degrees of institutionalisation. The arguably most
researched alternative venue that meets this definition is the EU, inside which policy-making beyond the state
has been strongly institutionalised on the supranational level as well as through inter-state cooperation, offer-
ing policy-dependent levels and scopes of integration (Zürn, 2003; Archibugi et al., 2011).
In sum, following the observation that the ‘political boundaries that have structured many examinations of
policy-making are less definitive than at any time since the mid-twentieth century’ (Perl, 2013: 45), policies
beyond the state become a main concern in order to understand, explain and shape present policy-making.
Notably, due to the specific features of policy-making beyond the state, we are also faced with significant,
new normative concerns about democratic legitimacy due to the new logic of (self)delegation and control that
such policy-making entails.
To unfold the core of the notion of policies beyond the state, the next section first offers an overview of ex-
planatory approaches in IR and policy research to ask how these may apply to policies beyond the state. In
addition, we contrast the de-territorialised notion of policies with the standard theoretical heuristic of the policy
cycle to highlight the parallels and differences to traditional policy-making. To render these theoretical elabo-
rations more accessible, the proceeding section provides an exemplary selection of empirical research. Due
to its bottom-up emergence on the global scene and its truly global reach, climate policy has attracted special
attention in academia. Hence, this policy serves to illustrate how multiple research questions and approaches
are applied in studying policies beyond the state. Finally, we offer a short outlook based on on-going debates
and remaining gaps in the research of policies beyond the state.
Explaining and Conceptualising Policy-making beyond the State

Policies beyond the state relate strongly to the sub-disciplines of IR and Public Policy, and theories originating
in both fields can contribute to explaining the origin and functioning of policies beyond the state. Accordingly,
underlying research questions and causal explanations vary widely. As pointed out above, a main concern of
IR literature has been the very question of if political organisation and administration beyond the state exists
in its own right and with its own independent actorness, or if it is a mere expression of (unitary) states’ nego-
tiated wills. Considering that international organisations matter raises further questions about how they can
influence and steer policies up to the critical step of effective implementation and enforcement. These ques-
tions have been tackled with various kinds of IR approaches. This variance in approaches reflects the plurality
of explanatory theories that range from rationalism, which views IR as interactions between mostly unitary
states, to constructivist and transnationalist theories that start from the assumption of interdependencies. Due
to the core question of whether international organisations ‘matter’ at all as independent actors, new institu-
tionalist approaches have been a key analytical framework (Hall and Taylor, 1996). Rather than a theory itself,
institutionalism can be applied with a rationalist, sociological or historical explanatory core, which makes the
approach compatible with the dominant realist and constructivist schools in IR. Similarly, the notions of a log-
ic of appropriateness – linked to rather sociological explanations – and a logic of consequences – linked to
rational explanations – have been applied in Policy Analysis (for the distinction, see March and Olsen, 2004).
Reflecting the plurality of these different theories, processes and outcomes of international, global or trans-
boundary policy-making cannot be explained by one approach. Yet, certain approaches have been particular-
ly useful in capturing processes beyond borders because they are suited to capture actor interactions and the
production of policy-outcomes short of the ordering structures of the state. Amongst the more frequently used
approaches are liberal theories that underline global interdependencies, constructivist theories that uncover
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global communities and values, sociological and rational institutionalist approaches that offer different expla-
nations for the impact of institutionalisation, and rational approaches that have brought forth rational choice
and principal-agent approaches to explain actor interactions as a matter of strategic calculation by rent-seek-
ing actors. This non-exhaustive list could be extended by critical theories – such as feminist approaches –
and their respective focus on underlying power relationships. In essence, reviewing the variety of theoretical
lenses that inform our understanding of policies beyond the state underpins that the subject area is in fact
already a significant issue across different scientific agendas rather than a single-standing research field in
its own right.
While explanatory theories remain largely committed to the respective theoretical sources instead of adding
to a genuine ‘theory of the policy beyond the state', heuristics that serve the systematic description of policy-
making have been more consistently adapted. However, expanding the definition of policies beyond the state
raises the question as to how far established conceptualisations and theories of policy-making still serve their
descriptive and explanatory purpose. The most prominent heuristic in policy analysis is the policy cycle or
policy stages (Howlett et al., 2009). It sub-divides policy-making into stages – mostly problem definition, pol-
icy-formulation, decision-making, policy implementation and evaluation. Each one of these stages bears its
respective functioning logic and regularities, although their empirical appearance may diverge from the theo-
retical stages. Even though this heuristic has been criticised for its limited applicability to actual overlapping
policy processes, it still remains a useful and widely applied ideal typical device to depict and analytically dis-
entangle policy-making. In addition, the separate stages have been analysed in their own right with research
agendas that provide insights about the respective functioning logics. Accordingly, policy research has devel-
oped different streams that focus on separate stages, such as decision-making or implementation exclusively.
There is no overarching translation of these stages to policies beyond the state. Obviously, such a direct
transfer is hardly possible because the single stages must play out differently according to mixed actor con-
stellations, modes of governance and venues at stake in a particular process. To illustrate how the stages
play out differently if we remove the framework of the delineated state-territory and closed jurisdiction, we
take policy-making in the policy cycle of the EU as an example (cf. Heidbreder and Brandsma, 2017). As the
EU has highly institutionalised supranational policy-making structures, it is a useful illustration for policy-mak-
ing beyond the state that exposes regularities that can be assumed to hold equally for policy-making in other
highly institutionalised regional organisations or trans-border networks. Drawing on the parallels between tra-
ditional policy-making and policy-making beyond the state, it is assumed that the inner logic of policy-making
does not change. Independent of actor constellations, action modes and venues, the cycle heuristic therefore
remains useful. Moreover, certain critical research questions about policy-making remain the same: how is a
political problem defined and decided upon; how can a policy that reacts to it be implemented and evaluated?
The way these questions are treated reveals the specific differences in the application of the heuristic beyond
the state. This can be exemplified by the selected research contributions from EU research and beyond that
tackle specific policy-related questions.
Thus, the agenda-setting (Princen, 2009), policy-formulation (Hartlapp et al., 2013) and decision-making
(Best, 2016; Tsebelis, 2002) stages have attracted particular research interest. In all stages, analyses pinpoint
the implications of the more permeable governance structures that lead to less fixed actor networks and the
inclusion of non-state actors. Veto-player analyses for decision-making have been particularly prominent be-
cause of the extended circle of decision-makers that render decision-making more complex and reduce the
capability of actors to change decisions once they have been institutionalised (Scharpf, 2006). At the same
time, the explicit lack of hierarchical steering authority has evoked extensive work on the EU's use of so-
called new modes of governance (Eberlein and Kerwer, 2004) that are based on mechanisms such as com-
petition, bargaining, incentive setting and persuasion (Treib et al., 2005) – or combinations thereof (Benz,
2009). Notably, while scholars have extensively studied the EU's agenda-setting and decision-making stages,
these concepts also hold for other non-state contexts. A remarkable example of an international scientific re-
search network is the comparative agendas project, which collects agenda-setting data in five countries and
in the EU (see: https://www.comparativeagendas.net). Likewise, veto-player and new modes of governance
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perspectives have not remained limited to the EU, but the shift to an actor-focus allows an analysis of non-hi-
erarchical policy-making in non-state contexts, as illustrated below for the case of climate policy.
Like agenda-setting and decision-making, policy implementation represents a large and well-established re-
search focus in its own right. Policy implementation beyond the state has the particular twist to it that deci-
sions have either been taken in an international venue and need to be voluntarily transposed into national
law, or that they depend on voluntary action altogether. Only rarely are policies beyond the state truly sub-
ject to a hierarchical order. This eventually also applies to EU policy-making that ultimately depends on the
willingness of national governments to comply with joint EU-decisions (Börzel and Heidbreder, 2017). Accord-
ingly, the question of ‘compliance’ of national actors with EU-law has brought forth a whole stream of literature
(Treib, 2014). While initial compliance studies focused very much on the formal transposition of EU regula-
tion into national law, the agenda has widened to direct implementation by specialised EU agencies (Egeberg
and Trondal, 2011) and ‘beyond compliance’ to more general questions of implementation and enforcement
(Thomann and Sager, 2018). These studies go as far as studying the relevance of low-level bureaucrats for
the implementation of policies that come from ‘outside’ their immediate political context (Dörrenbächer, 2017).
These perspectives allow the generalisation more broadly of the regularities and dynamics of implementa-
tion beyond the state along long-standing dimensions (Heidbreder, 2017, 2015). Such questions have raised
increasing attention to the underpinning administrative structures and processes of administration because
policies beyond the state naturally imply the need to either create new administrations that cut across borders
(mainly international secretariats), or ways for national administrations to cooperate across borders given that
policy enforcement largely remains purely state-based (Heidbreder, 2011). The studies on multilevel adminis-
trations thus offer deeper insights for policy implementation beyond the state more generally (Bauer and Tron-
dal, 2015). Hence, the particularities of EU policy-making have been systematically compared to secretariats
of international organisations, revealing striking similarities in policy initiation, formulation and implementation
(Bauer et al., 2017) and link to other research on international bureaucracies more generally (Knill and Bauer,
2016).
In sum, these studies that treat policies beyond the state highlight more than the conceptual usefulness of tra-
ditional Public Policy heuristics. The theoretical extension has been applied intensely in EU studies but also
in other international, transnational or global policy-making. Studying these non-state policy-making venues
and actors implies a shift of attention to the relevance of policy networks, the interaction between different
jurisdictions, the role of veto-players and the importance of the varying degrees of institutionalisation of pro-
cedures and rules. In addition, the focus on supranational policy-making has brought forth new topics. The
so-called Europeanisation literature asks how EU policy-making shapes national polity, politics and policies
and vice-versa (Green Cowles et al., 2001). In addition these EU-specific findings have been extended to
a comparative research agenda to analyse transnational policy-making in other sub-national regional units
(Börzel and Risse, 2015).
The Empirical Research: Climate Policy as an Exemplary Case

Given the different analytical guises and concepts related to policies beyond the state, empirical research into
this phenomenon has been the subject of varying research agendas that do not make for a single, homoge-
nous field of study. Therefore, this section does not offer a review of all the policy fields where it occurs, but
instead uses the well-researched, yet complex, field of environmental and climate change policy to exem-
plify the variety of dimensions of the phenomenon and to illustrate the plurality of research concerned with
it. In particular, international climate change policy-making demonstrates the relevance of policy-making in
networks and venues that depart from traditional notions of territory and hierarchy, while the impact of this
policy-making similarly permeates the notion of boundaries.
The advent of climate change as a policy issue departs from traditional notions of hierarchy in policy-making,
as it was primarily scientists’ concerns and their collective activity as ‘knowledge brokers’ (Bodansky, 2001:
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27) that helped frame climate change as an international political issue, ultimately leading to the set-up of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) under the auspices of the United Nations Environment
Programme in the late 1980s. Initial agenda-setting on climate change thus followed a bottom-up approach
that was ultimately enabled by the networked activity of non-traditional actors, namely scientists and their al-
lies from the outset. While the IPCC was indeed designed as an intergovernmental organisation, its set-up
included both governments and non-governmental organisations as observers. Scientists formally involved in
this body also influence it through their activity as an epistemic community around this issue (Newell, 2006:
41–43), thereby demonstrating one of the ways in which governmental and non-governmental actors can in-
teract in policy-making beyond the state. As the more recent example of epistemic communities involved in
advocacy for so-called carbon capture and storage technology shows, these can include unusual constella-
tions of actors such as businesses and civil society organisations working hand-in-hand (Mariussen, 2010).
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the associated Conferences
of the Parties (COPs) have emerged as the main venues for international climate change policy-making,
including the groundbreaking Kyoto Protocol of 1997 and the 2015 Paris Agreements. These international
agreements set out reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Accordingly, a lot of research has focused on
the dynamics of these gatherings, which once more include both governmental and international non-govern-
mental actors. The most recent studies on the 21st meeting in Paris serve as a telling example to understand
how a transnational consensus on a single policy, climate change policy targets, could be found and which
roles were played by the individual actors both in the run-up and during the meeting (Dimitrov, 2016). This
meeting in particular is well-researched as it led to the conclusion of the Paris Agreement with its associated
target and measures to limit climate change. Similar to early agenda-setting and the activity of the IPCC, var-
ious kinds of non-governmental actors ranging from businesses to civil society organisations have also con-
tinued to play a role in global climate change policy-making in this context (Bäckstrand et al., 2017). For the
notion of policy-making beyond the state in this example, it is particularly relevant that governmental actors
and NGOs should not be seen as antagonists in this process as a large part of climate change policy-making
relies on partnerships stretching across these distinctions (Pattberg, 2010).
Research into the COPs as the most formalised venue for climate governance is useful when gathering in-
sights into one particular dimension of climate change policy-making. However, as is part of the underlying
dynamics of policy-making beyond the state, the COPs are only one of multiple venues within which climate
change policy-making occurs. Ultimately, various traditional and non-traditional actors are able to use different
fora for different kinds of discussions on climate change policy, which ultimately contributes to a fragmentation
of the global climate change regime (Zelli, 2011). For instance, at the global level, climate change policy-mak-
ing also forms part of the activities of the regular gatherings of the G7/G8 industrialised nations, or indeed the
G20 of leading global economies (Kirton and Kokotsis, 2015). It is also relevant to note that while important
decisions on policy are taken globally, this needs to be complemented by policy-making in other contexts,
such as at the national level, to achieve the targets set in a global context. This ultimately shows that cli-
mate change is a policy issue that is decided upon concurrently at the global, national and other levels (Rabe,
2007). An important example of the complexity that ensues from this multi-layeredness are the climate policy
activities of the EU as a dedicated venue for transboundary policy-making, which are both influenced by deci-
sions at the global level and shaped by the positions of its member states (Skjærseth and Wettestad, 2008).
Beyond that, climate change policy-making also occurs at levels and by governmental actors not traditionally
considered in international policy-making. For instance, both regional governments and city authorities have
developed trans-border climate change policies on their own, often in the absence of or despite policy-making
at the international and national level. This has been studied with regard to the role of networks between US
states and Canadian provinces in North America (Boyd, 2017), between networks of globalised cities (Bulke-
ley, 2013), or in the more institutionalised context of transnational municipal networks, within the EU (Giest
and Howlett, 2013).
In addition to the diversity of decision-making venues and actor constellations, climate and environmental pol-
icy-making also demonstrates the advent of new modes of policy-making, such as the set-up of market-based
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mechanisms or environmental certification of products to shape outcomes. In the realm of climate policy-mak-
ing, the issue of greenhouse gas emissions markets is a particularly prominent policy tool, and one extensive
such emissions market exists within the EU (Skjærseth and Wettestad, 2008). Similarly, product or practice
certification aims at setting incentives, and this has occurred for multiple environmental issues (Bartley and
Smith, 2010) including the management of forests (Chan and Pattberg, 2008). The latter phenomenon is par-
ticularly driven not by traditional state actors, but by businesses, NGOs and other stakeholders working to-
gether.
Climate change policy-making thus occurs in parallel in different venues uniting different actor constellations
at different levels of decision-making and with different modes of policy-making. In addition to this, there are
also important bottom-up interactions between these levels and venues. Once more the example of the EU
can be used, as it has aimed to internationalise its environmental and climate change policies by advocating
for defining its policies as global standards (Kelemen, 2010). In the absence of an active push for the global
adoption of climate change policy-making in one venue, such policy-making can also have indirect effects on
others. For instance, the adoption of stringent car emissions standards in one jurisdiction may have important
effects in others, including on ensuing policy-making in those jurisdictions (Perkins and Neumayer, 2012).
Environmental and climate change policy-making is a particularly well-researched field that can serve to il-
lustrate the complexity and prevalence of policies beyond borders, including policy-making processes that
involve networks of non-traditional actors which permeate established boundaries, multiple and often parallel
venues for decision-making, innovative policy-making mechanisms as well as complex policy impacts at dif-
ferent levels. Climate policy is by far not the only policy area with such elementary policy-making features that
reach beyond the state. Research into other global challenges such as economic and financial stability, ter-
rorism, or international migration can serve as the basis for similar enquiries into the phenomenon. Given the
persistent multitude of theoretical angles and specific research interests policies beyond the state are treated
under, the empirical studies cover a wide and very dispersed literature that is mostly accessed through the
specific streams rather than an overreaching agenda on policies beyond the state.
Future Challenges for Research and Practice

The conceptual, theoretical and empirical overview on policies beyond the state presented here point to rel-
evant scientific, applied and normative questions for future research. The on-going debates indicate the con-
cern for policy-making beyond the state in many, very diverse research agendas. Despite its academic rich-
ness, this diversity indicates that there is a continued gap between researchers interested in policy-making
research and those that study policies rather indirectly, through questions focused on issues such as the pos-
sibility and dynamics of international cooperation. Beside the very encompassing research on policy-making
processes as well as its practical and normative implications, IR and Public Policy research have still not fully
established the policy-making side as a joint standard analytical perspective. Although recent research has
expanded to international administration as a subject of research in its own right, a consideration of policy-
making approaches is often rather a side-aspect when studying other phenomena such as regionalism or the
role of international organisations in globalised politics. This concluding section will therefore spell out the re-
maining scientific, applied and normative gaps.
First, we can identify multiple scientific desiderates. These follow mainly from the still by-and-large separate
research fields of IR and Policy Analysis. Although both sub-disciplines tackle policies beyond the state from
their respective analytical angle, the specific policy-related insides are rarely directly linked. In EU research,
this inter-disciplinary divide has in some part been overcome by the ‘governance turn’ (Kohler-Koch and Rit-
tberger, 2006) which has led to research that considers the EU as a polity ‘beyond the state’ in its own right
and, accordingly, its specific policy-making system (Wallace et al., 2014). The introduction of the governance
framework allows analysing systematically how an explicit non-state policy operates and produces policies.
However, while the EU is often depicted as a laboratory for non-state policy-making processes, findings are
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hardly ever generalised beyond the EU or subject to sincere comparative research (legal scholars more regu-
larly draw parallels between EU and international law and governance, see e.g. Mendes and Venzke, 2018).
Therefore, to advance the study of policies beyond the state, we are faced with multiple challenges. On the
one hand, much conceptual and theoretical basic research on how to transfer established concepts and ex-
planations to the transboundary context, and especially at a generalisable level is still missing. On the other
hand, studying phenomena beyond national jurisdictions and institutionally established structures implies sig-
nificant empirical challenges of how to identify, measure and compare the complex processes of policy-mak-
ing, especially given the interlinkages with established institutions and decision-making models. The existing
studies on regional policy-making and international bureaucracy offer valuable starting points for these en-
deavours.
Second, in face of policy problems beyond states, the study of the conditions under which policies beyond
borders can be produced and effectively executed gain preeminent relevance. Borderless challenges such as
global warming, economic crises, migration or organised crime and terrorism can hardly be resolved within
the territorial boundaries of a single state (interestingly, opponents to multilateralism and cross- or sub-na-
tional governance often negate the existence of these threats altogether). In contrast, assuming interdepen-
dencies between states, communities and individuals, as well as the ecosystems we live in, makes research
on policy-making beyond the state pre-eminent. Exemplary questions include how global climate agreements
can be effectively implemented, or if completely different instruments at various levels are needed; how glob-
al economic networks can be stabilised or should be reshaped; and how and why humans migrate and how
these movements can be steered in a mutually beneficial manner. However, even if the interdependency as-
sumption is relaxed, also for representatives of rational theories who consider international politics essen-
tially as an interaction between unitary states, policies beyond the state are a significant practical issue for
how to treat and use international venues. Given recent political attempts to reverse established practices of
policy-making beyond the state, in particular in institutionalised multilateral venues such as the EU, the Unit-
ed Nations or NATO, it is in turn necessary to ask whether and under what conditions such policy-making
is undone, and if decision-making logics stratify over time. In addition, all these trends take place in a con-
text marked by radical changes in information and communication technologies that offer previously unknown
means to manage and develop governance structures beyond boundaries, for instance in the administration
of cross-border policies (Heidbreder, 2015). The impact of digitalisation, the new opportunities for effective
transboundary policy-making and its wider implications remain largely under-researched.
Third, normative implications of policy-making beyond the state follow directly from these applied and empiri-
cal issues and revolve mainly around questions of the legitimation of de-territorialised policy-making. Not only
is the traditional state order based on hierarchical command-and-control systems of governance challenged
through a – at least partial – dissolution thereof. In the case of little or non-institutionalised processes and
networks, legitimation of policy-making is also rendered more complex. The standard model for democratic
participation remains built around the assumption of hierarchical and territory-based decision-making and le-
gitimation chains of a closed and independent jurisdiction. It is precisely these features that are permeated
or even dissolved by policy-making beyond the state. A debate on the possibility for liberal democratic pol-
icy-making in an internationalised context has developed in parallel to these observations (Plattner, 2007),
though it has recently become more pronounced. In the context of the EU, this has led to an intensive de-
bate on the presence of a ‘democratic deficit’ of the non-state-like governance system (Føllesdal and Hix,
2006; Moravcsik, 2002). A parallel discussion on the legitimacy of the EU's supranational decision-making
emphasises that despite its institutional innovations, it is only the persistent relevance of traditional democra-
tic institutions that can provide legitimacy in ordinary supranational decision-making or bottom-up processes
involving civil society (Kohler-Koch, 2010, 2013a).
The same questions about how the mis-match between the decision-making and the decision-taking actors,
which is inevitable in policy-making beyond the state, can be mitigated and ‘democratised’ remains a contin-
ued, pressing issue for all policy-making beyond the state. While, at least theoretically, authors have pointed
to possibilities for (democratic) incipient legitimation strategies beyond the state, awareness of the problem
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has risen in the public discourse in recent years because both ‘globalisation’ and ‘Europeanisation’ have en-
tered the domain of political contestation. Notable opponents of these processes claim that the aim of ‘glob-
alist’ elites involved in policy-making beyond the state is ultimately to circumvent nationally delineated modes
of democratic legitimation. The policies of the Donald Trump administration, or the attempts to repatriate pol-
icy-making powers to a sovereign UK after the Brexit referendum are but a few examples of the results of the
very questioning of policies beyond borders as a new societal cleavage. Beyond empirical research agendas
into the potential for policy-making beyond borders in an increasingly politicised context, such debates also
raise important normative questions that research needs to be concerned with. To name but a few: How can
personal freedoms and rights be protected in a globally interlinked digital space? How can citizens influence
inter- or sub-state decision-making that happens between, but not within, a democratically ordered territory
of a state? Who is ultimately responsible for externalities of policy-making that span beyond the space, the
group or the time-span the decision-makers have been mandated for? And who are legitimate decision-mak-
ers after all? These questions of how we should and want to be governed are essential if we assume global
challenges signal a growing need for policy-making beyond the state.
Given on-going social, economic and technological developments, policy-making beyond the state will remain
a vital phenomenon that deserves to be studied more closely. Socially and politically, actions and lives them-
selves have become more mobile and indeed ‘transboundary'. In the realm of the economy, an increasing de-
coupling between sites of the knowledge economy and the production of physical goods has also increased
the degree of international exchanges, and the linkage of the physical economy with digital aspects has
altered power relationships in this domain. Technological changes, in particular, have radically altered the
way in which individuals can communicate with one another and gain insights into developments in faraway
places, yet they have also created the possibility for faraway actors to influence public opinion and political
processes elsewhere. These innovations add thrust to the scope of policies beyond the state, both in terms of
problem definitions and policy-making tools to reply to these challenges. These fundamental dynamics imply
not least a reallocation of social, economic and power resources. Hence, economic inequality, international
conflicts, and the consequences of climate change have created larger linkages between societies, leading to
actual mobility across borders and an increasing politicisation of migration. At the same time, we observe not
only an increase of policy-making beyond the state, but also massive resistance based on policy solutions to
roll-back policy-making beyond the state in favour of traditional, territorially delineated national policy-making
within the hierarchically ordered state. Against this backdrop, a further consideration of policy-making beyond
the state faces not only significant research gaps, but also creates practical challenges for policy-makers and
raises important normative questions that deserve more intense efforts and attention.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n66

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Politics and Policy
Contributors: Giliberto Capano

Chapter Title: "Politics and Policy"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Politics and Policy

Giliberto Capano
Policy and Politics: Same Object, Two Words, Two Disciplines?

The definition of concepts and the adoption of specific terms represent the first steps of any scientific under-
taking. Defining the phenomenon to be studied in one way rather than in another may radically influence the
theoretical perspective through which politics is analyzed. Different definitions correspond to different ways of
conducting the Science of Politics (Lowi, 1992). In Political Science, the ‘mother’ of all definitions is the defin-
ition of the political phenomenon, and this intrinsically involves the dyad represented by politics and policy.
The distinction between politics and policy is not a simple one to establish. There is not only a linguistic prob-
lem – that is, that these two words exist only in English, while in other languages just one word is used to ex-
press the political phenomenon – but also the historical legacy with which each country addresses the social
construction of what political affairs are. We could quickly resolve this question by following Heinz Eulau, who
underlined that, all in all, the fact that only the English language has two words covering the same semantic
field, due to a specific historical development of the UK, while all other languages only have one word for the
two concepts, ‘suggests that there is not politics apart from policy and no policy apart from politics. The differ-
entiation that can be made is analytic and does refer to something concrete’ (Eulau, 1977: 420). However, by
following this perspicacious observation, something would remain totally unexplained, namely the emergence
of public policy as a specific object of study accompanied by a number of specific theoretical (sub-)disciplines
devoted to analyzing this object. The question ‘why policy sciences do exist’ would remain unanswered, as
would that regarding the justification for policy analysis and for the fact that Public Policy permits so many
political scientists to call themselves policy scholars.
The analytical distinction suggested by Eulau should probably be the beginning of every reflection on the top-
ic. In fact, precisely because Eulau underlines that fact that the distinction is only analytical and not concrete,
means that it permits different definitions of the same object to be offered or different dimensions of the same
phenomenon to be focused on. All in all, the analytical distinctions are one of the pillars of the analysis of ‘real-
ity', whereby that reality is circumscribed and ordered, and its relevant dimensions are established. Moreover,
different analytical definitions permit different characteristics of the same phenomenon to be grasped. This
is definitively true even in the case of the politics–policy dyad. Let me here recall that in the endless debate
about the conceptualization of political phenomena, this dual dimension is always present. If we assume, for
now, that politics is a continuous struggle for power and the exercise of such (power), while policy is the com-
plex process whereby solutions to collective problems are pursued, then these two dimensions have always
been present in the theorization of politics since ancient times. Consequently, it is not surprising that also in
contemporary political science, the definitional debate continues to rumble on.
The never-ending nature of such debate clearly shows what the implications are, in terms of scientific inquiry,
when focusing either on politics or on policy: depending on the definition of the political phenomenon adopt-
ed, different disciplinary perspectives are at stake. This underlines the importance of the politics–policy dyad
with all of its analytical, theoretical and empirical consequences. In this chapter I shall try to disentangle the
politics–policy problem conundrum by using an analytical framework, starting (in the section ‘Concepts and
Words: A Brief Historical Overview') with a brief historical overview of the evolution of the concept(s) of the
political phenomenon. In the section ‘Different Words, Different Meanings, Different Disciplines?', I shall focus
on the antagonistic rise of a policy-centered science of politics, while in the section ‘Reconnecting Policy and
Politics. The State of the Empirical Study of Political Phenomena’ I shall show how the two dimensions of the
political phenomenon can be reconnected through the public policy approach.
Concepts and Words: A Brief Historical Overview

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The Politics–Policy Dyad Prior to the Advent of Political Science

Like other concepts that change their meaning according to the context and the time when they are used (as
witnessed, for example, by the historical development of the meaning of the concept of ‘family'), the concept
of politics has also undergone significant changes over time. Moreover, different words have been used to
cover its semantic field.
The Ancient Greeks’ concept of politics differs considerably from current definitions of the same notion (or
at least from the definition of politics most commonly adopted by political scientists, since, as I shall show
below, one element of that ancient definition has reappeared with the emergence of the policy perspective).
The word ‘πολιτική’ looks the same, but the meaning is very different, and above all, the context has com-
pletely changed. In fact, the Greek conceptualization of politics was based on the indistinctness of politics,
society and ethics. Politics was conceived as the collective dimension of communal living, as the specific di-
mension that distinguishes human beings from animals. Furthermore, the Greek word means, unsurprisingly,
‘“the things concerning” the πόλις (the city)'.
As Aristotle (Politics 1252a) has written:
it is evident that a city is a natural production, and that man is naturally a political animal, and that
whosoever is naturally and not accidentally unfit for society, must be either inferior or superior to
man: thus the man in Homer, who is reviled for being ‘without society, without law, without family'.
Such a one must naturally be of a quarrelsome disposition, and as solitary as the birds. The gift of
speech also evidently proves that man is a more social animal than the bees, or any of the herding
cattle: for nature, as we say, does nothing in vain, and man is the only animal who enjoys it. Voice
indeed, as being the token of pleasure and pain, is imparted to others also, and thus much their na-
ture is capable of, to perceive pleasure and pain, and to impart these sensations to others; but it is
by speech that we are enabled to express what is useful for us, and what is hurtful, and of course
what is just and what is unjust: for in this particular man differs from other animals, that he alone has
a perception of good and evil, of just and unjust, and it is a participation of these common sentiments
which forms a family and a city.
Thus, politics was conceived as the totalizing dimension of the Greek citizen: it did not define the political phe-
nomenon but the human being (Sartori, 1973, 1987). Seen from this perspective, the ultimate political good
was the collective good of wealth. In some ways this feature echoes one fundamental dimension of Lasswell's
(1951, 1971) proposal for policy orientation. This Ancient Greek conception of the political was necessari-
ly characterized by those horizontal relationships that are typical of living as a community (koinonia politiké)
where the exercise of power is collectively managed.
The Aristotelian conception of politics has come to the fore, notwithstanding the variety of perspectives that
characterized Ancient Greek tradition. These include Plato's hierarchical, profoundly ethical conception, the
utilitarian vision of the Sophists, and the definition of politics as the art of persuasion as proposed by Protago-
ras. However, the Aristotelian conception of politics (with its ‘policy’ dimension) was to prevail, thanks to the
Christian doctrine, and particularly to the Thomistic interpretation, which by bringing together religion, ethics,
law and politics, institutionalized politics’ focus on what needed to be done to achieve the common good.
Until Machiavelli, what for us would constitute real politics – and thus all questions relating to power, its dis-
tribution and its exercise – was not covered by the word politics itself, but by words like ‘regnum', ‘dominium',
‘gubernaculum’ and ‘principatus'. From this point of view, although it is always difficult and methodologically
questionable, when applying contemporary categories to the past, it could be said that until the Middle Ages,
different words were used to define political phenomena and (in one way or another) the policy–politics di-
mension.
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It is not surprising that Machiavelli – of whom many consider to be the first modern political thinker (politics
being perceived as an activity strictly related to power and the exercise of it) and the founder of modern polit-
ical science (Mansfield, 1981) titled his fundamental work The Prince, exactly because he wanted to empha-
size that vertical dimension of politics that was not expressed by the contemporary use of the word. In terms
of the politics–policy dyad, Machiavelli's thought may be considered double-sided. In fact, on the one hand,
the Florentine thinker is considered the founder of modern political science, not only for his primary focus on
power and its exercise, but also, and above all, for his realistic perspective. On the other hand, he may also
be considered a policy analyst. Indeed, thanks to his realistic (due to it being power-centered) focus and em-
pirical approach, Machiavelli develops what we might call an applied vision of politics: his main goal is to offer
the Prince the best possible policy advice, meaning what instruments to adopt in order to pursue his chosen
ends. In doing so, Machiavelli analyzed the decisional and policy-making process by paying specific attention
to the instruments utilized for the implementation of decisions and policy. Thus, he focused on the various as-
pects of the art of government, in order to render it more effective (Friedrich, 1963; Regonini, 1995), and not
on power alone. This aspect of Machiavellian thinking has been seen as a way by which to carry out policy
analysis (Baakman, 1997) and even to conduct public administration (Tholen, 2016).
However, this double-sided nature of Machiavelli's thought is often forgotten, whereas the aforementioned
persistence of the politics–policy dyad in his thought is of crucial importance here. Unsurprisingly, the policy
dimension of Machiavelli's thought also emerged in translations of his works over the course of the following
two centuries. In England, for example, ‘policy’ and ‘practice’ were used ‘to denote both the practical art of
politics and the theory or doctrine of that art', and became in the late 16th and early 17th century ‘the technical
terms of Machiavellianism in England’ (Orsini, 1946: 122).
Moreover, in Germany, as Heidenheimer (1986) reminds us, certain translations rename the Machiavelli's
Prince as ‘Policey'. This interpretation of Machiavelli's thought shows exactly how, from the 16th century on,
European countries started to shift towards increasing Stateness, albeit at different rates and with differing
density (Tilly, 1975). What is interesting is that the process of establishment of the absolute state was accom-
panied by the word ‘policy', in its various guises – police in France, policey in Germany, policy in England –
being linked to the action of the State. In all three variants, the meaning was almost the same: administration,
system and organization of governing, and domestic rule-making. While in the UK, and thus in English, the
word has survived, in French and in German, as well in other continental languages, it has disappeared, with
only one specific meaning (police/polizey) surviving.
The prevalence of the ‘police’ concept over the policy concept is the product of the complex dynamics of the
State's evolution, which during the 19th century led the word ‘politics’ to embrace the entire semantic field
previously covered by various different terms. Here the dividing line is clearly represented by the changed
role of the State. Unsurprisingly, one of most oft-cited definitions of politics is from Max Weber (1919: 78),
who on the basis of his in-depth, innovative study of the process of the modern State's formation, proposed
his power-centered – thus also State-centered – definition of politics:
Hence, ‘politics’ for us means striving to share power or striving to influence the distribution of power,
either among states or among groups within a state. This corresponds essentially to ordinary usage.
When a question is said to be a ‘political’ question, when a cabinet minister or an official is said to
be a ‘political’ official, or when a decision is said to be ‘politically’ determined, what is always meant
is that interests in the distribution, maintenance, or transfer of power are decisive for answering the
questions and determining the decision or the official's sphere of activity. He who is active in politics
strives for power either as a means in serving other aims, ideal or egoistic, or as ‘power for power's
sake', that is, in order to enjoy the prestige-feeling that power gives.
However, Weber's hyper-realistic definition too is characterized by ‘the service of a ‘cause'’ (ibidem) require-

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ment. Obviously, this ‘cause’ is linked to the concept of the vocation of politics and thus has a strongly nor-
mative, and in some way tragic, meaning. Nonetheless, this often forgotten detail of the Weberian definition
once again calls for recognition of the duality of the political phenomenon. Power is central to the definition of
politics, but it cannot stand alone.
This point is fundamental to an understanding of the politics–policy dyad. Very often in contemporary political
science, there is a common belief that everything is about power, and very often Weber's thoughts are con-
sidered a cornerstone of this belief.
However, not only did Weber not say as much, but if power is to be considered a constitutive dimension of
politics, it needs to be contextualized exactly in those arenas and processes where the political phenomenon
emerges.
The Dyad in Political Science

The two sides of the definition of politics (power and ‘something else') have constantly characterized the de-
bate within political science. Here the clash between the ‘major thinkers’ of political science is evident. In this
work, I am going to look at the contributions made by David Easton, Robert Dahl, Harold Lasswell and Gio-
vanni Sartori.
Apparently the ‘power’ dimension of politics also characterizes David Easton's (1953: 129) famous definition
of politics as ‘the authoritative allocation of values for the whole society'. However, also in this case, the role
of the constitutive dimension of the exercise of power within society as a feature of politics is not enough. In
fact, when referring to values – be they symbolic or material – Easton focuses on all those activities by which
such values are assigned. Furthermore, he looks at what these values are, how they are established, and
which design is followed to deliver them. In Easton's (1953: 355) view, power is not the only relevant variable
to be used to circumscribe and define politics, and thus he points out that ‘the interest for political science on
power is only educed from its preoccupation on how policy is made and executed’ (Easton, 1953: 144).
Dahl and Stinebrickner clearly abandoned the recurrent double-sided definition of politics in favor of a purer,
more parsimonious definition: ‘politics is simply the exercise of influence’ (Dahl and Stinebrickner, 2003: 24).
This definition strictly delimits the meaning of politics, and can be seen as a natural evolution of his relational
definition of power, according to which ‘A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something
that B would not otherwise do’ (Dahl, 1957: 202–203). Through this conceptualization, politics appears to be
everywhere, not only in political institutions and behavior, but also, for example, in private undertakings, thus
leading political scientists to also study the politics of ‘private clubs, business firms, trade unions, religious
organizations, civic groups, primitive tribes, clans, perhaps even families’ (Dahl, 1970: 6). Dahl's main contri-
bution to the theory of government and democracy can be considered to be based on an attempt to analyze
how the battle for power (the power game) is organized and works in democratic systems. From this point of
view, Dahl can be considered the first political scientist to have clearly ‘solved’ the question of the policy–pol-
itics dyad by simply defining the political phenomenon without making any significant reference to the policy
dimension, and this has become the core definition of mainstream political science (Klingemann and Goodin,
1996; Goodin, 2011).1
Giovanni Sartori has tried to find a way of isolating the nature of the political phenomenon, thus avoiding
the risk, intrinsic in Dahl's approach, of basing it on an all-inclusive definition of influence. He clearly points
out that what matters is the ‘verticalized’ dimension of politics and proposes that it be defined in terms of
the specific arena of politics. Thus, politics is defined as ‘the arena of collectivized, sovereign, sanctionable,
inescapable decisions’ (Sartori, 1987: 257). Politics is clearly defined in a very specific way. Its constitutive
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dimension is power – however, where ‘power’ means its exercise in a very specific arena and with a specific
output. Is that all? The answer is no, since to better clarify the specific nature of politics as collectivized deci-
sions, Sartori (1987: 258) specifies that
It is obvious that political decisions may deal with very different matters: they may concern economic
policy, legislative policy, social policy, religious policy, education policy, etc. If all these kinds of de-
cision are in principle political, is because that they are collectivized sovereign decisions taken by
people situated in a political arena.
Thus, the connection with policy is also clearly present in Sartori's thought: even when defined in a very re-
stricted manner, some reference to policy is called for, meaning that specific basis on which collectivized de-
cisions are taken.
However, within the context of this dispute, Lasswell (1936) adopts a relevant position. His definition of politics
as ‘who gets what, when and how’ has been criticized for its ‘distributional’ meaning; and years later, when he
had refocused his scientific interests, he explained that the study of politics is not just ‘the study of influence
and the influential’ (Lasswell, 1936: 3) because politics also involves political actors ‘striving … for the attain-
ment of various values for which power is a necessary (and perhaps also sufficient) condition’ (Lasswell and
Kaplan, 1950: 240).
Lasswell also believed that politics was an activity where goals matter as much as valued outcomes, and it
was precisely this focus on valued outcomes that led Lasswell to take more interest in the analysis of poli-
cy-making, and above all in launching the policy sciences. In doing so, Lasswell refocused his analysis of the
political phenomenon by striving for a policy approach – that is, a way of analyzing politics where the focus
‘is upon the fundamental problems of man in society, rather than on the topical issues of the moment’ (Lass-
well, 1951: 3). By doing so, Lasswell pushed the politic–policy dyad towards a clearer division. Substantially,
in Lasswell, there is a clear definition of the second side of the political phenomenon. On the one hand, he
focuses on power/influence (and thus politics), while on the other, his focus is on public problems (policy). It
is rather peculiar to see a highly reputed politics scholar becoming the (re-)founder of a policy-oriented ap-
proach by his redefining of the object of his research and in some way through the clear emphasis on the
‘policy’ dimension of politics. The importance Lasswell placed on the problem-centered nature of the political
phenomenon dramatically shifted attention from its definition as power ‘plus something’ to policy, thus com-
pletely overturning Dahl's perspective.
On the whole, political science's major thinkers failed to clearly agree on a definition about its nature. Basi-
cally, the focus on power has survived and continues to dominate such debate, but it has never resolved the
question altogether, since the other aspect of politics (what is done through/thanks to the exercise of power)
is always present, at least latently. In order to better understand the problem of the politics/policy dyad, the
key point here is to decide whether the definition of power as a fundamental element of politics is an absolute
concept, meaning that what matters is to have power ‘over’ something – that is, the capacity to be influential,
(according to Dahl) or a more processual definition whereby the exercise of power is the first step in a more
complex process, a step where the only thing that is decided is ‘who gets what’ (Lasswell and Kaplan, 1950;
Lindblom, 1965) while the ‘how’ dimension remains marginalized. From this second perspective, the most im-
portant dimension of power is not power ‘over’ but power ‘of’ (doing, having, saying, etc.).
Power ‘over’ is related to something that is an intrinsic part of politics – that is, doing things designed to
maintain the social order by resolving collective problems. This is succinctly expressed by Hugh Heclo (1974:
305–306) when he points out that:
Politics finds its sources not only in power but also in uncertainty – men collectively wondering what

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to do…. Governments not only ‘power’ … they also puzzle. Policy-making is a form of collective puz-
zlement on society's behalf… Much political interaction has constituted a process of social learning
expressed through policy.
All in all, what this brief overview of the definitional debate regarding the politics–policy dyad shows is that
while the evasive nature of the political phenomenon, and above all of power, is important when distinguish-
ing it from all other spheres of collective human behavior (such as society and the economy), it alone is not
enough to explain such a distinction. Politics is not only about power but is also about the ideas and knowl-
edge of actors pursuing their own interests and also their own values through a complex process of interac-
tion designed to deal with collective uncertainty.
Different Words, Different Meanings, Different Disciplines?
Separating the Meanings of Politics and Policy

We know perfectly well that in mainstream political science the ‘power-centered’ definition has prevailed to
date, and that this accounts for the analytical focus on all of those processes in which what matters is the
different dimensions of power. Those processes are: the pursuit and maintenance of power, and the process
of its legitimation. This choice has been made, notwithstanding the major thinkers’ doubts and differences.
Said choice accounts for political research's specific focus on:
1. electoral behavior (a fundamental step in obtaining and legitimizing power within a demo-
cratic system);
2. political parties (considered to be the best organizational form for obtaining power or in-
fluencing it);
3. political institutions (the tools and goals of the power battle);
4. political élites (the key actors in the decision-making process).
Political research has thus focused on politics as a competition for power rather than as an activity linked to
the solution of collective problems. According to this power-centered mainstream, policies are a product/out-
put of the political process conceived precisely as the battle for power/influence.
However, a policy-centered school of thought has been slowly but inexorably gaining ground in American Po-
litical Science thanks, among other factors, to the influence that Dewey and his pragmatism had in its devel-
opment. ‘The public and its problems’ (Dewey, 1927) represented a pivotal driver of political research, which
even before the Second World War had focused on the policy-making process and its characteristics. See,
for example, the concept of whirlpool proposed by Griffith in 1939, designed to grasp the complexity of ‘social
interests and problems’ (Griffith, 1939: 183). Then, there was Easton's (1953: 129–130) important focus on
the complexity of policies:
the essence of a policy lies in the fact that through it certain things are denied to some people and
made accessible to others. A policy, in other words, whether for a society, for a narrow association,
or for any other group, consists of a web of decisions and actions that allocates values. A decision
alone is of course not a policy; to decide what to do does not mean that the thing is done. A decision
is only a selection among alternatives that expresses the intention of the person or group making the
choice. Arriving at a decision is the formal phase of establishing a policy; it is not the whole policy in
relation to a particular problem. A legislature can decide to punish monopolists; this is the intention.
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But an administrator can destroy or reformulate the decision by failing either to discover offenders
or to prosecute them vigorously. The failure is as much a part of the policy with regard to monopoly
as the formal law. When we act to implement a decision, therefore, we enter the second or effective
phase of a policy. In this phase the decision is expressed or interpreted in a series of actions and
narrower decisions which may in effect establish new policy.
This long quote from Easton helps us to understand that while politics represents the allocation of values,
these allocated values are realized and implemented through the policy-making process and, consequently,
policy-making can be considered to be the very essence of it. This could also be said of the power-centered
definition of politics. If politics is about power or influence, where are the characteristics of such power or influ-
ence revealed? Almost certainly in typical political and institutional behavior, but, above all, in policy-making
processes. Thus, even if politics were considered simply as a question of power, where would it be visible if
not in policy-making? Policies are not simply the product of politics, but are also, significantly, the real world
where politics plays out. Policies cannot be considered simply as an output, but also need to be understood
as a process, and also as an independent variable, or as capable of endogenous change (Lowi, 1964; Wil-
davsky, 1979). Thus, policies could be considered as politics in action.
The Lasswellian redefinition of politics – in terms of policy – has not only paved the way for the policy ap-
proach in political science, but, above all else, it has led to the need to define policy as such. This need rep-
resents the other aspect of the problem of defining politics and has tended to suffer from the same problems.
The lack of any self-evident meaning (Heclo, 1972) has resulted in different definitions of what policy is, and
the dual nature of the political phenomenon has impacted the definition of policy.
For example, two very famous, commonly adopted definitions of policy are based on the specific relevance
of power and/or authority. This is the case of Dye's (1972: 1) definition of policy as ‘whatever governments
choose to do or not to do', which echoes the Sartorian definition of politics in terms of the compression of
policy to highly verticalized decisions, and is the case with Lowi's (1970: 315) assumption that ‘policy is de-
liberate coercion – statements attempting to set forth the purpose, the means, the subjects, and the objects
of coercion –'. Once again, the vertical dimension of the political phenomenon is also applied to policy, and
the overlap with the Sartorian definition is quite evident. In other words, in defining policy, both Dye and Lowi
see the same vertical dimension through which political power is exercised while deciding on behalf of the
collectivity. Thus, paradoxically, the Lasswellian focus on problems is disregarded and the dual dimension of
the political emerges once again.
Moreover, those adopting the problem-centered perspective have focused their attention on certain charac-
teristics such as: the presence of real actors, and not necessarily public or governmental ones; the presence
of certain common/collective values or goals; and the presence of a processual dimension. From this per-
spective, policies are processes or courses of actions through which different actors interact with one another
in order to resolve collective problems or problems perceived to be collective (Friedrich, 1963; Ranney, 1968;
Anderson, 1975; Dunn, 1981). Thanks to these definitions, the political phenomenon is clearly otherwise de-
fined as an on-going process where policy-makers operate in order to address and resolve socially important
problems.
Different Words, Different Analytical Approaches

When the definition of policy is power/authority-centered, it engenders misunderstanding and rivalry between
scholars of politics and scholars of policy. When problem-centered, the concept of policy is apparently purified
of the ‘political’ power-centered dimension.

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Definitions of policy like those offered by Dye and Lowi, in maintaining the connection with the ‘political’ di-
mension, have engendered rivalry among scholars of politics/policy. In this regard, the often-misunderstood
theoretical proposal of Theodore Lowi is very interesting. Its apparently provocative assumption that ‘policy
determines politics’ is well-rooted in the enduring debate over pluralism and elitism, and thus over different
theories of power, postulating that governments and states’ actions (policies) are epiphenomena of the battle
for power. By rediscovering the State, Lowi (1964: 688) postulates exactly the opposite, starting from the ex-
ercise of power by governments and by the way they address people's expectations:
In politics, expectations are determined by governmental outputs or policies. Therefore, a political

relationship is determined by the type of policy at stake, so that for every type of policy there is likely
to be a distinctive type of political relationship. If power is defined as a share in the making of policy,
or authoritative allocations, then the political relationship in question is a power relationship or, over
time, a power structure.
Thus, policies design specific arenas of power, with specific necessary political games and resources at the
disposal of the concerned political actors. Lowi's argument has led to conflicts between political scientists and
policy scholars about the primacy of politics and policy, while Lowi's framework simply underlines how policy
can structure the characteristics of political dynamics by encouraging/discouraging conflict, bargaining and
logrolling.
The problem-centered definition originally led to a focus on policy science for policy-making, whereas the sci-
entific mission is based on the normative assumption that the best policy solution is to be found based on
the context (Nagel, 1983). This stream of research substantially abandoned the ‘political’ dimension of policy
and raised the interest, and became the focal point, of welfare economics and public management scholars.
What Lasswell defined as policy science for policy-making, has become ‘policy analysis', and has essentially
forsaken any political dimension. Unsurprisingly, the policy approach has been defined as an old public ad-
ministration in a refurbished wardrobe (Eulau, 1958; Schick, 1975).
However, it should be said that by placing collective problems at the center of scientific inquiry, a real policy
science of policy-making has also emerged (particularly from the 1970s onwards). This research stream (see
also below) has been flourishing and has developed a number of theoretical frameworks and significant em-
pirical research focused on trying to understand and explain ‘who gets what, when and how'. This stream of
scholarship may be called that of ‘Public Policy', and it was developed by analyzing political phenomena from
a policy perspective, thus considering policy not simply as an output of the battle for power, but as a complex
process allocating values in society through the interaction of different policy actors, their interests and their
ideas.
This perspective has conflicted with mainstream political science due to its different definition of political phe-
nomena as driven by a different research design. For example, on the one hand, political science usually
defines policies simply as the by-product of one of the following: elections; interest group politics; the rul-
ing coalition; the ruling élites; ideological politics. However, on the other hand, starting with the problem in
question, Public Policy assumes a ‘realistic’ perspective regarding who really influences policy-making, how
policies develop from one stage to the next, and, above all, ‘how’ policies are formulated and implemented,
thus overcoming the structural limitations of mainstream political science, which usually focuses on policy de-
cisions. In concentrating on policy dynamics, public policy does not exclude the relevance of power/influence
but considers it as one of the drivers of the policy-making process, which interacts with other drivers over the
course of time.
The Evolution of the Academic Discipline

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Distinguishing between the terms in question has encouraged the emergence of a number of different sub-
disciplines, or, rather, the potential separation of mainstream political science from the different streams of
the policy approach. Policy scholars have been concentrating on the characteristics of policy dynamics and
change by designing specific theoretical approaches like the Advocacy Coalition Framework (Weible and
Sabatier, 2017); the Multiple Stream Approach (Kingdon, 1984); the punctuated equilibrium theory (Baum-
gartner and Jones, 2009); the characteristics of policy design and of the chosen policy instruments (Howlett,
2011; Capano and Lippi, 2017; Peters, 2018); the relevance of ideas and knowledge as drivers of policy dy-
namics (Béland, 2009); the role of specific key actors – entrepreneurs, brokers, leaders – (Capano and Galan-
ti, 2018); and the evolution of governance arrangements (Pierre and Peters, 2000; Capano et al., 2015a).
At the same time, according to an authoritative review on the state of Political Science (Katznelson and Milner,
2003), mainstream political science has continued to focus on the State (now in a globalized era), political
institutions, citizenship, political participation and behavior, international institutions, ideology, populism and
the state of democracy. It is no coincidence that in this book, published to celebrate the 100 years of the
American Political Science Association, there is not one single chapter devoted to public policy (although a
number of public policy scholars are cited in various chapters). This further indicates the division between the
academic areas of mainstream political science and public policy, at least in the United States. Obviously, this
may depend on the fact that Public Policy (meaning the study of policy-making and the components thereof)
is currently developed to a greater extent outside of the United States than within (where the prevalence of
rational choice and the strength of economic-oriented policy analysis has definitively restricted the growth of
public policy, at least relatively). However, this is also confirmed by the main journals published in the Political
Science and Public Administration fields: here a clear divide persists, even in general journals.2 This could
be due not only to the definitional divide, but also to a methodological asymmetry, since while political science
has become increasingly quantitative and oriented towards large n research design, public policy right now is
mostly devoted to case studies or small n research design – although the adoption of QCA has permitted an
increase in the number of cases dealt with.
Overall, the distinction made between the two terms has implied not only disciplinary specialization, but also
the institutionalization of (sub-disciplinary) borders. This institutionalization has been characterized by certain
virtues (deeper knowledge of political phenomena as well as the concrete operationalization of such), as well
as certain vices, such as: (1) the risk of an increasing separation between political factors (elections, political
institutions ideologies, party system, etc.) and policy factors (stages, network of actors, problems, ideational
solutions, knowledge, policy legacies, etc.); and (2) the depoliticization of policy (the battle for power risks
remaining hidden or marginalized) and the de-problematization of politics (the risk of the focus on social prob-
lems becoming irrelevant, in favor of a simplified partisan perspective on policies).
These vices could exceed the virtues. For example, if we think of the rise of populism in Europe, it is clearly
based on the diachronic intersection of policy and politics. However, at present, the main interpretations of
this rise are based on political factors (and on economic ones), whereas an analysis that also takes certain
policy dimensions (not only policy performance but also the way in which policies have been framed and im-
plemented over time) into account could help gain a better understanding of the roots (and potential implica-
tions) of the phenomenon. Another typical example regards the explanation of political/policy change, where
both sides tend to develop theoretical frameworks that reciprocally underrate one another.
Thus, the specialized divide between political science and public policy not only weakens the explanatory ca-
pacity of the ‘discipline', but also the public's perception of its social usefulness.
Reconnecting Policy and Politics. The State of the Empirical Study of Political
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Phenomena
As I have tried to explain above, the story of the emergence of the politics–policy dyad is a complex one, a
kind of forced marriage, due to the dual nature of political phenomena. However, over the last three decades,
there has been a process of progressive institutionalization of a ‘forced’ divide. This notwithstanding, there
has also been recent signs of a re-convergence, if not of a new possible ‘marriage’ of the two. This is specifi-
cally due to the increasingly common use of certain theoretical approaches, to the focus on selected common
topics of research and to the increased willingness of the policy approach to consider the politics, or the polit-
ical aspects, of policy-making.
As regards the aforesaid theoretical approaches, it is quite clear that the diffusion of historical neo-institution-
alism – which is widely adopted, in particular by those working on political change and on policy change – has
led to a certain rapprochement between mainstream Political Science and Public Policy. More specifically, the
focus on institutions that tend to characterize both political science and public policy has addressed a shared
awareness of the important role played by the process of institutionalization and institutional variables in the
analysis of both political and policy processes. Thus, for example, historical neo-institutionalism has been
adopted as an approach to the study of regime change (Mahoney, 2001; Mahoney and Thelen, 2010) and
of paradigm shifts in public policy (Capano, 2003; Hogan and Howlett, 2015). Furthermore, it is evident how
the ideational tide-change in political science has led to a crossing of boundaries by reconsidering political
power in the public policy field (Béland et al., 2016) or by connecting rational choice theory to contingentist
approaches when explaining political and policy actors’ preferences (Katznelson and Weingast, 2005).
With regards to shared topics of interest, what first emerges is the attempt to explain a change that pushed
political scientists towards the consideration of both political and policy factors. For example, in public policy,
certain political variables are of pivotal importance to the multiple stream approach (Kingdon, 1984) as well as
to the advocacy coalition framework (where a change in the ruling coalition dramatically impacts how policy
dynamics and change are addressed). At the same time, policy variables (like policy actors’ freedom of ac-
tion, policy legacy, and policy instruments) are taken into consideration when analyzing political-institutional
change in welfare policy (Trampusch, 2010, Gingrich and Häusermann, 2015; Lee et al., 2017).
Governance is another topic over which the focus of political science and that of public policy have been
overlapping, and where a common interest has emerged, but without resulting in any significant reciprocal
influence of the one on the other. From a political science point of view, however, the focus has been more on
the ‘quality’ of governance, which is often operationalized by emphasizing the quality of government (Roth-
stein and Teorell, 2008; Rothstein, 2011; Fukuyama, 2013; Holmberg and Rothstein, 2012) or, in a broader
sense, the quality of democracy (Diamond and Morlino, 2005). It is interesting here how the focus of public
policy has been quite different not only in terms of the definition of the word governance, but also in terms
of the analytical perspective adopted. In fact, there has been more in-depth reflection on the definition of
governance in public policy due to the implications of the characteristics of governance arrangements about
structuring policy-making (Capano et al., 2015b). Furthermore, policy scholars have focused their attention
on the dynamics and nature of governance shifts (in term of the changes in the adopted policy instruments)
rather than on the improved performance and policy effectiveness of those changes. There has been greater
overlapping with political science's focus on better governance and the quality of democracy on the part of the
recently reformulated policy design perspective in public policy studies (Howlett, 2014). This new perspective
takes into consideration not only the characteristics traditionally considered relevant for good policy design
(the possession of technical expertise and good knowledge), but also the role of governmental will or politi-
cal capacity (Howlett et al., 2015; Capano, 2018). Furthermore, all political scientific studies of governmental
capacity have been overlapped by the emerging literature on policy capacity (Wu et al., 2018). Thus, the is-
sue of how to design effective political institutions and public policy could in fact be a common research topic
which the two sides could converge on in a highly profitable way.
Another important topic of common interest is that of agenda setting, which represents a core research topic
not only for policy scholars but also for political scientists. In this case, political scientists are more interested
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in the role of political parties, political institutions and the media with regards to agenda setting, while policy
scholars are more interested in the framing of the problem, and the way in which it is channeled towards the
decisional agenda. In this case, the role of specific actors (policy entrepreneurs) and contingencies (focusing
events) are particularly emphasized.
Finally, some of the most commonly adopted theoretical frameworks in the public policy field pay due attention
to the political variables concerned. This is true, for example, of the Multiple Stream Approach: with this ap-
proach, the role of politics is strategic to agenda-fixing and decision-making of the Advocacy Coalition Frame-
work (ACF), as previously mentioned, since a change in government is considered one of the drivers of
significant policy change; it is also true of the punctuated equilibrium theory, where concepts that are also
very important for political science, such as institutional venue, attention cycle and asymmetric information
(Baumgartner and Jones, 2009; Jones and Baumgartner, 2012) are fundamental to an understanding of pol-
icy change and stability. Then, there is the aforementioned attention to political variables in policy design.
Finally, all literature on policy advisory systems pays substantial attention to the political-institutional structure
and to the role of politicians in using and addressing policy advisory systems (Craft, 2015).
Overall, public policy has progressively abandoned, from the theoretical point of view, its original separation
from political science by progressively including political dimensions and factors within its scope. This rep-
resents an asymmetric situation, since political science does not seem to be doing likewise with the same
degree and conviction.
A Common Future?
The politics/policy dyad continues to be present. The two terms represent the two intrinsically different di-
mensions of political phenomena. The terminological distinctions can help not only to separate the semantic
fields in question, but also to circumscribe certain specific theoretical and empirical fields for political science
scholars. At the same time, however, the two dimensions are structurally intertwined, and even if one of them
is analytically compressed or marginalized, it is nevertheless always present. The terminological distinction
should be treated as an analytical tool, according to a precise and specific research design, and not as a
kind of epistemological or scientific divide. Focusing on the ‘policy’ dimension of political phenomena does
not mean abandoning the realistic tradition of mainstream political science. On the contrary, it means adopt-
ing a similarly realistic perspective, since power is not marginalized but is instead considered from a dynamic
perspective whereby it is not only a scarce resource, but is also something that can be reproduced as a result
of the diachronic interaction of policy-makers. Furthermore, power is observed not only in relation to actors
who pursue their own interests, but also in terms of their need to legitimize their actions by showing that they
are closely involved in working towards solutions to collective problems. Furthermore, the focus on the policy
dimension of political phenomena allows political science to bridge the cognitive gap separating it from the
‘black box’ of decisional processes. This is because the focus of the policy dimension allows politics to be
studied in action. At the same time, the focus on politics permits a better understanding of the battle of values
and interests that design the premises of the actions of political actors as well of those actors wishing to influ-
ence politics.
The complex interaction of politics and policy is never-ending, and thus any semantic separation, made for
analytical reasons, can only be partial. In fact, if the analytical separation is not designed to better formu-
late theoretical frameworks or empirical research, but is instead pursued for purely hegemonic reasons, then
there will be a strongly negative trade-off both in scientific terms and in terms of the social perception of the
relevance of political science.
From the scientific point of view, the divide separating policy and politics could lead to increasing specializa-
tion, and, above all, to missing aspects of what should be explained. For example, the emphasis on politics
excessively limits the possible answers to the ‘what’ questions posed by Lasswell with regards to power and
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influence, while missing the policy side of the ‘what’ (what is delivered to people? what is the outcome for
the collectivity?). On the other hand, the emphasis on policy too often tries to answer the ‘what’ question by
focusing on output and outcome, while neglecting the power dimension. Furthermore, the ‘how’ question is
answered by those who focus on politics by analyzing structural and political-institutional factors, while policy
scholars focus on the process in which the problem is framed, knowledge is constructed and used, network
relationships develop, and policy capacities are engaged. The aforesaid divide produces in-depth, yet marred,
scientific knowledge.
From a social perception of the relevance of the discipline, the divide is in danger of further weakening a dis-
cipline that is undervalued, not only due to its intrinsic characteristics (Stoker, 2010), but also because the
policy/politics divide weakens the capacity of the discipline to present a solid, compact, unified image to the
outside world (also, in terms of the scientific core, shared theories and those shared assumptions are funda-
mental if both advocacy and the recommended prescriptions are to be reliable).
It is probably time to re-think, in a more modern vein, Lasswell's call for a new way of studying politics and to
take Heclo's suggestion seriously. If politics is not only the exercise of power but also the questioning of that
power, then it can finally reconnect these two dimensions.
Notes
1 It should be pointed out that O'Key (1942: 2) defined politics in terms of power, but only in terms of the
relationship between governors and governed: ‘[T]he essence of politics lies in power…of relationships of su-
per-ordination, or dominance and submission, of the governors and the governed'.
2 There is the exception of the research deriving from the Comparative Agenda Project, which, due to its in-
trinsic characteristics, gets published in both types of journal.
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• politics
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• public policy
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n67

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Policy Evaluation1
Contributors: Evert Vedung

Chapter Title: "Policy Evaluation1"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Policy Evaluation1
Evert Vedung
Definition
Evaluation is the process of determining the merit of an entity and the product of that determination. This
statement captures the two universal meanings of evaluation as a phenomenon in all intellectual and practical
human endeavors (Scriven, 2013: 178).
In the present context, evaluation will be restricted to the scrutiny and judgment of public policies or, in more
general wording, public interventions. In the spirit of the eminent Italian political scientist Giovanni Sartori
(2009a: 89–91, 84–85; 2009b: 139–140), I will start with a minimal definition of the term evaluation, which is a
contested concept, a semantic magnet (Vedung, 1997: 3). To cut a long and convoluted story short, for public
governance, I propose the following minimal definition: evaluation is the activity of careful assessment of the
merit of content, administration, output, effects, and organization of ongoing or abolished government inter-
ventions and the resulting product of this activity, both of which are intended to play a role in future, practical
action situations.
Evaluation is assessment (appraisal, judgment) concerned with ascertaining the merit, i.e., the worth or value,
of government interventions. The term refers to valuing in two senses: the process of valuing and the product
of such valuing. A person may waive a written report in the air and exclaim: ‘this is an evaluation!'. Simulta-
neously, she may also affirm: ‘the evaluation for this report required 12 months of hard work!'. To qualify as
evaluation, an assessment must be carefully applied, i.e., meticulously and systematically executed without
necessarily being scientific or scholarly.
Evaluation objects are confined to public sector interventions, normally interpreted as adopted policies, pro-
grams, program ingredients, initiatives, schemes, projects, services, front-line practices, etc., as well as the
organization of such measures. Interventions are judged by their results in society and nature, but their path-
ways toward results are also appraised in the sense of how adopted intervention content influences imple-
mentation organization and processes all the way through immediate target group responses. In addition, the
term interventions is sometimes also interpreted as commissions to create policy proposls. In that case, the
primary expected result is new policies, and implementation refers to the creative, often intricate, processes
involved in the shaping of these new policies. To simplify, I will illustrate my upcoming reasoning by evaluation
of adopted interventions, not by evaluation of commissions to create new interventions.
Evaluation is about terminated or ongoing interventions, but not about interventions contemplated and dis-
cussed but without any public decision to start a planning process. Finally, at minimum, a study meeting all
of the above-mentioned criteria must also be intended to play a role in practical action situations to be an
evaluation. It is not necessary for the study to actually play such a role. It is sufficient that it is intended to play
it. In other words, a study fulfilling all of the criteria, the intention to play a role included, but which is never put
to use, is an evaluation anyway but simply unused.
To end, meta-evaluation in both of its senses (systematic summary reviews of findings of several evaluations,
evaluative audits of evaluations and evaluation systems) is also evaluation, because evaluations by them-
selves are also interventions, albeit second-order ones.
System View of Public Interventions

As might be gleaned from my minimal definition, evaluators tend to view the public sector as a system; a sys-

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tem is a whole in which the component parts are dependent upon each other. In its simplest form, a system
consists of input, conversion, output, and feedback from output to conversion and input.
When the simple system model is used in public sector evaluation, more functions are added and the termi-
nology is changed. Input is renamed intervention (between-coming, which I will use as a more covering term
than policy). The conversion function is retitled administration. Output means phenomena such as prohibi-
tions, grants, subsidies, taxes, exhortation, moral suasion, services, or goods that leave government bodies
and reach target groups. A new outcome phase is tacked onto the output function. Outcome is what happens
on the target group side, the actions of the target group individuals included, but also what occurs beyond
the immediate target individuals in the chain of potential influence. We may distinguish between immediate,
intermediate, and ultimate outcome. Effects are a subgroup of outcome, i.e., the portion of the outcome that
is, at least to some minimal extent, generated by the intervention and the administrative activities. Another
term for effects is impacts. Results is used as a summarizing term for either outcomes or effects or both. In
addition, results sometimes also covers outputs. The term implementation covers administration, output, and
the early activities in the effect area that front-level bureaucrats may influence in their encounters with target
group individuals. All of this is surrounded by context, indicating the environment within which everything oc-
curs. Figure 65.1 simplifies and summarizes this reasoning.
Figure 65.1 The general system model adapted to public intervention
Source: Adapted from Vedung, 1997: 5 via Vedung, 2006: 398 by Tage Vedung and EV.
Eight Questions Approach to Public Policy Evaluation

Questions are the fountains of all research, policy evaluation research included. The problems to be attacked
in policy evaluation can be presented as eight questions with subquestions, each covering a specific area. I
shall call this the eight questions approach to public policy evaluation (Table 65.1).
Table 65.1 Eight questions approach to public policy evaluation
1. Comprehensive purposes.What are the overall aims of launching the evaluation?

2. Organization (evaluator). Who should perform the evaluation and how should the en-
deavor be structured?
3. Valuing. What merit criteria can and should be applied in assessing the worth of the
evaluand, i.e., the public sector intervention to be appraised? By what standards of
performance on the merit criteria can and should success/failure be judged? And what
are the actual merits and demerits of the intervention?
4. Intervention selection and description. How is the evaluand to be chosen and repre-

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sented?
5. Implementation. Are there any obstacles or malfunctions in the execution phase be-
tween the formal instigation of the intervention through the earliest target group re-
sponses in the immediate outcome area? How can such problems be mitigated?
6. Outcome. What are the possible relevant outcomes – immediate, intermediate, and ul-
timate, intended, unintended – of the intervention?
7. Effect. To what extent is the outcome impacted by the intervention and its implementa-
tion in given contexts? Besides the intervention, what other contingencies and factors
(causal forces, mechanisms) contributed to the outcome in given contexts?
8. Utilization. How is the evaluation to be used? How is it actually used? How can use be
improved?
The immediately following eight sections will describe the specific areas that the eight questions cover.
Source: Adapted from Vedung, 1997: 93 f. and Vedung, 2006: 398; also Shadish et al., 1991.
Comprehensive Purposes
Evaluation is performed for either accountability, development, or basic knowledge. In addition, evaluation is
laced with strategic aims to gain time, cover up failures, whitewash, or display fronts of rationality. I shall call
this fourth purpose strategy, or, tongue-in-cheek, Potemkin villages and white elephants.
The key rationale of accountability evaluation is to find out whether agents have exercised their delegated
powers and discharged their duties properly so that principals can judge their work, take remedial action, or
grant discharge. Accountability (after-the-fact control) involves two parties, the principal and her/his agent,
and three functions: (1) the principal's downward delegation of duties; (2) the agent's upward account-giving;
and (3) the principal's downward assessment. Due to lack of time and competence, the principal cannot carry
out everything by herself/himself but has to commission the job to some agent – the agent agrees to carry out
the job. After some time, the agent (the accountor) is expected to account for her/his handling of the job com-
mission to the principal (the accountee). On the basis of this, the principal can monitor and evaluate whether
the agent has followed the agreement to satisfaction, issue praise and grant discharge, or criticize and take
corrective action. The essence is that accountability evaluation is intended to serve the supervising needs of
an external overseeing body.
In the development (improvement, promotion) mode, an evaluation is genuinely devoted to the collection of
solid facts in order to deliver a valid and reliable information base for policy amelioration. Ideally, no critical
principals harboring shady intentions lurk in the background.
The comprehensive development purpose is either formative or summative. In formative development, eval-
uators do not contest goals and underlying problems but concentrate their assessment on means, methods,
strategies, and actions to solve given problems and attain given goals. Evaluation aspires to single-loop learn-
ing, that is, minor adjustments, while leaving the essential properties of the appraised intervention intact. The
point is to guide the fine-tuning of the intervention's implementation. The fundamental question is: ‘how can
implementation be improved?'
Summative development evaluation, on the other hand, involves wholesale intervention reconsideration. The
purpose is double-loop learning, in the sense that not only means, methods, and strategies are questioned
but also goals and sometimes even the problem that motivated the intervention in the first place.
Both accountability and development are worthy aims of evaluation. Several experts, the author of this entry
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included, hold development as the major one.
A grim challenge to all evaluation, development evaluation included, is peoples’ penchant for game-oriented,
self-serving strategic action. In the strategic mode, evaluatee action can take the shape of Potemkin villages.
The metaphor stands for devices used by an agent to camouflage his/her dubious performances to his/her
principal. The expression refers to the famous 1787 visit by Russia's Empress Catherine II to Crimea, where
Prince Potemkin, Governor General of the Ukraine, built artificial house fronts along her route to give her a
false impression that the province under his governorship flourished. Grigorij Potemkin – the agent – a fa-
vorite and former lover of the Empress, who had conquered and governed the province, attempted to use his
information superiority over the Empress – the principal – who, in far-away St. Petersburg, had little chance of
informing herself about the problems of the area. The motive lurking behind the attempt to mislead Catherine
was his self-interest, to keep her favor, and avoid any negative retaliation.
Also in present-day evaluatee behavior, the inclination for window dressing to cover up red tape, sloppy work
practices, or low productivity may surface. Evaluation is intimidating to agents. They fear criticism that might
hurt their reputations and threaten their jobs. They may act deceitfully toward their principals due to an infor-
mation asymmetry in their favor. Those social workers (agents) who interact with clients day in and day out
know infinitely more about the work actually being done than the managers of the social bureau (principals)
who never meet a client. This information asymmetry tilts the playing ground in favor of agents’ self-interested
behavior.
Self-interested behavior is strategic in the sense that people act on the basis of what they believe others will
do. Strategic action is grounded in anticipation, i.e., people foresee other peoples’ future actions and their
consequences and act on the basis of what this will mean to their own present action. Action is driven by
prescient beliefs about future realities, not by values. In their upward accounts, the agents doctor the reality
because they believe that their bosses will put some blame on them otherwise. They also believe that their
colleagues in other units, who report to the same boss, will do the same. They trust neither their colleagues
nor their bosses. Their disloyal behavior is facilitated by the information asymmetry in their favor.
The existence of hidden, strategic purposes behind agents’ sweet accounts of situations indicate the limits of
evaluation as a producer of rational information to support decision-making in the public sector. Evaluation
takes place in political settings. Politics is a value-laden activity. Instead of delivering objective facts in their
accounts to their principals, agents may doctor their databases and deliver Potemkin villages and white ele-
phants. Strategic considerations reduce the value of evaluation as a deliverer of unbiased knowledge.
In basic knowledge, the third higher-level purpose, evaluation is seen as fundamental research seeking to
increase the general understanding of actions and events in the public sector. It augments the amalgamated
body of knowledge in some academic field of study. In meta-evaluation or systematic review, typical of the
evidence movement in public policy to which I shall return later, the basic knowledge ambition is adamant.
It is also the major aim of evaluative investigations initiated and carried out by academics as fundamental
research. In evaluations commissioned by public sector agents to be swiftly reported, the basic knowledge
purpose is secondary to accountability and development, and best regarded as an accidental by-product in
the pursuit of the other two.
Organization (Evaluator)
Who should perform evaluation and how should it be organized? Is self-evaluation a reasonable thing to do?
Or should evaluation be carried out by external bodies, detached from and independent of the evaluand and
its stakeholders?
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This is a no real choice situation, it might be argued. Evaluation should always be performed externally, or at
least by people not directly involved in the formation, adoption, implementation, and reception of the evalu-
and. Internal evaluation usually results in bragging, swaggering, self-advertisement, and cover up; and from
this, nobody will learn.
This view is inaccurate. Let us first illuminate what self-evaluation stands for. When the operator in her energy
agency, the inspector in her municipal environment administration, or the professor in her state university po-
litical science department carefully assesses their own practice with a view to further their own professional
improvement, they are certainly performing self-evaluation. When the said individuals assess their common
activities to promote their organization's performance, they are also performing self-evaluation, but at a higher
level.
Yet, self-evaluation cannot solve all appraisal needs. The pervasiveness of self-regarding behavior in organi-
zations indubitably calls for external evaluation. The wisest solution, perhaps, is to choose with respect to the
comprehensive purpose of the assessment.
When the comprehensive purpose is accountability to some outside principal and objectivity is important, a
strong case can be made for external evaluation. Generally, evaluations by some autonomous body carry
greater credibility as objective enterprises than do internal evaluations by the agents.
A case can also be made for combining internal and external accountability evaluation. In results-oriented
management (to which I shall return), subordinate agents are supposed to account for their own results and
performance to their higher-level principals. The ideal-type rationale for this must be that agents know much
more about the state of program implementation, outputs, and outcomes than principals. Yet since informa-
tion asymmetry may tempt them to cheat – with impunity, because it is hidden – the final responsibility should
be with the principal, i.e., external evaluation.
When development is the comprehensive purpose, self-evaluation is commendable. Actually, it may be per-
formed as braided evaluation. Braided evaluation, a neologism I coined, refers to a model whereby the eval-
uation is interwoven into the activities under evaluation in the sense that, e.g., the leader of the evaluand is
also the leader of the evaluation of the evaluand, operators of the evaluand are also charged with collecting
some performance data for the evaluation of the evaluand, and the evaluators are immediately and repeated-
ly reporting back their evaluative findings to the operators of the evaluand.
If accountability evaluation is deemed necessary in cases like this, it should be carried out by external auditors
who are entirely isolated from, and independent of, the development evaluation. The rationale for this quar-
antine is to prevent strategic self-serving behavior from destroying the promotion purpose of the development
evaluation.
Valuing
A key process in evaluation is determining the merit of the public intervention under appraisal. The quandary
is: what constitutes a valuable public intervention and how can it be appraised? Valuing is a four-step proce-
dure:
1. Identification of appropriate criteria of merit to be used in the assessment.

2. On the chosen merit criteria, selection of performance standards that constitute success
or failure.
3. Ascertaining the actual performance of the evaluand on each criterion and comparing it
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to each standard.
4. Deciding whether to keep the various judgments strictly apart in the reporting or to inte-
grate them into a single, overall appraisal of the worth of the intervention.
Valuing can be descriptive or prescriptive. In descriptive valuing, the evaluator chooses the values of others
as merit criteria and standards. In prescriptive valuing, the evaluator herself advocates the primacy of partic-
ular values, such as justice, equality and diversity, regardless of whether these values are adopted by any
decision-making body or held by some stakeholder constituency. Furthermore, criteria may be established
before the start of the evaluation (ex ante), during the process of performing the evaluation (ex nunc), or once
findings are available (ex post).
Aside from adopted general orientations (descriptive/prescriptive, ex ante/ex nunc/ex post), the particular val-
ues preferred in each orientation must be justified. Table 65.2 lists some commonly used substance-only cri-
teria and substance/cost criteria.
Table 65.2 Substance-only and Substance/Cost value criteria

I Substance-only criteria of merit
1. Intervention goals (effectiveness evaluation)

2. Criteria for side effects appraisal
3. Client criteria
4. Professional criteria: self-evaluation/peer review
5. Stakeholder criteria
II Substance/Cost criteria of merit
1. Productivity (substantive output to cost)

2. Efficiency: cost-effectiveness, cost/benefit (substantive outcome to cost)
Source: Adapted from Vedung, 1997: 93 f. and Vedung, 2006: 400.
I will present the merit criteria, starting with the five substance-only yardsticks.
Intervention Goals as Merit Criteria

Assessment by intervention goals is the classic in evaluation. Early literature constructed evaluation by defin-
ition as assessment of interventions against their own goals. Figure 65.2 depicts the goal-attainment evalua-
tion of intervention results.
Figure 65.2 Goal-attainment evaluation focused on goals-results

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Source: Own elaboration, Tage Vedung and EV in cooperation.
The fundamental reason in favor of goal-attainment is the argument from representative democracy. In a
democracy, power belongs to the demos, the people. Yet, people, at large, do not have the necessary time
or competence to participate in hundreds upon hundreds of decisions on, for instance, public support of indi-
viduals in social and economic dire straits, or day-to-day care for ailing senior citizens in public sector homes
for the elderly. For these reasons, the citizenry must elect political representatives to make the decisions for
them. However, representatives in political assemblies do not have time or competence to make all decisions.
They must delegate their power to governments to make decisions for them. But governments do not have
time or competence, so they, in turn, have to delegate to civil servants and professionals to make decisions,
etc. The public sector is made up of long chains of principal–agent relationships.
If an agency adopts a program to reach some goals, these stated goals derive their legitimacy from the fact
that the agency's decision-making authority has been delegated to it by the government and that the govern-
ment, in turn, has received its authority to do so from parliament, and parliament, in turn, from the people. It is
a strength of the goal-attainment approach that it recognizes the representative-democracy aspect of public
sector goals.
On the other hand, goal-attainment suffers from weaknesses. The haziness argument maintains that policy
goals are deficient as virtue criteria due to their obscurity. One difficult problem with policy haziness is pro-
duced by so-called goal catalogues. Most large social reforms contain impressive directories of diverse goals.
While a single goal may be hailed as the major one, often, it is also maintained that this one must be bal-
anced against all others, including potentially conflicting ones. However, the necessary trade-offs between
the several goals are not indicated, which makes it impossible to elicit from such lists of goals one distinct,
transparent, expected outcome. Thus, an array of goals of this type are not lucid enough to be usable as val-
ue criteria against which to measure intervention successes and failures.
Another compelling rebuttal emanates from goal-attainment's blindness to side effects and, most importantly,
unintended side effects. This issue is addressed through side effects evaluation.
Merit Criteria for Side Effects

Mapping and assessing side effects is an obligatory duty of policy evaluation, especially when conducted in
the academic world. The side effects approach implies a widening of the subject matter of the goal-attainment
model in that searching for results in the target area is supplemented by searching outside of the target area
for side effects. From the policymaker's point of view, a side effect can be defined as at least a partial conse-
quence of the intervention and its implementation, which is not included among the main effects. Main effects
are the actual, expected and desired consequences which, at least partly, are produced by the intervention.
Side effects can be unanticipated and not considered, or anticipated and considered in calculations preceding

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decisions to adopt policies. They may be beneficial as well as detrimental. See the section ‘Outcome Effects’
for further details.
Moreover, in terms of merit criteria, the side effects model engenders an extension of goal-attainment in that
intervention goals stated in advance are supplemented with merit criteria for side effects. If some side effects
are unexpected and unforeseen, the criteria and standards for valuing these side effects are also not pre-
specified. Evaluators guided by premeditated stated goals will encounter problems when tracing unforeseen
spillovers. And if they discover such things, there will be no prestated goals that can serve as merit criteria
for judging them. As a result, pre-specified goals are insufficient as instruments of judging unanticipated side
effects. Consequently, the evaluator can chart side effects but may leave it to the commissioners and other
users of the evaluation's findings to ascertain their value ex post facto.
Figure 65.3 presents a possible scenario describing the structure of the evaluation on the outcome side if the
totality of the effects of a government intervention inside and outside its targeted area were to be investigated.
Figure 65.3 Side effects model with specified pigeonholes for side effects
Source: Own elaboration, Tage Vedung and EV in cooperation.
I strongly commend side effects to goal-attainment evaluation. Indeed, the major rationale for doing public
sector evaluation in the first place is that beyond-implementation outcomes of state actions are not fully pre-
dictable and may result in side effects not originally foreseen. It is an important duty of research evaluation to
map and assess the worth of these side effects. By-products, whether anticipated or unanticipated, detrimen-
tal or beneficial, are crucial factors in every inclusive judgment of the operation of an intervention.
Client-Oriented Merit Criteria

Responsiveness to values espoused or suggested by intervention clients (targets, participants, addressees,

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customers) have been proposed as an alternative or supplement to intervention goals and merit criteria for
side effects. Client criteria such as desires, wishes, interests and expectations can be weakly, moderately and
strongly included in the evaluation. In the weakly included case, participants respond to data-gathering in-
struments by providing information and judgments but nothing more. Studies of client satisfaction with public
sector services belong to this category. Being strongly included connotes that the evaluation is initiated, fund-
ed, designed, carried out, and reported by the clients themselves.
Let me reason from the moderately included case, wherein the evaluation is (1) commissioned by non-clients
but (2) charted to involve service users in important decisions regarding service planning and execution. In-
tervention clients are asked to select intervention dimensions to be judged and value criteria to be used. For
instance, clients may be asked to judge service quality. Is the core service tailored to the demands of the
clients? In addition, clients may be asked to judge service process features; do the service employees en-
counter the clients with respect and correctness? Finally, clients may also be asked to estimate service im-
pacts on themselves or on the client community in general. In such effects-on-clients evaluations, targets try
to determine the relative change in themselves or in the overall client body as a result of their participation in
specific treatment modalities.
Currently, client-based merit criteria are employed in appraisals of services like child care, nursing homes for
the elderly, public housing, mental health, public utilities, parks and recreation, etc., wherein clientele partic-
ipation is crucial to program operation. Client-based criteria are used to evaluate library services, museums,
halls for indoor badminton, bandy, tennis and workouts, trash hauling, street cleaning, snow removal, traffic
noise, and urban transit. It is a favorite with educators. At universities, students are routinely requested to
share their opinions on courses, reading lists, and lectures. They are asked to rate their teachers’ abilities to
organize course content, to stimulate debate and discussion, to stir student interest, foster critical thinking,
and to show concern and enthusiasm for their students. Occasionally, these evaluations are used to rank
faculty and courses with the stated purpose of enabling prospective future students to make better-informed
choices.
Application of client merit criteria departs from the notion that public administration produces goods and ser-
vices for customers in the marketplace. In buying a commodity, ideal-type customers pay no attention to pro-
ducer goals. The value of the good to the consumer is what counts. Conclusion: public services should also
be geared to consumer tastes only.
Yet, the customer-in-the-market parallel cannot be pushed that far. In representative democracies, public
sector targets are also citizens and, in that capacity, principals of last resort. From this citizen perspective,
the client notion includes participatory and deliberative aspects, which are absent from the ideal-type cus-
tomer concept. The participatory feature suggests that clients/citizens may voice their complaints and de-
sires in interactive, dialogical encounters with the evaluators and service providers and, to some extent, in-
fluence and take responsibility for service content. The deliberative trait engenders a discursive, reasoning,
discussing, learning-through-dialogue countenance, which may engender service-influencing and responsi-
bility-taking features but also, as a side effect, perhaps an element of client-education to become better future
citizens.
Client influence has its limits, though. Since representative democracy is the dominant form of government by
the people, decisions on various sectoral policies cannot be left to targets/clients and their service providers.
The major power belongs to the demos as a whole, its representatives, and their delegates. Client gover-
nance must work within the frames fixed by representative democracy.
Professional Merit Criteria: Self-Evaluation/Peer Review Combinations

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Professional or collegial evaluation models imply that members of a profession are entrusted to evaluate their
own and their colleagues’ performances with respect to the profession's own standards of quality. The most
celebrated collegial model is the peer review approach, in which the evaluation is conducted by an external
collegium, i.e., an assembly of professional equals somewhat more prominent in their area of expertise than
the colleagues they are invited to assess. In this way, political scientists evaluate political scientists, lawyers
evaluate lawyers, surgeons evaluate surgeons, social workers evaluate social workers, and so on.
In evaluation of research and higher education, a combination of self-evaluation and external peer review is
used. This model is partly based upon dialogue, discussion, and deliberation. The procedure starts with self-
evaluation. The professionals to be evaluated carry out an appraisal of their own performance, their research
projects, and their graduate education program. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the content of
our research and graduate education? What opportunities do we have to make it better? What threats are
confronting us that may turn it worse? In sum, they perform a SWOT analysis.
Then comes the peer review. Renowned external scientists and educators of the particular field are assigned
to assess the quality and relevance of the evaluatee's work content. These peers base their preliminary as-
sessment on the written self-evaluation combined with face-to-face evaluator–evaluatee dialogues during site
visits. The evaluators inscribe their preliminary judgments in a draft report, often structured according to the
SWOT-scheme. Then, the dialogical process continues in that evaluatees are invited to advance comments
before the draft report is finalized.
The self-evaluation/peer review approach is interactive. The evaluators meet the evaluatees, ask questions
that the evaluatees answer, which spawn new questions and new answers, etc., from which both parties
learn. Dialogue, deliberation, and interaction among the evaluatees themselves and between evaluatees and
evaluators are crucial.
Collegial evaluation is applied in profession-driven areas of the public sector. In these areas, quality criteria
are complex, liquid, mutable, and continually changing. Often they are communicated orally only in the rele-
vant professions as tacit knowledge. This tacit knowledge must be brought forward through penetrating dia-
logues among groups of colleagues with some scientific education and clinical training and experience in the
pertinent field. Architects, judges, professors, doctors, veterinarians, engineers, and forest rangers would be
cases in point. Hence, it is also considered reasonable to delegate appraisals to the professions. However,
since these professionals work in the public sector, financed by taxpayers’ money, collegial evaluation must
be regarded as a model on a par with the other models used in public life.
Collegial evaluations may produce questionable results. Studies with matched panels show that peers use dif-
ferent merit criteria and reach miscellaneous conclusions. However, in complex fields, interactive, discursive
collegial evaluation is probably the finest method available to judge the content quality of what is produced.
Stakeholder Criteria of Merit

Concerns and issues of stakeholders serve as evaluative merit criteria. Stakeholders might be defined as ac-
tors (groups or individuals) who are affected by or have an interest vested in the evaluation or in the evaluand,
its implementation, or its outcome effects. Interest may be measured in terms of money, status, power, face,
reputation, prestige, esteem, respect, chance, opportunity, promotion, advancement, or other value criteria,
and may be large or small, as constructed by the groups in question. This is quite different from using prede-
termined objectives as merit criteria, as in goal-attainment evaluation. Stakeholder evaluation, however, does
resemble the client-oriented model, the major difference being one of scope: while the client-driven model is
concerned with one group of affected interests, the stakeholder model is geared to all of them.
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Figure 65.4 presents an overview of conceivable stakeholders in local social welfare interventions (Hansen
and Vedung, 2010).
Figure 65.4 Potential stakeholders in local social welfare interventions
Source: Adapted from Vedung, 2013: 395 by Tage Vedung and EV.
The stakeholder approach starts with evaluator mapping of the major groups who are affected by the inter-
vention or by its evaluation. The evaluator identifies the people who initiated, hammered-out, funded, and
adopted the intervention. She pinpoints those who are charged with its implementation: managers, staff, and
front-line operators. She singles out the intervention's primary target group, i.e., its clients and the clients’ as-
sociations. She identifies relatives and relatives’ associations. She may also include lay people.
As to data gathering, self-observation and sustained dialogical methods are mixed with surveys, question-
naires, and statistics. In-depth interviewing of individual targets, admitting interactive interviewer–intervie-
wee dialogue, is one favored technique. Self-reporting instruments are used that clients, parents, relatives,
and other stakeholding networks can easily complete. In some cases, stakeholder evaluators endorse fo-
cus-group interviewing, which allows for group deliberations among participants and between participants
and evaluators. After data are amassed and processed, the reporting of findings, which might vary from one
stakeholder to another, will commence. The key word seems to be portrayals, i.e., information-rich character-
izations using statistics, pictures, anecdotes, thick descriptions, and quotes.
The use of stakeholder value criteria has several advantages. Fundamental is the argument from expertise.
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Stakeholders are supposed to contribute evaluative (and substantive) insights that enhance evaluation qual-
ity. For political scientists cum evaluators, democratic aspects are crucial, although side effects in relation
to expertise. Democratic arguments depart from participative, deliberative, and representative points of view.
True, democracy means that citizens in general elections vote for competing elites that are supposed to make
decisions on their behalf (representative democracy). Yet, the citizenry should also be able to partake in final
public decision-making between elections (participative democracy). Furthermore, discussion, dialogue, and
interactive discourse are also important democratic values because they help people to form and refine their
beliefs and preferences (deliberative democracy). Stakeholder models satisfy participative and deliberative
values within the frames set by representative democratic bodies of the system, it is often maintained.
Substance/Cost Criteria of Merit

Paying no heed to costs is characteristic of all evaluations using substance-only criteria in their appraisals.
To remedy this omission, economists have devised substance/cost criteria, two of which will be touched upon
here: productivity and efficiency. Productivity is the ratio of outputs to costs, i.e., outputs:inputs. A study of pro-
ductivity in municipal libraries can use cost productivity as a measure, i.e., number of books borrowed:costs
in euros. In addition, work productivity can be used: number of books borrowed:number of hours worked. In
both cases, output is indicated in physical terms – the number of books borrowed. The difference is that costs
in the former case are indicated in monetary terms; in the latter case, in number of hours worked, that is,
costs are indicated in physical entities. Costs can be computed in both ways in productivity measurement.
Productivity is not an ideal measuring rod for assessing the merit of public sector activities. The public institu-
tion may do wrong things, i.e., the outputs may not produce the desired outcome effects. Therefore, efficiency,
as a yardstick for effects, is a better metric.
Ideally, efficiency presupposes two things. The evaluator must distinguish between gross and net outcomes,
the latter taken to be intervention effects in the sense of being produced, at least partly, by the intervention
and its implementation and not by something else (see Figure 65.1). Second, the value of these intervention
effects must be calculated by using some merit criterion, such as intervention goals. If efficiency is measured
in cost–benefit analysis, it can be expressed as the ratio of the monetized value of the intervention effects to
the monetized costs, i.e., value of intervention effects (in euros):costs (in euros).
This will end our discourse on the questions concerning valuing, the third area covered in our eight questions
approach to public policy evaluation (Table 65.1). It is time to turn to questions concerning areas 4–8 in the
list, starting with number 4: Intervention selection and description.
Intervention Selection and Description

What can be evaluated? The answer is: anything. This article is about public intervention evaluation. A public
intervention under evaluation (evaluand for short) might be an assignment to develop a draft intervention pro-
posal. It might be an adopted intervention, such as a policy, a reform, a program, a plank in a program, or a
project. It might be adopted administrative strategies, like results-oriented management. It might be a policy
instrument or a mix of policy instruments. And it might be practices, like childcare service provision.
Public intervention evaluands vary on many other dimensions as well. Some are broad, others narrow. Some
are regular programs that go on for decades, others projects to be finished in a couple of weeks. Some are
local in their scope, others intraregional, national, interregional (EU), or global (17 sustainable development
goals, SDGs, to be attained in 2030). Yet, however wide or narrow, long-lasting or short-lived, permanent or
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provisional, they must be described – the fourth item in the eight questions approach. To ensure usability and
utilization, these descriptions should not render the evaluands as too idiosyncratic and situation-bound.
For reasons of space, I will illustrate the general reasoning with one example only: representing the evaluand
in terms of its policy instruments. By definition, public policy instruments are a set of techniques by which
public sector authorities wield their power in attempting to effect social change or eliciting support. Apart from
organizing, there are three, and only three, basic instruments that governments have recourse to: sticks, car-
rots, and sermons. Figure 65.5 illustrates this policy instrument triad.
Figure 65.5 The policy instruments triad with affirmatives and negatives
Source: Adapted from Bemelmans-Videc and Vedung, 1998: 250 by Tage Vedung and EV.
Governments can either force us to do what they want (the stick, regulations), reward us or charge us materi-
ally to make us do what they want (the carrot, subsidies, taxes, i.e., economic means), or preach to us about
what we should do (the sermon, encouragements, warnings, i.e., information). In characterizing interventions
in this general, elaborated terminology, evaluations will be thematic, focusing on several interventions and
may become more relevant, attended to, and used.
Implementation
The fifth issue in the eight questions approach includes two types of activities focusing on intervention exe-
cution. Qualified monitoring checks the various stages of the complete chain of implementation – from for-
mal intervention adoption through outputs and the initial target response to outputs – in pursuit of identifying
malfunctions and hindrances. The monitor searches for and verifies difficulties, extricates mechanisms re-
leasing difficulties and suggests solutions to difficulties. Is the intervention as delivered to the clients in ac-
cordance with the intentions in the formal intervention? Is it reaching all prospective participants? In addition,
qualified monitoring also focuses on processes preceding delivery. Qualified monitoring is actually formative
process evaluation in that the full course of execution is scrutinized for possible trouble. The point is to ex-
amine whether an intervention decision is carried out according to plan in order to correct any mistakes and
omissions identified during execution.
Simple monitoring, as opposed to qualified monitoring, engenders data assembly only on some variable with-
out marrying this activity to merit criteria or trouble search. True, the data gathered may be used for qualified
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monitoring and impact assessment, but in itself, simple monitoring is not evaluation.
Outcome Effects
The issue of outcome-effects evaluation concerns intervention impacts on outcomes, whether immediate, in-
termediate, ultimate, or intended/unintended. Impact assessment attempts to determine to what extent out-
comes are influenced by the intervention or by something else operating besides the intervention. Impact as-
sessment addresses the seventh area – and indirectly also the sixth – in the eight questions approach. Are
the outcomes – once the pertinent data are collected and organized, inside or outside the targeted areas –
at least indirectly and to some extent triggered and shaped by the intervention and its implementation or are
they brought about by something else? Impact assessment, in other words, differentiates between gross out-
comes and net outcomes, the latter being caused, at least minimally, by some factor in the intervention and
its execution (Figure 65.1).
To capture intervention effects, the evaluation guild has fashioned an analytical language. Main effect is de-
fined as an actual substantive outcome impact of the adopted intervention, corresponding to the intended
goals embedded into the said intervention. In addition to transpiring in the target area, main effects are, by
definition, anticipated as well as positively valued in the intervention. A side effect is defined as an intervention
consequence outside of the target area(s) of the intervention. Side effects can be anticipated and unantici-
pated, negative or positive. Perverse effects are intervention impacts that run counter to the purposes stated
in the said intervention. These impacts may occur in the target area(s) or outside of the target areas and are
side effects. Perverse effects are different from null effects. Null effects occur when interventions generate no
impacts at all inside or outside their targeted areas. The effects tree in Figure 65.6 shows which aspects of
effects might be studied in evaluation research.
Figure 65.6 Main effects, side effects, perverse effects, and null effects
Source: Vedung, 2006: 409 and adapted from Vedung, 1997: 54.
A formidable school of evaluation metho-dologists maintain that research approaches can be rank-ordered
with respect to their capacity of providing sound and persuasive evidence on the intervention impact, with
randomized controlled, two-group experimentation at the top and qualitative process tracing, executed on one
case only without comparison case, at the bottom. Table 65.3 exhibits a condensed ranking list of this type,
often found in textbooks on evaluation.
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Table 65.3 Positivist ranking list of research designs for causal impact
Experiments with Randomized Controls: In a provisional tryout before the permanent intervention is adopt-
ed, targets are randomly divided into an experimental group, to whom the considered intervention is ad-
ministered and a control group – randomized controls – from whom the considered intervention is withheld
(classic experiments).
Experiments with Matched Controls: Targets to whom a provisional tryout is given or who have been ex-
posed to the permanent intervention are compared to a theoretically equivalent group, created nonran-
domly through matching – matched controls – from which the intervention is withheld or which has been
exposed to other intervention(s) (quasi-experiments).
Generic Controls: Effects of a provisional or permanent intervention among targets are compared with es-
tablished norms about typical changes occurring in the larger population not covered by the intervention.
Reflexive Controls: Targets who receive or have received the provisional or permanent intervention are
compared to themselves, as measured before, during, and after the intervention.
Statistical Controls: Participant and nonparticipant targets of the provisional or permanent intervention are
compared, statistically holding constant differences between participants and nonparticipants in the inter-
vention.
Shadow Controls: Targets who receive or have received the provisional or permanent intervention are
compared to the judgments of experts, program managers, and staff and of the targets themselves on
what changes they believe would have happened should there have been no intervention.
Explanatory Process Tracing: The implementation of the permanent intervention in its natural settings is
traced step by step from decision to outcome to find out facilitating and constraining factors in the process
and its surrounding contexts.
Note. A permanent intervention is a ‘real’ intervention in contrast to a provisional tryout intervention.
Source: Adapted from Vedung, 1997: 170 via Vedung, 2006: 409.
Opponents demur at the rank ordering in Table 65.3 with the RCTs as the best approach to causality in policy
evaluation and process tracing as the worst; instead they argue that intervention-theory informed, mecha-
nism-seeking explanatory process tracing of one case only, as well as shadow controls and generic, reflexive,
and statistical controls, are more applicable and relevant to evaluation in public sector contexts. A majority of
political scientists tend to align with the protesters, at least in their practices. The controversy continues.
Utilization
Findings from evaluations should be used, period! This was a dogma among pioneering evaluators in the
1960s. Since then an array of distinctions have been conceived to probe more deeply into use and useful-
ness. Fundamental is the distinction between process use and product use, departing from the aforemen-
tioned observation of evaluation as a process-product concept. The final report and written, oral, and visual
information efforts around the final report, such as press releases, seminars, and special sections drawn out
from the final report and transmitted to particular audiences, are included in product use. The product use cat-
egory also includes the utilization of findings and recommendations gleaned from draft final reports and from
interim oral, written, audiovisual, or electronical reporting during evaluation processes, i.e., before evaluation
activities have been brought to an end (Vedung, 2020; Højlund, 2014; Stockmann and Meyer, 2013; Henry
and Mark, 2003; Patton, 2012).
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Process use covers utilization prompted by activities of announcing, planning, and performing of evaluation.
The sheer announcement of an upcoming evaluation as well as broadcasting of information on evaluation
subject-matter, questions to be asked, and methods to be applied may provoke use. This means that an eval-
uation may be used well before an evaluation team has been formed and started to work. Moreover, potential
users may surface outside of the evaluation team and the range of stakeholders to be contacted by the team.
Second, the answering of distributed survey items or being interviewed by the evaluators, working as a team
member and helping to determine and fine-tune the evaluation's key questions, contributing to data analyses,
and aiding in the development of recommendations or action plans are other features that may stimulate use.
Four broad action plans to enhancement of use of evaluation findings will be briefly touched upon here. Taking
evaluative findings as a given, the diffusion-oriented strategy is concerned with making their availability and
linguistic costume as user-friendly as possible. Table 65.4 presents a collection of some diffusion-oriented
recommendations.
Table 65.4 Diffusion-oriented strategy for improved use of evaluation processes and products
I. Draft and interim reporting (before final reporting)

1◦ Potential evaluation clients and users should be located in ad-
vance and then continually;
2◦ Preliminary findings, insights and recommendations ought to
be disseminated to core audiences and others rapidly and continually, before
final reporting;
II. Primary final reporting: designing and shaping of final report
3◦ A report should contain a highly visible abstract to enable po-
tential users to decide whether or not to continue reading;
4◦ A report should contain an executive summary, somewhat
longer than an abstract, but still short and sharp; the summary should start
with the major substantive findings;
5◦ Reports should display some startling fact that makes people
sit up and think;
6◦ Substantive findings ought to be presented first, methods af-
terwards; the major substantive results should be stated in unequivocal termi-
nology prior to reservations, not the other way around;
7◦ Reasoning on methods should be minimal in the bulk of the
report, but appended as attachments;
8◦ Reports should include recommendations for action and
lessons learned;
III. Primary final reporting: handling of final report
9◦ Final reports should be on time;
IV. Secondary final reporting
10◦ Evaluators should make efforts to disseminate their findings
after the fact;
11◦ Evaluators should tell stories and performance anecdotes to
illustrate their points;
12◦ Evaluators should engage in public discourse;
13◦ Evaluation findings should be disseminated in syntheses.
Source: Adapted from Vedung, 1997: 281 and Vedung, 2006: 414.

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Timely, repeated reporting and linguistic fashioning is not enough. The production-oriented strategy suggests
that findings should be made recipient-friendly through indirect efforts targeted at the evaluation process pre-
ceding the discoveries.
Evaluators should take user worries seriously. The responsive evaluator should answer the users’ questions,
not the questions of academic interest only. Plausible users, with different positions in the chain of imple-
mentation and at different hierarchical levels working with interventions in different stages of maturity, have
dissimilar information needs. Preferably, evaluators and the likely recipients should frame the questions to-
gether before they are left to the evaluators for investigation. Alternatively, prospective recipients and eval-
uators should work together throughout the entire assessment process. In addition to problem identification,
planning for data collection, actual data collection, data processing, conclusion drawing, and report writing,
cooperation should spill over into dissemination and utilization as well. Evaluations should be demand-led,
not supply-led.
The evaluator/recipient consultation approach displays advantages. The chances of providing the right kind of
information to recipients will increase. This will enhance the probability that the users will become committed
to the findings, which will make them more prone to using the findings or recommending that others do so.
Another merit is that learning may occur in the evaluation process, i.e., long before the publication of the final
tract.
An indirect production-oriented strategy would be meta-evaluation, in the sense of auditing of the evaluation
function. Instead of actually carrying out substantive evaluations, senior management should concentrate on
auditing the evaluation function in subordinate bureaus. While lower-level branches are instructed to do self-
evaluation/peer evaluation of their own performance and summarize the findings in an evaluation essay, high-
er authorities assume the task of conducting evaluations of their subordinates’ evaluation work based upon
the report supplemented with other information.
Meta-evaluation, in the second sense of summarizing all kinds of discoveries from several evaluations, is an-
other strategy. When summarized, findings across many assessments may cumulate to a surprising extent.
Summaries may seem more useful to decision-makers than single evaluation efforts and lead to improved
utilization.
The third major approach to utilization improvement, the user-oriented strategy, engenders making potential
evaluation clients more susceptible to utilization. Users might be educated in evaluation through evaluation
capacity building. Fourth, and finally, the policy formation process may be adjusted to the demands of evalu-
ation research. This intervention-oriented strategy could be realized through a two-step style of public policy-
making: first a provisional, small-scale tryout, accompanied by stringent evaluation, and second, inauguration
across the board of the best alternative elicited in the tryout and pointed out through the evaluation of the
tryout.
Evaluation History and its Profound Controversies

Policy evaluation, in the prescriptive sense of providing advice to power, was established in pioneering coun-
tries in the middle of the 1960s. It was born as a supplement to prescriptive policy analysis ex ante, i.e.,
providing advice by calculating beforehand the probable outcome effects of various suggested interventions.
This left outcome effects of actually adopted interventions, their actual outputs, and actual implementation
outside the realm of analysis, a lacuna that policy evaluation was devised to address. Public policy evaluation
came to focus on adopted, extant, or abolished interventions and their implementation and empirical outcome
effects in society or nature in order to suggest improvements.
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Policy evaluation can also be descriptive in the sense of just portraying various aspects of actually performed
evaluations of policies without aiming at improvement. This article has focused the prescriptive variant with
the proviso that everything said might be relevant also for descriptive policy evaluation.
Since its inception more than 50 years ago as a prescriptive analysis, evaluation has expanded enormously
and become a worldwide movement. Much evaluation is carried out. National evaluation associations are
founded in practically all countries and continents of the world. Particular journals and special conferences
are thriving. Yet, evaluation is not a university discipline like political science, economics, psychology, sociolo-
gy, education, public health, and social work. Evaluation is a transdiscipline, taught and practiced as one field
among many in most social science departments, and, importantly, evaluation is controversial, sometimes
dramatically so, politically and academically. This is revealed when we take a look at its history.
Four Major Evaluation Waves and their Depositions, 1960–2018

Over the last half-century, policy evaluation as a practice, field of interest, study, and discourse has been in
constant flux. Sometimes, one previously very popular form of evaluation has been heavily criticized and lost
its attractiveness, prestige, and support in favor of new forms. However, after some time, the new forms have,
in their turn, been viciously attacked and lost their attractiveness and backing in favor of new, contrasting, and
seemingly promising approaches (Furubo and Sandahl, 2002; cf. Wollmann, 2003).
The whole situation can be likened to ocean waves swelling in and subsiding, swelling in and subsiding. In
subsiding, silt from earlier waves has not entirely disappeared but solidified into layers of left-behind sedi-
ment. In due time, the extant evaluation landscape in some public sectors in the West has come to consist
of layers upon layers of evaluative sediment. To capture these vicissitudes in policy evaluation, I have used
the metaphor of waves leaving layers of sediment.2 Four major waves of evaluation have swept ashore in the
Atlantic world between 1960 and 2018:3
1. scientific wave;
2. dialogical wave;
3. New Public Management wave; and
4. evidence-based wave.
The Scientific Wave

Starting in the early 1960s, evaluation emerged as part of a large stream of ideas purporting to make public
policy more scientific. It was maintained that the public sector would perform much better with a proper dose
of trustworthy scientific findings about the real results of adopted policies and programs. The coveted scien-
tification was fashioned according to the engineering model.
The engineering model implied that public policy decision-making should proceed in two stages. The first, pre-
liminary stage suggested that conceivable means to reach given ends should be rigorously tested in carefully
designed, small-scale pilot trials carried out by academic researchers. Acting as distanced, neutral observers
and armed with the best available scientific method in the form of randomized two-group experimentation, re-
searchers should empirically test which means are most effective in attaining the given ends of the pertinent
interventions. In a second stage, on the basis of the means findings from these scientific trials, the political
system should arrive at decisions on the full-scale introduction of the most effective means to achieve the
stated ends.
Provided the intervention decision is faithfully submitted by decision-makers to managers and operators who,
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in their turn, faithfully implement it, the desired outcome will occur. The two last steps of implementation were
assumed, not empirically tested in the pilots.
The engineering model posited that evaluative findings are used instrumentally. Instrumental use implies that
evidence on methods (means, instruments) in evaluation products (final and draft final reports) is accepted
as trustworthy by primary users and transformed into binding decisions on the best means to reach the goals
in the intervention under scrutiny.
The science-driven wave rested upon means–ends rationality, emanating from the thinking of the great Ger-
man sociologist Max Weber. Given that goals were set by bodies outside of the scientific community and ex-
pressly recognized as subjective and falling outside the realm of science, the ability of various means to reach
these externally set goals could be empirically and objectively ascertained in experimental settings by scien-
tists. In political science, behavioralism (and positivism) are designations for this train of thought concerning
the centrality of observing the means–ends distinction in academic research (Simon, 1976: 37).
The Dialogical Wave

In the early 1970s, faith in methods-driven scientification of government started to languish. Mistrust of ex-
perimental evaluation gained momentum. Demands were voiced for more participation by diverse groups and
more dialogue and communication in evaluations.
Evaluation should be pluralistic and democratic, not scientific, it was argued. Evaluation should be performed
by the Common Man, not the Academic Man. All groupings having some stake in an intervention should
be activated (Guba and Lincoln, 1989: 51; Karlsson, 2001, 1996). Although considerably older than evalua-
tion, the dialogue-among-stakeholders idea was incorporated into policy evaluation discourse and practice at
about this time, and it has stayed there ever since.
Evaluations should be set up with significant stakeholder audiences represented (see the earlier section
‘Stakeholder Criteria of Merit'). They should continue to be a concern for politicians and top-level managers
but now as members of larger groups of stakeholders communicating among each other and with the evalua-
tors. The claims, concerns, issues, and goals of the various stakeholders should serve as points of departure
for evaluations. Far from being carried out as rigorous scientific two-group experimentation, stakeholder eval-
uation was conducted by discussion and dialogue among equals, even deliberation avant la lettre (Guba and
Lincoln, 1989: 56). Thus, the dialogical wave is an appropriate designation.
Actually, for this wave of evaluation, Guba and Lincoln (1989: 43, 83) proposed an alternative, constructivist
paradigm to the conventional, positivistic epistemology in which the science-driven wave was allegedly
grounded.
In contrast to the science-driven wave, the dialogical wave rested upon communicative rationality. Instead
of producing supposedly value-free truths about means only to be used instrumentally, dialogical evaluation
would generate much broader arrays of insights into, e.g., the nature of the problem at hand, the clarity, mean-
ing, and attractiveness of goals, implementation activities, the status of prophesies about the future if nothing
is done, the role of local achievements in larger multisite efforts, and the nature and influence of national and
international contexts. These insights could be used conceptually by actors at many levels. Conceptual use
implies taking evaluative final or interim findings or process features into account, which may stimulate think-
ing and evolve into new concepts and labels for hitherto unorganized understandings without directly and
immediately transforming into decisions and action on the evaluand. Communicative rationality can be seen
in the work of Jürgen Habermas as opposed to Max Weber.
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With time, the dialogue-oriented wave developed toward deliberative democracy. Dialogue-based evaluations
were presented as appropriate arenas where intervention clients, citizens, and other stakeholder audiences
deliberated on the effects and implementation of public interventions. This might deepen representative
democracy, because participants, as a long-term beneficial side effect, would learn to become more engaged
and better citizens, it was argued.
New Public Management (NPM) Wave

Stronger, broader, and more varied than the scientific and the dialogical waves, the NPM wave came rolling
in around 1980. Also referred to as the neo-liberal turn, the NPM wave was based on a mistrust of central
planning but saw the remedy in neither dialogue and stakeholder participation nor scientific experimentation.
It was market-oriented, customer-friendly and cost averse. ‘One might put the NPM ideals very simply as a
desire to replace the presumed inefficiency of hierarchical bureaucracy with the presumed efficiency of mar-
kets’ (Power, 1997: 43). Privatization, outsourcing, deregulation, and customer choice became new key words
(Hood, 1991; Hood and Jackson, 1991; Osborne and Gaebler, 1992; Pollitt, 2003; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2004;
Kusek and Rist, 2004; Rist and Stame, 2006).
NPM made evaluation for accountability, value for money, cost-effectiveness, and productivity into permanent
features of performance management and outsourcing. Evaluation became part and parcel of larger gov-
ernance doctrines, such as the purchaser–provider split model and results-oriented management. In Figure
65.7, NPM is condensed into three overarching elements.
Figure 65.7 Basic elements of New Public Management
Source: Adapted from Vedung (2010: 271) by Tage Vedung and EV which is a revised version of Øgård (2000:
33). Also Kusek and Rist, 2004.
The first element is belief in strong leadership. Leadership should be exercised by management profession-
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als. Good leadership must be taught and learnt. Being an expert on the actual substantive issues is not nec-
essary. Leaders should meet demands like value-for-money, performance, efficiency, and other management
skills. ‘Let managers manage’ is the battle cry.
The second ingredient involves increased use of indirect instead of direct control. The government should act
as the helmsman of the ship of state, not as an oarsman (‘steering not rowing', Osborne and Gaebler, 1992:
25). In any case, the steering and rowing functions should be separated. Corporatization and outsourcing of
public services, as well as increased competition, are also important to avoid wastage, counterbalance pub-
lic employees’ self-interest, and boost flexibility. Total privatization is included, but as ‘one arrow [only] in the
government's quiver’ (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992: 45).
The third NPM component part is customer choice. In contrast to the dialogical wave, the NPM wave is cus-
tomer-oriented, not stakeholder-oriented. This part of the NPM focuses on how organizations might be re-
formed so that actual performance becomes more customized. This can be achieved if clients are allowed to
choose between several, competing service providers. It can also be achieved through hearings and ques-
tionnaires measuring client service satisfaction of the findings, which elected and appointed officials may act
upon.
In the NPM wave, it is imperative that the fundamental principal in a representative democracy, the demos
(the people), has a right to know how its agents spend its tax money. This results in an increased emphasis on
holding agents to account for their resource use by checking for: economy, effectiveness, and efficiency (the
three Es). Evaluation, a permanent feature of results-based management and of outsourcing, has taken on
new expressions in the form of accountability assessment, performance measurement, and consumer satis-
faction appraisal. This contrasts sharply with both the scientific and the dialogical wave in which cost aspects
were not stressed and evaluation was resorted to in special situations as one-off enterprises.
Evidence-based Wave
Around 1995, the evidence wave started to roll in over the Atlantic shores. Like the scientific wave of the
1960s, this fourth evaluation wave revolved around making public governance more scientific. This time the
catch word was evidence. Front-end bureaucrat/client encounters and policies should be substantiated by
high-quality research, not just beliefs and prejudices of practitioners, experts, administrators, or policymak-
ers. Doctors, for instance, in their care of patients, should administer treatments whose effectiveness was
corroborated beforehand by academic inquiry or previous research-like evaluations. They should also pursue
after-the-fact evaluation and check continuously whether the chosen treatments had generated the desired
outcome effects in the particular contexts at hand.
With sometimes surprising speed, the evidence strategy spread, from its start in clinical medicine, into other
policy domains and street-level practices such as social work, public health, and crime prevention. While
growing, the evidence-oriented surge is not as generally adopted as its immediate predecessor, the NPM
wave, was in its heyday.
‘Evidence, in its broadest sense includes everything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an
assertion', states Wikipedia (n.d.). ‘Evidence is anything that you see, hear, or read that causes you to believe
that something is true or has really happened', concurs the Free Dictionary (n.d.). This is the widely held, or-
dinary meaning of evidence.
In public policy, however, the evidence notion is applied to interventions as a means to attain ends. Interven-
tions should work; if not, they should be improved or replaced. ‘What works?’ is the basic question raised in
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the evidence wave. ‘What matters is what works’ is a slogan of the movement. This singular emphasis on
capacity of public policy means to effectuate outcome ends (goals) is similar to the focus of the scientific eval-
uation wave in the middle of the 1960s. Yet, there are also differences. Allow me to reason based on Table
65.5, which presents an ideal-type, so-called evidence hierarchy, so typical of the evidence wave in its clinical
medicine version.
Table 65.5 Medical bent evidence hierarchy of research designs for causal impact
1. Systematic reviews
2. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs, double-blind, classic two-group experiments)
____________
3. Quasi-experimental studies (two-group, non-random, matched experiments)
4. Before-and-after comparison
5. Cross-sectional, random sample studies
6. Process evaluation, formative studies and action research
7. Qualitative case studies
8. Examples of good practice
9. Professional practitioners’ opinions, expert opinions
10. Client opinions
Source: Adapted from Pawson, 2006: 49 and Rieper and Foss Hansen, 2007 via Vedung, 2010: 273.
All evidence hierarchies compare and grade the ability of several research designs to produce safe causal
knowledge of outcome effects of interventions. The ranking list of a purportedly medical bent, presented in
Table 65.5, displays a range of scholarly methodologies extending from, at the top, systematic reviews, creat-
ing interventions allegedly working excellently, to client opinions at the bottom, generating interventions with
allegedly shaky or non-existent evidential support.
In evidence hierarchies from medicine, two-group experimentation with randomized controls is held to pro-
duce the best evidence of all. Therefore, why in table 65.5 systematic reviews are ranked the highest, one
rung above singular RCTs? The reason is that these reviews are also RCT-based, the difference being that
they are summaries of several evaluative and academic RCT studies – a succinct conglomeration of ten such
studies provides safer evidence than a report on one. Systematic reviews are new in relation to the scientific
wave; in the 1960s, systematic reviews were neither discussed, nor practiced. The systematic review phe-
nomenon and its surrounding organizational machinery is a typical element of the evidence wave.
The definitions of systematic review (and meta-analysis), provided by the Centre for Evidence-based Con-
servation in Britain (CEBC, n.d.), fits well with the meaning attached to the term in medicine-based evidence
discourse.
‘Systematic review is a tool used to summarize, appraise, and communicate the results and implications of
a large quantity of research and information. It can be used to synthesize results of many separate studies
examining the same question. The purpose of a systematic review is to provide the best available evidence
on the likely outcomes of various actions'.
In the sequel of this section, I will use the social work domain (drug abuse, dysfunctional families, homeless-
ness, social exclusion) to illuminate some controversial points with transferring evidence hierarchies in medi-
cine to softer human service domains like education, criminal prevention, or long-term unemployment.

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A major issue concerns how social field workers should relate to evidence. Using research evidence presup-
poses that practitioners in their practices have the time and competence to find and judge the relevance and
quality of available research. Often, this is not the case.
A highly visible diffusion-oriented strategy to evidence utilization (see the section ‘Utilization') puts emphasis
on a combination of evidence from randomized controlled experiments, systematic reviews, and so-called
practice guidelines. First, insights from individual randomized controlled experiments are collected and refined
into systematic reviews. This could be done by a national board but also by an international organization, like
the Campbell Collaboration, founded as part of the evidence-based wave. Systematic reviews constitute start-
ing points for the production of guidelines. Social work guidelines are systematically developed statements to
assist practitioner decisions about appropriate social work interventions for specific practical circumstances.
They may be produced by central agencies and disseminated to front-line bureaucrats through administrative
channels. Following that, social workers localize and select interventions from among the guidelines and ap-
ply them to their clients in practical care situations.
With time, this approach to evidence has met massive criticism from academics and professionals in social
work. First, there are almost no applicable RCTs around. Therefore, the evidence hierarchy must be loosened
up and rephrased. In this case, the term ‘evidence’ should be changed to ‘best available evidence’ and the
evidence concept widened to include, for instance, locally fashioned single or comparative case studies using
a mechanism-seeking methodology. The findings from these may have lower general internal validity than
findings from randomized tests carried out in, say, Catania, Italy, but potentially higher external validity in the
practical field situation in, say, Kiruna, Sweden. Second, best available research evidence should be integrat-
ed with two other sources of knowledge and values: the professional knowledge of the social worker and the
values and insights of clients. All this is summarized under the label evidence-based practice (EBP).
To summarize the goal of EBP is the integration of: (1) the clinical expertise/expert opinion of the front-level
bureaucrat/social worker, (2) external, best available scientific evidence in a wide meaning, and (3) client/
patient/caregiver perspectives. The aligner of the three themes should be the social worker in her practical
encounters with her clients under prevailing contextual circumstances. Therefore, social workers should mas-
ter critical appraisal, another key word in the evidence wave. They should be capable of assessing data in
published research, applying rules of evidence to factors such as internal and external validity, judging ap-
proaches to causality like the variance approach and the mechanistic approach, estimating the validity of data
collection methods etc.
Outside of all textual and graphic versions of the EBP triad, but a necessary feature of EBP anyway, is evalu-
ation. In medicine, as in social work, the applied intervention should be evaluated for outcome effectiveness,
i.e., applying the machinery of goal-attainment. To this, I would add the side effects machinery. In social work,
I would also recommend evaluation of the effects and side effects of the processes preceding the outcomes,
i.e., the implementation of the said intervention. Why? Because in social work literature, it is strongly argued
that the working alliance between the social worker and the client creates more outcome impact than the in-
tervention proper, and the alliance belongs to implementation.
Conclusion
In this essay, I have adopted a broad view of evaluation. Evaluation is not an academic discipline of its own
anywhere in Europe and rarely in the USA. It is taught and researched not only in economics and education,
but also in psychology, sociology, business administration, public health, and political science, which has cre-
ated a multiplicity of approaches and methodologies. Evaluation is not about intervention effects on outcomes
only, but also about implementation. There are several models of evaluation around not only productivity, ef-
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ficiency, and goal-achievement, but also client-oriented, peer review, self-evaluation and stakeholder models.
For some, evaluation is only about the scientification of public interventions by double-blind two-group experi-
mentation, for others, evaluation is more about democratization through hands-on participation and dialogical
methods. In this short entry I have attempted to create a broad overview of trends in this rich field of scientific
endeavors.
Acknowledgments
My brother Tage Vedung in Uppsala has helped me with graphics and computational services and equipments
of all kinds. Nancy E. A. Aaen in Roskilde has checked my language. I thank them both with the addition that
the final responsibility for the article rests entirely with myself.
Notes
1 Since this is not my first foray into the substance, methodology, and movement of public sector evaluation,
the article draws heavily upon Vedung (1997, 1998, 2006, 2010, 2013), Johansson et al. (2015), and Hertting
and Vedung (2012).
2 Alkin (2004: 13) applies the tree metaphor with roots, trunk, branches, and twigs to capture the contributions
of evaluation theorists in the United States, and, in later addenda, in Europe and Australasia (Alkin, 2013:
388, 12). The generation metaphor is used by Guba and Lincoln (1989) in their fourth-generation evaluation
on evaluation trends in the United States. Focusing more on evaluation content than theorists, Dahler-Larsen
(2011) uses the society metaphor, at present the Audit society, formerly Modernity and Reflexive Modernity.
3 The section on waves draws heavily on Vedung (2010), written in 2005–2008; the basic wave structure is
kept, but the text of the three first waves is shortened and revised. The account of the evidence wave is both
revised and expanded.
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sented to RC 32 within IPSA World Congress, Durban, June 28–July 4, 2003.
• policy evaluation
• evaluation
• public policy
• public sector
• outcomes
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n68

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Policy Instruments
Contributors: Michael Howlett

Chapter Title: "Policy Instruments"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Policy Instruments
Michael Howlett
A Short History of the Study of Policy Tools

In policy studies, choosing which policy instruments to use to address public problems is an important topic
of enquiry across a variety of areas. A focus on linking policy tools to pressing policy problems, for example,
defines a ‘design’ orientation to policy formulation while an emphasis on how tools are deployed, and their
effectiveness or ineffectiveness is a major subject of inquiry in policy implementation. In a time when poli-
cymakers are increasingly asked to put forth innovative solutions to complex policy issues such as climate
change and poverty or homelessness, the need to further understand the instruments of governance and how
they can be better designed, selected and implemented is an increasingly important need.
Towards this end, the ‘tools approach’ to the study of policy-making has developed into a fully fledged field of
policy studies with its own concerns for accurately classifying and analysing the strengths and weaknesses
of different tools, whether used alone or in combination (Salamon, 1989, 2002; Hood, 1986, Hood, 2007).
This approach has its own dynamics and relationship to policy practice. Hence, for example, the globaliza-
tion ‘turn’ of the 1990s favoured the use of market- and network-based tools and led to much research in this
area, while the retrenchment and crises of the 2000s witnessed a reinvigorated focus on policy design and
the knowledge-informed study of the substance and formulation processes of policy instruments.
The tools approach focuses both on traditional ‘substantive’ tools of policy-making, such as regulation and
public ownership, and on ‘procedural’ tools tied to the design and implementation of public participation and
other activities only indirectly linked to goods or service delivery. These latter include, for example, the de-
sign of advisory committees which often accompany regulatory agencies, and tools which structure the policy
processes and actor interactions more generally such as the design of public hearings, websites, judicial re-
view processes and others (Howlett, 2011; Fung, 2003; McNutt, 2014). Studies also focus upon how both of
these kinds of tools are mixed together in policy bundles, portfolios or ‘mixes’ (Howlett, 2004; Flanagan et al.,
2011). This chapter looks at both kinds of tools and how they can be combined and draws lessons for practi-
tioners from the work of scholars on these subjects over the past several decades.
Basic Theories and Concepts: Substantive and Procedural Tools

Early students of policy-making had very flexible notions of the multiple means by which governments give
effect to policy (Dahl and Lindblom, 1953; Kirschen et al., 1964; Edelman, 1964; Lowi, 1966). In these ear-
ly works, ‘policy instruments’ were defined broadly so as to include a wide range of tools or techniques of
governance, including ‘substantive’ instruments used to actually deliver goods and services and those ‘proce-
dural’ tools directed at affecting policy development. In his pathbreaking early works on public policy-making,
for example, Harold Lasswell conceived the main instruments of policy as involving, among other things, the
manipulation of symbols, signs and icons, as well as activities such as regulating economic actors, and noted
the extent to which manipulation of these instruments by governments could affect each stage of the policy
process (Lasswell, 1954, 1971).
By the early 1980s, under the urgings of Lester Salamon and others, attention began to be focused on more
precisely categorizing policy instruments in order to better analyse the reasons for their use (Salamon, 1981).
Scholars argued that careful examination of instruments and instrument choices would not only lead to con-
siderable insight into the factors driving the policy process and the characterization of long-term patterns of
public policy-making, but would also allow practitioners to more readily draw lessons from the experiences of
others with the use of particular techniques in specific circumstances (Woodside, 1986).

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These studies generated a large academic literature which influenced the design of new, substantive, policy
initiatives in areas such as pollution prevention and professional regulation (Hippes, 1988; Trebilcock, 1983).
Studies generated useful taxonomies (Hood, 1986; Vedung, 1997; Howlett, 1991) and shed light on signifi-
cant subjects such as the reasons behind shifts in patterns of instrument choices associated with the waves
of privatization and deregulation which characterized the period (Howlett and Ramesh, 1993).
Many of these studies, however, looked at instances of single instrument selection in trying to discern the rea-
sons why governments would choose one category of instrument over another. Heavily influenced by econo-
mists, these studies also tended to focus only upon substantive instruments such as classical command and
control regulation or public enterprises, or subsidies which more or less directly affect the type, quantity, price
or other characteristics of goods and services being produced in a society (Salamon, 1989: Bemelmans-Videc
et al., 1998; Peters and van Nispen, 1998).
Analysts of this period thus paid much less attention to the systematic analysis of both policy mixes and ‘pro-
cedural’ tools (Howlett, 2000; Riker, 1986, 1983; Dunsire, 1993). Since then, however, these defects have
been corrected. Knowledge of both of these types of instruments, their effects and the reasons behind their
choices, both singly and in mixes, is now very much a part of policy studies (Howlett et al., 2015).
Basic Taxonomies of Substantive and Procedural Policy Instruments

The analysis of specific policy instruments flourished through the 1970s and 1980s within specific sectors
such as environmental and social policy. Based on this experience, many authors proposed various instru-
ment taxonomies to ‘produce parsimonious and comprehensive or generic classifications that allowed com-
parisons across time, area, and policy domain’ (Hood, 2007: 129; Varone, 1998).
In the case of substantive policy instruments, one of the most well-known classification schemes was devel-
oped by Christopher Hood (1986). In this scheme, instruments are grouped together according to whether
they rely on the use of ‘nodality’ (or information), authority, treasure or the organizational resources of a gov-
ernment for their effectiveness, and whether the instrument is designed to effect a change in a policy envi-
ronment or detect changes in it. A taxonomy of substantive policy instruments based on Hood's schema is
presented in Figure 66.1.
Figure 66.1 A taxonomy of substantive policy instruments (cells provide examples of instruments in
each category)
Principal governing resource used
Nodality Authority Treasure Organization
• Regulation • Grants • Bureaucratic

• Advice • User • Loans administration
Effectors
• Training charges • Tax expendi- • Public enter-
• Licenses tures prises
General pur-
pose of in-
strument use
Detectors • Reporting • Census- • Polling • Record-keep-

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taking • Police re- ing

• Registration
• Consultants porting • Data storage
Source: Howlett (2000).
The aim of such taxonomical work was not only better description, but better prescription. In order to better
accomplish this, many analysts also proposed various models that attempted to establish the relationship be-
tween different instruments and government objectives (Doern and Wilson, 1974).
Howlett et al. (2009), for example, developed a spectrum of substantive instruments based on Hood's taxon-
omy which focused on the level of direct state involvement in the provision of goods and services as the chief
criterion for distinguishing between categories of ‘effector’ instruments. This placed ‘voluntary’ instruments
requiring minimal state involvement at one end of a continuum, and state-based instruments such as public
enterprises at the other. Between the two poles lies a wide range of ‘mixed’ instruments involving varying lev-
els of state and private provision of goods and services (Figure 66.2) with the idea that governments would
‘move up the scale’ of state provision as needed when private or societal actors failed to meet government
expectations.
Figure 66.2 A spectrum of substantive policy instruments
Source: Howlett et al. (2009).
While the content and implementation of substantive policy instruments continues to occupy the interest of
many policy scholars and practitioners alike, the study of procedural tools has gained more attention in re-
cent years. This occurred as many traditional public administration activities were delegated to private, non-
or quasi-governmental organizations through processes such as co-production and privatization (Pestoff et
al., 2013; Delacourt and Lenihan, 2000, Donahue, 1989; Brudney, 1987). This movement inspired a renewed
state interest in the procedural tools required to manage these kinds of processes and interactions (Klijn,
1996; Howlett, 2000).
The focus of procedural instruments is on altering actor behaviour in the process of defining policy goals and
the means to attain them, and in their implementation. Multiple actors are typically involved in policy-mak-
ing and specific ones can often heavily influence policy deliberations and outcomes (Schneider and Ingram,
2005; Schneider and Sidney, 2009). Controlling the interactions and activities of different policy actors can
affect their behaviour in developing and choosing policy solutions (Thatcher and Rein, 2004). An example of
such instruments would be a government's formation of an advisory committee to aid regulatory policy for-
mulation and legitimize its outcomes (Saward, 1992). Such a committee can be structured in an open-ended
way or to include selected experts and citizens expected to support a government's position in contentious
issue areas, such as the development of public housing or the regulation of chemical substances.
Other procedural tools involve the creation of right-to-information legislation – or their reverse, Official Secrets
Acts – which either make it easier or more difficult for citizens to gain access to government records, infor-
mation and documents and thus help or hinder their ability to comment intelligently on government plans and
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initiatives. Yet another example of such a tool is the reorganization of the government's own internal structure,
as this can have an impact on policy-making by altering the venues and images of policy-making pursued
by social actors and government agencies. This occurs, for example, when environmental departments are
merged with natural resource administrations, requiring the development of new operating arrangements, po-
tentially diminishing regard for one or the other task. Other such tools include education, training, institution
creation, the selective provision of information, formal evaluations, hearings and institutional reform. ‘Treaties’
and political agreements constitute yet another family of mechanisms that can have an impact on target com-
munity perceptions of government actions and vice versa.
Hood's classification rubric can also be applied to procedural tools. Specifically, Hood's logic can be used to
distinguish eight different kinds of procedural tools depending on the resource they utilize for their effective-
ness and whether they are intended to either enhance or diminish an actor's participation in policy-making
(Figure 66.3).
Figure 66.3 A resource-based taxonomy of procedural policy tools (cells provide examples of instru-
ments in each category)
Principal governing resource used
General
purpose of Nodality/Informa-
Authority Treasure Organization
instrument tion
use:
Education, infor- Labelling, treaties and Interest group cre-
Institutional reform, judicial
mation provision, political agreements, ation, intervenor
Positive review, conferences, co-
focus groups, advisory group cre- and research
production and co-creation
‘nudges' ation funding
Propaganda, infor-
mation suppres- Banning groups and Eliminating fund- Administrative delay and
Negative
sion, denial of ac- associations ing obfuscation
cess
While this taxonomy allows for a wide variety of procedural instruments to be organized under broad re-
source-based categories, as with the better-known substantive tools, classification is only the first step in the
process of developing a model of procedural instrument choice (McKelvey, 1978). A second step involves
explaining why one instrument would be chosen in a specific situation rather than another. Understanding the
reasons procedural tools are used requires a clear understanding of the behavioural aspects of civic society
actors and other ‘targets’ of these techniques of governance.
Procedural tools in this sense can be seen as techniques of network management that handle the partici-
pation of multiple actors in policy activities (Goldsmith and Eggers, 2004; Klijn and Koppenjan, 2000, 2006).
They are aimed at altering and improving policy interaction but, as Klijn et al. (1995: 441) note, they do so
indirectly by structuring interactions without determining their outcome.
Procedural tools affect the management of different actors in the policy network by:
• changing and setting down actor positions in the policy network;

• adding or removing actors to and from a network;
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• changing the rules for actors to access the policy network;

• influencing network formation;
• changing evaluative criteria used by actors;
• influencing the pay-off structure for actors;
• influencing professional and other codes of conduct and behaviour;
• regulating inter-actor conflict and changing procedures of interaction;
• certifying certain types of behaviour within the network; and
• changing supervisory relations between actors.
The impact of the deployment of such tools to affect actor participation in policy networks can range from mi-
nor alteration of network actor behaviour to more deep-seated and overarching restructuring of entire policy
subsystems.
These tools can thus also be positioned on a continuum, this time according to the level of state manipulation
of the membership and activities of policy actors within the policy network they involve. In this continuum (Fig-
ure 66.4), procedural tools can be arrayed based on whether government activity results in limited manipula-
tion – aimed at mildly impacting policy actor behaviour or participation through ‘voluntaristic’ responses from
target groups on one end – to major institutional changes meant to completely rearrange existing subsystem
components by mandatory means (Howlett, 2000). All of these situations involve public participation but do
so at different levels of intensity and effort.
Figure 66.4 A spectrum of procedural policy instruments
Examples of Common Policy Tools by Category

There are many policy tools and also many, many permutations and combinations of them which are possible.
In what follows below, some of the better-known and more prominent tools are listed and some of the reasons
for their use set out.
Nodality or Information-based Instruments
Public Information Campaigns

Governments chronicle a great deal about societal activities through both routine reporting and special stud-
ies. It is not uncommon, therefore, for a government to disseminate information with the expectation that in-
dividuals and firms will change their behaviour in response to it. This information is often fairly general and
intended to make societal actors more knowledgeable so that they can make informed choices. For instance,
information on tourism, trade, and economic and social trends can be disseminated by a government through
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public service advertising, leaving it to the population to draw conclusions and respond accordingly.
Public information may also be more precisely targeted to elicit a particular response, as in the case of pub-
licizing information on the ill effects of smoking. In either case, there is no obligation on the public to respond
in a particular manner. In many countries, this passive release of information may be mandated or facilitated
by freedom of information or access to information laws. These laws allow access to specific types of gov-
ernment information by members of the public. Such legislation is usually accompanied by privacy acts and
official secrets acts, which balance open access with restrictions on the release of some types of information,
the exact content of which varies from country to country.
Exhortation
Exhortation, or ‘suasion’ as it is also called, involves slightly more government activity than pure dissemination
of information. Here, public effort is devoted to influencing the preferences and actions of societal members,
rather than just informing the public about a situation with the hope that behaviour will spontaneously change
in a desired manner. Public advertisements that urge people to keep fit and healthy, to not waste water or
energy, and to use public transportation are classic forms of exhortation. Agency spokespersons can play an
important part in both delivering and shaping these messages. Consultations between government officials
and financial, industry or labour representatives reveal another form of exhortation because government offi-
cials often use these meetings to try to alter target group behaviour.
Benchmarking and Performance Indicators

Benchmarking is increasingly used as a process-oriented information-gathering technique in the public sector.
In theory, it enables structured comparison and, when successful, enhances the opportunity for policy learn-
ing by presenting relevant information in ways that can generate policy insight. The standardization of bench-
marks, however, also promotes co-ordination of policy actors across jurisdictions, as seen in the EU's use
of an ‘open method of co-ordination’ in sharing information on employment and labour market policies. Per-
formance management schemes can also work to redefine the problems addressed by public agencies and
standardize activities of bodies such as hospitals or universities.
Commissions and Inquiries

Governments often employ temporary bodies to gather information about an issue or sometimes just to pro-
crastinate in making a decision, hoping that public pressure for action will fade by the time a report is pre-
pared. Foremost among the techniques they utilize to do so is the ad hoc inquiry, commission or task force.
These exist in many forms and are often established to deal with new or particularly troubling policy prob-
lems. They provide a forum that often combines specialized academic research and general public input into
the definition of and potential solution to policy problems, generating information that becomes available to
all participants in the policy process and altering the knowledge base of actors as a result. In many jurisdic-
tions, a system of formal reviews of ongoing policy areas has also been created for the same reasons. These
reviews serve as ‘institutionalized’ task forces or investigations into ongoing issues and the efforts made by
government bodies to deal with them. These reviews are usually done ‘in-house’ but sometimes also involve
the use of outside experts.
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Nudging
Most policy instruments assume individuals comply consciously with a government aim which they under-
stand and often support. However, behavioural departures from this norm have been documented in which
two systems of thinking are deployed by human agents not one. These can be termed ‘system I’ thinking and
and ‘system II’ thought. System II is reflective and deliberate while system I is more intuitive and automatic
(Kahneman, 2013).
An increasing awareness and recognition of these behavioural processes has led to the use of behavioural
policy tools that aim to reduce nudge policy targets to comply with government aims utilizing system I rather
than more traditional system II-oriented tools (Thaler and Sunstein, 2008). Such behaviourally premised poli-
cy instruments make use of insights drawn from behavioural sciences so as to secure better compliance with
a government and include activities such as changing defaults on forms, removing goods from plain sight and
other ways of encouraging actors to comply with government intentions.
Authority-based Policy Instruments

All of the previous tools rely upon the mobilization of government information resources for their effectiveness.
This distinguishes them from a second category of tools which rely more heavily on the use of force or coer-
cion.
Command-and-Control Regulation
A classic and well-studied tool in this category is ‘regulation'. Regulation is a prescription by a government
that must be complied with by intended targets; whereby failure to do so usually involves a penalty of some
sort, from a fine to a jail term. Regulation is a very common tool and takes various forms which include rules,
standards, permits, prohibitions, laws and executive or judicial orders among others. Some regulations, such
as proscribing criminal behaviour, take the form of laws enforced by police and the judicial system. Most regu-
lations, however, are administrative and are written and promulgated by civil servants working under enabling
legislation. These regulations are administered by a government department or a specialized, quasi-judicial
government agency (first called an ‘independent regulatory commission’ in the United States) that is more or
less autonomous of government control in its day-to-day operations.
Examples of such regulation in the economic sphere include those carried out by various kinds of marketing
boards in the agricultural sector which control the prices or quantities of farm products on the market. The
intent of such boards is typically to restrict the supply of agricultural outputs such as chickens or milk to keep
farm commodity prices at or above a certain threshold of income deemed acceptable for farmers. Regulations
also exist in the social area as well. Social regulations refer to controls in matters of health, safety and societal
behaviour such as rules promoting civil rights and discouraging discrimination of various sorts. Examples of
social regulation include rules regarding liquor consumption and sales, gambling, consumer product safety,
occupational hazards, water-related hazards, air and noise pollution, or rules concerning discrimination on
the basis of religion, race, gender or ethnicity.
Delegated or Self-Regulation

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Most of the examples provided above are of regulations which are directly implemented by government agen-
cies. However another form of regulatory instrument is delegated regulation. Unlike direct or so-called ‘com-
mand-and-control’ regulation, in this instance governments allow non-governmental actors to regulate them-
selves. This is sometimes referred to as ‘self-regulation', although this term tends to portray the resulting reg-
ulatory arrangements as more ‘voluntary’ than is actually the case. That is, while non-governmental entities
may, in effect, regulate themselves, they typically do so with the implicit or explicit permission of governments,
which could regulate the activity concerned in a more directly coercive fashion if it so chose.
These delegations can be explicit, as for example occurs when governments allow professions such as doc-
tors, lawyers or teachers to regulate their membership through the grant of a licensing monopoly to a bar
association, a college of physicians and surgeons or a teachers’ federation. However, they can also be less
explicit, as occurs in situations where manufacturing companies develop standards for products or where in-
dependent certification firms or associations certify that certain standards have been met in various kinds of
private practices. While many standards are invoked by government command-and-control regulation, others
can be developed in the private sphere such as when bodies ‘certify’ actor behaviour in, for example, that
fishery or farming industries are following sustainable or organic practices.
Advisory Committees
A long-established procedural tool in this category is the advisory committee. Some of these are formalized
and are more or less permanent, while others tend to be more informal and temporary. Both involve govern-
ments selecting representatives to sit on committees and the extension of some special rights within the policy
process to those representatives. Many countries have created permanent advisory bodies to provide advice
to governments on particular ongoing issue areas, such as the economy, science and technology, and the en-
vironment. However, many other ad hoc bodies can be found in almost every policy area. These range from
general advisory committees and specialized clientele advisory committees to specific task-oriented commit-
tees and others.
Treasure-based Policy Instruments

A third general category of policy instrument relies not so much on government personnel or governmental
authority for its effectiveness, but rather on government financial resources and the government's ability to
raise and disburse funds. This refers to all forms of financial transfers to individuals, firms and organizations
from governments or from other individuals, firms, or organizations under government direction. These trans-
fers can serve as incentives or disincentives for private actors to follow a government's wishes. The transfer
rewards or penalizes and thus encourages or discourages a desired activity, thereby affecting social actors’
estimates of costs and benefits of the various alternatives. While the final choice is left to individuals and
firms, the likelihood of the desired choice being made is enhanced because of the financial subsidy it draws.
Subsidies: Grants, Tax Incentives, and Loans

One of the most prominent forms of treasure-based instruments is grants, which are expenditures made in
support of some end worthy in itself, often in the form of recognition, reward or encouragement. Grants are
often offered to producers, with the objective of making them provide more of a desired good or service than
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they would otherwise but can also be made to consumers to encourage their purchase of specific kinds of
products, such as electric automobiles. The expenditure comes out of the government's general revenues,
which requires legislative approval.
Another prominent form of subsidy is the tax incentive. This is very similar to a grant but typically does not
involve a direct cash payment. Rather this tool involves ‘remission of taxes in some form, such as deferrals,
deductions, credits, exclusions, or preferred rates, contingent on some act (or the omission of some act)'. That
is, a subsidy is provided since revenues that would normally have been collected are not. Governments find
tax incentives appealing, not least because they are commonly hidden in complex tax codes and so escape
outside scrutiny. Moreover, in most countries they do not need legislative budgetary approval, for no money is
actually spent; rather, revenues are forgone. Nor is their use constrained by the availability of funds because
they involve no direct expenditure. They are also easier to administer and enforce because no special bu-
reaucracy needs to be created to administer them, as would be the case with many other instruments.
There are many similar kinds of tools. Loans from the government at an interest rate below the market rate,
for example, are another form of subsidy. However, the entire amount of the loan should not be treated as a
subsidy, only the difference between the interest charged and the market rate.
Financial Disincentives: Taxes and User Charges

A tax is a legally prescribed compulsory payment to government by a person or firm. The main purpose of a
tax is normally to raise revenues for the government expenditures. However, it can also be used as a policy
instrument to induce a desired behaviour or discourage an undesirable behaviour.
In contrast to a subsidy, which is a positive incentive and works by rewarding a desired behaviour, taxes can
be applied as a negative incentive (or sanction) that penalizes an undesired behaviour. By taxing a good,
service or activity, the government indirectly discourages its consumption or performance by making it more
expensive to purchase or produce. Many governments’ policy objectives of reducing smoking, drinking and
gambling, for example, have involved punitive tax treatment on cigarettes, alcohol and gambling.
Again, many similar tools exist. A user charge, for example, is also a financial tool. Instead of motivating be-
haviour by rewarding it through a subsidy or requiring it through regulations, the government imposes a ‘price’
on certain behaviours that those undertaking them must pay. The price may be seen as a financial penalty
intended to discourage the targeted behaviour. User charges are most commonly used to control negative
externalities. An example from the area of pollution control is that of user charges on pollution, known as ef-
fluent charges.
Advocacy, Interest Group, and Think-Tank Funding

A prominent procedural tool in this category is advocacy funding. As public choice theorists have pointed out,
interest groups do not simply arise automatically to press for certain policy solutions to ongoing problems, but
rather require active personnel, organizational competence and, above all, funding if they are to become a
policy force. While different countries have different patterns and sources of advocacy funding, governments
play a large role in this activity in most states.
Although in some countries, including the United States, funding for interest group creation and ongoing ex-
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penses tends to come from private-sector actors, especially philanthropic trust funds and private companies,
governments also facilitate this through favourable tax treatment for estates, charitable trusts and corporate
donations. These private foundations then partner with governments in certain policy areas, such as social
service delivery or, commonly, preventive health activities.
In other countries, however, including those such as Canada and Australia, the state plays a much greater
role in providing direct financing for interest groups in specific areas where the government wishes to see
such groups become, or become more, active. And, of course, in corporatist countries in continental Europe,
states not only facilitate interest group activities through financial means, but also through the extension of
special recognition and associational rights to specific industry and labour groups, providing them with a mo-
nopoly or near-monopoly on representation (Jordan and Maloney, 1998; Schmitter, 1977, 1985).
Organization-based Policy Instruments

A fourth general category of tools is composed of those substantive and procedural tools which rely on gov-
ernment personnel and organizational resources for their effectiveness.
Direct Provision
In analysing the more exotic instruments employed by governments, we tend to forget the basic and widely
used public policy instrument of direct provision by the public sector. Instead of waiting for the private sector to
do something or attempting to regulate non-governmental performance, governments often just perform the
task themselves, delivering goods and services directly through government employees, funded by the public
treasury. Much of the policy output of government is delivered in this way including national defence, diplo-
matic relations, policing, firefighting, social security, education, management of public lands, maintenance of
parks and roads, public health services and census and geological surveys.
Public Enterprises
There are other ways in which government organizational resources can be deployed, however, than via a
classic public bureaucracy. One such mechanism is the public enterprise. Also known as state-owned enter-
prises, Crown corporations, or parastatal organizations, public enterprises are entities owned or controlled
by the state but which enjoy some degree of autonomy from the government. At one extreme, with only a
small government share of ownership, a firm may resemble a private enterprise, and at the other, with close
to 100% government equity ownership, an enterprise may appear no different from a bureaucratic agency.
Public enterprises provide governments with several advantages among organization-based policy instru-
ments. First, they are an efficient economic development tool in situations where a good or service necessary
to productive activity is not being provided by the private sector due to, for example, high capital costs or low
expected profits. Examples include rural electrification and Internet access to smaller communities. Second,
as with direct provision, the information threshold required to launch public enterprises is often lower than
that required by other means, such as voluntary instruments or regulation. Unlike the case with regulation,
for example, a government does not require information on the target activity or the goals and preferences of
the targeted firms in order to create effective rules and standards. Third, public enterprises can simplify public
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management of a policy domain if extensive regulation already exists. Instead of building additional layers of
regulation to enforce compliance with government aims, for instance, it might be desirable to simply establish
a company that does so without the costs of further regulation. Finally, profits from public enterprises may
accrue to the public treasury, supporting public expenditures in other areas. A significant proportion of gov-
ernment revenue in countries such as Singapore, for example, comes from the profits of its public enterprises.
Quangos
In recent years, governments have created new organizational forms to run entire sectors or specific projects
such as airports, harbours or hospitals. They have turned to a variety of what are known in Britain as ‘quasi-
autonomous non-government organizations’ or quangos for this purpose. Quangos share many of the same
characteristics as public enterprises but are usually at even more arm's length from government, functioning
as quasi-independent, self-organizing actors. They are only quasi-independent, however, because they often
enjoy a government-granted monopoly – for example, over an airport or scholarship program – and their ‘li-
cence’ to do so can be revoked by the government at any time.
Quangos have advantages for governments by making it possible to off-load expensive or controversial areas
of government activity to ‘local’ authorities. This is also a disadvantage in that the ability of governments to
control their activities are very indirect, even though their failure may cause significant expenses – politically
as well as financially – for governments.
Partnerships
Another hybrid form of organizational tool is the public–private partnership (PPP). This tool has recently
gained momentum despite, and in some cases spurred by, political conflicts over privatization and outsourcing
of public services. There are numerous different types of such partnerships. One form of PPP is contracting
out the delivery of goods and services to private firms. Other kinds of PPSs involve complex contractual
arrangements in which, for example, private companies agree to pay for the provision of government infra-
structure such as subway lines, bridge, swimming pools or office buildings in exchange for the right to collect
rents or tolls from them for a specified period of time, often on a very long-term multi-decade basis.
Family, Community, and Voluntary Organizations

Not all such tools involve only public and private organizations. In all societies, relatives, friends and neigh-
bours, or family and community organizations such as churches and charities, exist and provide numerous
goods and services, from foodbanks to nursing and elderly care. The characteristic feature of this instrument
type is that it entails little or no government involvement. Instead, the desired task is performed on a voluntary
basis by non-governmental actors. In some cases, however, governments can either promote such activities
directly or create the conditions under which voluntary actors operate. Thus for example in some cases a
government may deliberately decide to do nothing about a recognized public problem such as elderly care,
thus allowing this need to be met by some other societal actor.
These services are often provided by NGOs operating on a voluntary basis in that their members are not
compelled to perform a task by the government. Voluntary organizations providing health services, education,
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and food to the poor and temporary shelter for battered women and runaway children are prime examples of
policy delivery that relies on this tool. Voluntary groups that form to clean up beaches, riverbanks and high-
ways are other examples. Charitable, not-for-profit groups, often church-based, used to be the primary means
of fulfilling the basic needs of those who could not provide for themselves, but over the last century the ex-
pansion of the welfare state gradually diminished their importance.
In theory, voluntary organizations are an efficient means of delivering most economic and social services.
They offer flexibility, speedy response time, and the opportunity for experimentation that are rarely matched
by government departments. However, practical circumstances severely limit the usefulness of voluntary or-
ganizations. Because they often lack the hierarchy of a formal bureaucracy, voluntary organizations demand
considerable time and energy to keep their deliberative processes and service delivery efforts functioning.
Co-production
A very similar tool to voluntary efforts is ‘co-production'. Co-production is intimately linked with the idea of
‘self-service’ provision but involves the use of combinations of state and non-state actors to produce or inform
public service delivery.
Well-known examples of co-production include education where parent–teacher involvement is crucial. Co-
production can be thought of as both a managerial device that enriches provision of public or private services,
and also as a set of policy tools that can offset or replace the use of other means such as public organiza-
tions (i.e. the state) or private contracts (i.e. the market) in goods and service delivery through enhancing and
facilitating citizen-based provision of some aspects of specific goods and services provision.
Market Creation
Another prominent kind of organizational activity pursued by governments is market organization. Markets
exist as a rationing device when there is scarcity and a demand for particular goods or services and often
emerge spontaneously. However, in most cases government action is required both to create and to support
market exchange. This is accomplished by securing the rights of buyers and sellers to receive and exchange
property through the establishment and maintenance of property rights and contracts through the courts, po-
lice and quasi-judicial systems of consumer and investor protection. Even so-called ‘black', ‘grey’ or other
types of illegal or quasi-legal markets for commodities or services, such as illegal drugs or prostitution, owe
their existence to governments that ban the production and sale of these goods or services, thereby creating
shortages that produce high rates of return for those willing to risk punishment for their provision. Govern-
ments can use a variety of regulatory, financial and information-based tools to affect market activities. How-
ever, they use their organizational resources to create markets.
One way this can be done is by creating property rights through government licensing schemes. Based on
the assumption that the market is often the most efficient means of allocating resources, property rights can
be established by government to create markets in situations where they do not exist. The market is created
by setting a fixed quantity of transferable rights to consume a designated resource, which has the effect of
creating an artificial scarcity of a public good and enabling the price mechanism to work. The resource can
be communal radio, television or cellphone frequencies, carbon dioxide or other emissions, oil wells or fish
stocks – anything that would not be scarce in the short term unless the government took action to restrict

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access or create value for a commodity.
Another way that governments can create or enhance markets is through the privatization of public enterpris-
es, especially if those enterprises had previously exercised a state-sponsored monopoly or near-monopoly
on the production or distribution, or both, of a particular good or service. Privatization can be carried out in
numerous ways, from issuing shares to all citizens, to the simple transfer of state shares to community orga-
nizations or their sale on public exchanges. It usually involves the signal, either overt or covert, that new firms
will be able to enter into the market formerly served by the state-owned company, allowing for the creation of
a competitive market for that particular good or service.
A much discussed but little used form of government market creation relies on vouchers. These are govern-
ment-issued certificates that have a monetary face value that consumers can use to acquire only a particular
good or service from their preferred supplier who, in turn, presents the voucher for redemption. Vouchers al-
low consumers to exercise relatively free choice in the marketplace but only for specific types or quantities of
goods. They are common in wartime as a means of rationing supplies of various goods and have also been
used in peacetime in schemes such as food stamps for the poor. This promotes competition among suppliers,
which arguably improves quality and reduces costs to the government.
Other similar instruments exist, such as the provision of government insurance, which allows some activities
to take place that otherwise might not due to the costs associated with failure or because of their risky nature.
Government (Re)organizations
The foremost example of such an instrument in a procedural sense is the institutional reorganization of the
machinery of government whereby governments seek to affect policy processes by reorganizing the interface
between governmental and societal actors.
Reorganizations can involve the creation of new agencies or the reconfiguration of old ones. One popular
technique for such purposes is ministerial reorganization. Some of these alterations can occur accidentally
or as a by-product of organizational changes in government machinery brought about for other reasons, for
example, electoral or partisan ones. Since there is no agreed normative basis for organizing government, the
political, policy and administrative priorities and pressures of the day provide disparate points of departure for
prime ministers and presidents considering what, if anything, to do about their government's organization.
Major Advances, Ongoing Debates, Critical Assessments: From Policy Instru-

ments to Policy Mixes
Theories of policy instrument choice have gone through several ‘generations’ as theorists have moved from
the analysis of these and other individual policy tools to more comparative studies of instrument selection and
the development of theories of instrument choice. A very important difference between early and later instru-
ment work, however, concerns the fact that while early students of instrument choices focused on decisions
to adopt individual instruments, administrative practice usually involves the use of multiple tools in policy in-
strument mixes (Gunningham et al., 1998). The nature of these mixes, or ‘governance strategies', remains
understudied and questions about appropriate instrument choices in complex mixes are much less well un-
derstood than the choices to select specific types of instruments in abstract or relatively simple situations.

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Moving on from their earlier focus on single instruments, analysts now look instead at complementarities and
conflicts within instrument mixes. This work has come to focus on a small number of key precepts that em-
body current thinking about instrument use:
1. Designing policies that employ a mix of policy instruments carefully chosen to create pos-
itive interactions with each other and to respond to particular, context-dependent features
of the policy sector.
2. Considering the full range of policy instruments when designing the mix rather than as-
suming that a choice must be made between regulation and markets.
3. Continuing pressure on governments to do more with less, to suggest the increased use
of ‘alternative’ tools such as incentive-based instruments, various forms of self-regulation
by industry and policies that can employ commercial and non-commercial third parties to
achieve compliance, such as suppliers, customers and a growing cast of auditors and
certifiers.
4. Finally, searching for new network-appropriate procedural policy instruments such as in-
formation instruments and various techniques of network management such as the use
of advisory committees and public consultations, which are seen as particularly important
to meet the challenges of governance (Gunningham et al., 1998).
Conclusion and Future Research Directions

As this discussion has shown, policy instruments are a critical component of policy-making and different class-
es or types of tools or instruments are used by governments in their activities. Procedural tools are distinct
from those with a more substantive aim to deliver policy goods and services, although they exhibit many of
the same dynamics and can be analysed through analogies to the more commonly studied and investigated
set of instruments.
Ongoing and future research work in this area of policy studies is now focused on understanding not only
how these different instruments work individually, but how they interact and work together in complex policy
mixes to address complex policy problems and the cognitive and behavioural aspects of policy-making that
lead decision-makers to favour one policy tool over another. This work explores both choices made at a single
moment in time and over a period of years or decades.
Research in these areas will continue to shed light on the use of these kinds of policy tools and their impact,
as well as on the reasons for their selection in policy designs.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n69

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Policy Learning
Contributors: Claire A. Dunlop & Claudio M. Radaelli

Chapter Title: "Policy Learning"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Policy Learning
Claire A. Dunlop Claudio M. Radaelli
Introduction
Learning is a fascinating topic for political science. Whether we look at comparative politics, public policy, or
governance, we find that all these three main fields of political science are concerned with learning – but in
different ways.
In comparative politics, the cross-national diffusion of institutions affects central banks, constitutions, forms
of government, independent regulators, anti-corruption authorities, and so on. This raises a number of ques-
tions: do countries make a genuine effort to learn before they import models? How much do they edit and
translate the templates they import to tailor them to the domestic context? Methodologically, the research
questions are about indicators that un-ambiguously discriminate between learning and other mechanisms. An
important distinction is made between cross-national adoption (of say, a Parliamentary form of government)
and convergence in outcomes, and how to reduce bias in the measurement of convergence. At the roots of
this methodological debate is the concept of spatial inter-dependence – that is, the fact that the choices made
by country A depend on the choices made by other countries. Learning is one possible way to tackle these
questions, but it seems to presuppose too many conditions that can be empirically absent in certain instances
of spatial inter-dependence. By way of illustration, a country may be spatially inter-dependent on another be-
cause of sanctions or conditions imposed by another country or an international donor. In these cases, the
process of diffusion is not supported by mechanisms of learning.
Public policy analysis is also concerned with the explanation and measurement of policy convergence (Plüm-
per and Schneider, 2009). But it has its additional research questions about how much policy-makers learn
from their experience with previous policy choices. Do they evaluate existing policies before they embark on
new ones? Do they learn about what works in systematic, evidence-based ways? Or, is evidence-based poli-
cy severely constrained by the search for consensus and ambiguity in the policy process (Cairney, 2012)?
Finally, there is the question of whether different categories of actors in the policy process have the same
motivation and approaches to policy learning (Radaelli, 2005). It is reasonable to assume that a politician is
attracted to learning, above all, about features of a policy that increases popularity (including announcing new
policy programs that will never be completed or policies that will not be sustainable beyond the short term).
Instead, for a bureaucrat, it can be more attractive to learn about how to align reforms with standard operating
procedures or with the goal of expanding the mission and budget of a particular office. In the end, we need
to be explicit about the hypotheses we make about the preferences or interests of actors, and which actors
matter the most in the policy process.
What about the connection between learning and governance? Here, learning can be theorized as mech-
anism of governance – but with important variations. Scholars working on reflexive or experimental gover-
nance (Sabel and Zeitlin, 2010) point to deep learning as a mechanism leading to the modification of actors’
preferences. Here ‘deep’ means that actors change their preferences through social interaction. They reflect
on what they really want and adjust their interests on the basis of what they have learned. This approach is
clearly associated with major ontologies of international relations and comparative politics, above all, social
constructivism.
Another way to assemble governance and learning has been spawned by at least a century of studies on
technocracy (Radaelli, 1999) and, since the 1990s, epistemic communities (Haas, 1990; Haas, 1992). The
normative implications of various analytical models based on actors that supposedly facilitate learning are
different. In any case, they share a focus on a special category of actors who, because of their professional
knowledge and/or scientific credentials (leaving aside theocracies who are a type of their own), have special

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legitimation in the policy process or in government. For some reasons of an ‘epistemic’ or ‘technocratic’ ap-
peal, someone somewhere is listening to experts and the lessons they teach. In this model, the association
between learning and governance does not hinge on a type of social interaction, but on the social certification
of special actors.
We find a third connection between governance and learning in bargaining/exchange models of governance
of all sorts, from Charles Lindblom (1965) to Elinor Ostrom (1990), where inter-dependent actors learn by
playing together, by exchanging information, by reacting to the moves of other players, and so on. Gover-
nance as bargaining does not necessarily have positive properties – the players can keep on playing without
finding the solution to their collective action problem. But bargaining is potentially a big engine of learning as
a cognitive mechanism, no matter what the final policy outcome is.
There is a fourth and final association in governance models based on hierarchy, rule-bound behavior and
compliance. There is hierarchical governance in every society, because rules, courts, and limits are essential
to governance. Where is learning here? Learning lies in the mechanisms that allow actors to gain information
about what compliance is, how often it is detected, and whether it is fueled by norms or by the fear of sanc-
tions.
To sum up, then, comparative politics, public policy, and governance present some partially overlapping lens-
es and research questions that revolve around learning – more precisely, for the scope and ambition of this
chapter, policy learning. It's not just policy analysts that are interested in policy learning. Given this wide au-
dience, we need to explain what policy learning is, how it is studied empirically, and whether its normative
properties are desirable or not. We will do that following an analytical and historiographical path through the
scholarship and conclude with the state of play with current research, issues of measurement and methods,
and the questions that will most likely dominate research in the near future.
The Classics
To capture policy learning, we need to be clear on definitional issues, causal mechanisms, and outcomes.
Comprehensive reviews include Dunlop and Radaelli (2013), Dunlop et al. (2018), Freeman (2006), Heikkila
and Gerlak (2013), and Moyson and Scholten (2018). We have to assemble causality systematically, in terms
of micro-foundations, learning in organizations, and how group learning becomes policy learning and, some-
times, social learning (Dunlop and Radaelli, 2017). On outcomes, the literature has often associated process-
es of learning with policy change (Moyson et al., 2017). Yet, there are many more possible outcomes, for
example, constellations of actors can learn but their policy choice does not necessarily change, and some
involve normative issues that haven't always been prominent in the field.
Glancing at literature with a historical perspective, we find immediately different conceptual approaches to
learning. True, most authors seem to converge on the basic definition of policy learning as an updating of
knowledge and beliefs about public policy (Dunlop and Radaelli, 2013). In turn, updating is either the result
of social interaction amongst policy actors, personal-organizational experience, or the provision of new or dif-
ferent evidence. Of course, it can also result from various combinations of the three. Yet, over the decades,
political scientists have approached this broad notion of learning with substantive differences. It suffices to re-
call the contributions of John Dewey, Harold Lasswell, Karl Deutsch, Charles Lindblom, Herbert Simon, and,
in the 1970s, Hugh Heclo.
Historically, the foundations of policy learning were grounded in pragmatism. Dewey's pragmatism was not
just about ‘what works'. It provided insights into an evolutionary perspective on learning. In turn, this perspec-
tive leads to a vision of governance. In fact, Dewey's pragmatism provided political scientists with three gen-
erative conditions for evolutionary learning (Ansell, 2011: 11–12). The first is the problem-driven perspective,
where individuals appraise evidence and their pre-existing conjectures are revised in light of the evidence. In
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this perspective knowledge and values are subjected to continuous revision. Hence, this definition of learning
as problem-solving is not mechanistic. It is extremely open, creative, and oriented to discovery. The second
condition is reflexivity. It digs deep into the creative component of problem-solving by showing how prob-
lem-solving itself generates blocks of knowledge and competences for more sophisticated approaches to the
collective problems of the future. To achieve that, constellations of actors must be capable of reflecting on
the meaning and trajectory of their experience (Ansell, 2011: 11). Third, in pragmatism, learning is also de-
liberation. Key to this third dimension is communication (Ansell, 2011: 12). Taken together, problem-solving,
reflexivity, and communication produce evolutionary learning in recursive social processes. The emphasis on
communication led Dewey, in his 1927 classic The Public and its Problems, reprinted in 2012, to argue for the
re-connection of ‘the public’ with collective problem-solving. This was for him the essence of a society based
on communication – Dewey wanted to turn the Great Society into the Great Community (Dewey, 2012: 141).
To achieve this, he envisioned mobilizing the arts to draw the attention of the public towards the assimilation
of ‘accurate investigation’ (Dewey, 2012: 140). We can call this ‘nudging the attention’ of the citizens, to use
contemporary social science vocabulary (Thaler and Sunstein, 2008).
This ambitious approach, engaged with fundamental normative and empirical issues of governance, is of
course appealing to comparative politics as well as policy analysts working on individual policy sectors. A sim-
ilar ambition is found in Harold Lasswell: ‘[O]ne thing Lasswell learned from the pragmatists, and Dewey in
particular, was that inquiry requires community’ (Torgerson, 1992: 231). Here, the definitional aspect of learn-
ing stresses inquiry as a collective, society-wide process of search and improvement.
Another way to think about learning, bearing in mind society and governance, is Deutsch's – in this case
learning is defined as a cybernetic issue. In cybernetic systems, the capabilities of core institutions are key.
These capabilities are indispensable to manage ‘the burden’ of the ‘traffic load of messages and signals up-
on the attention-giving and decision-making capabilities of the persons or organizations in control’ (Deutsch
et al., 1957: 41). A learning system possesses these capabilities. For Deutsch, organizations are webs of
communication. Their core function is to generate and transmit information, to react to signals and events, to
deploy self-controlling mechanisms, and to manage feedback. Learning is about assembling resources when
something changes and about managing feedback coherently. Feedback is not simply finding something in
the system that provides a response to an information input in the external environment. In fact, the informa-
tion input ‘includes the results of its own action in the new information by which it modifies its subsequent
behaviour’ (Deutsch, 1966: 88). Therefore, learning does not take actors back to the previous point of equi-
librium in the system. It is the capacity to pursue changing goals. Thus, the kind of learning that Deutsch has
in mind is similar to the zigzagging of the rabbit in a field – where the rabbit re-adjusts direction continuously
as new changes and opportunities arise. Applied to public policy, this is a definition of learning as on-going
improvement. Learning is about adapting and transforming policies to follow the search for a new equilibria
of a zig-zagging, open society. Yet again, we find in Deutsch a macro orientation that is concerned with both
empirical and normative issues, with policy as well as governance. There is a touch of utopian vision that is
characteristic of these giants in the field.
Turning to Charles Lindblom, his conceptual approach is more empirical, especially in terms of dissecting or-
ganizational behavior (Lindblom, 1959, 1965). His approach is not utopian although it is still a vision. It is not
utopian because the essence of the policy process is bargaining amongst partisan actors. These actors mu-
tually adjust and learn how to cooperate thanks to bargaining. Here communication fuels bargaining, instead
of being a property of deliberation, like in Dewey. Through bargaining, actors reveal their preferences. They
learn about the strategies, intentions, volitions, and preferences of other actors. In processes of exchange
that mimic the market, actors accumulate usable knowledge (Lindblom and Cohen, 1979). This conceptual
approach chimes with Herbert Simon's proposition that actors have limited rationality and pursue ‘satisficing’
solutions instead of utility maximization (Simon, 1947; see also March and Simon, 1958). Simon opened the
door to the world of heuristics, biases, framing, and nudging. These concepts provide a realistic account of
how partisan mutual adjustment ends up in functional and desirable forms of learning. The Lindblom–Simon
approach has indeed paved the way for today's interest in cognitive psychology and experimental social sci-
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ences. The legacy of Lindblom and Simon is also a vision: partisan mutual adjustment is, in fact, also ‘the’
model of a pluralist, open democracy. It comes close to Popper's open society because it does not pre-deter-
mine the public good. The latter is not fixed by intellectual cogitation. Instead, it results from conflict, different
opinions, and, ultimately, governance-as-exchange.
In our historical excursus we can now jump to the 1970s to find another fundamental way to connect policy
learning with governance. This time the connection with governance comes from the dualism between power-
ing and puzzling. Hugh Heclo identified learning as the polar opposite of power mechanisms. More precisely,
learning is the mechanism of social problem-solving under conditions of uncertainty. Powering is simply im-
possible if actors cannot calculate the likely payoffs of alternative courses of action because of uncertainty.
We are still somewhat in Deutsch's zig-zagging territory. In fact, for Heclo, learning as puzzling is a process
that takes place in a maze. But – he carries on – this is a special maze. The walls are re-patterned all the
time. Individuals work in different teams or groups. Each group has an idea of how to get out of the maze and
gets in the way of other groups. Some teams even reason that getting out of the maze may not be the best
solution! Note that Heclo's learning mechanisms are not random, but they are significantly shaped by social
interaction, organizations (the teams), and institutions (the structure of the maze) (Heclo, 1974: 308).
The Evolution of the Field in the 1990s

Although our periodization of the literature is inevitably idiosyncratic, in the 1990s there was a turning point.
These approaches are definitively conversant with contemporary political science, for example, institutional-
ism and theories of the policy process. They are less utopian and less visionary than the ones we have just
discussed, although they gain in granularity and precision. The normative tension of the early phase is per-
haps not lost, but it appears muted, often implicit, and, in some cases, absent.
In short, the late 1980s and early 1990s witnessed the production of fundamental articles on policy learning.
These are the articles that are still used in class today to introduce students to this topic. Accordingly, to report
on their core propositions is not just an exercise in the intellectual history of the discipline. Let us start from
a fascinating feature of the first article we review in this section, by Paul A. Sabatier (1987). In capturing the
essence of the (then) last 15 years of scholarship, Sabatier talks about the whole of policy analysis and its
utilization as a colossal social exercise in collective learning. For Sabatier, policy analysis is about produc-
ing knowledge and using evidence to support policy change. However, he found that this was a simplistic,
perhaps romantic, way to think about how policy analysis is used and how learning happens. He noted that
knowledge is not deployed in policy arenas like in university classes. It is produced, mobilized, evoked, but
not necessarily with the intention of listening to policy analysts ‘speaking the truth to power’ (Wildavsky, 1979).
The utilization of policy analysis is instead filtered by the dynamics of contemporary, adversarial politics: ‘pol-
icy analysis is often used in an advocacy fashion to justify organizational positions and interests’ (Sabatier,
1987: 650). We could not be further from utopia.
This realistic approach to how information, evidence, and, ultimately, policy analysis are metabolized by ad-
versarial politics led Sabatier to develop a theory of the policy process – the Advocacy Coalition Framework
(ACF) – based on the following propositions: policy sectors are defined by the competition between different
advocacy coalitions (in stable sectors there may be just one coalition, otherwise there are two or more); these
coalitions cannot be reduced to political parties, instead they assemble different actors, including media, civil
society organizations, pressure groups, experts, and politicians; the coalitions are kept together by their be-
liefs; these beliefs follow a structure, from the higher level, deep core normative beliefs down to policy core
beliefs and secondary policy beliefs; the normative core is impermeable to evidence.
Where is learning, then? Learning occurs when there are moderate levels of conflict between coalitions, and
actors such as think tanks provide a forum where the different coalitions can probe their policy beliefs and
change them over time. Yet, the impact of these lessons is restricted to the adaptation of the secondary as-
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pects of their belief systems – policy instruments and their settings (in Hall's terms, see below). More fun-
damental paradigmatic changes in belief systems cannot happen through coalition interaction alone. Rather,
this deep policy-oriented learning is possible only when there is a shock from outside the policy sectors, for
example a big electoral change or a global economic crisis.
With Sabatier, we find the first explicit conceptual approach that sheds light on both learning and the condi-
tions that affect its depth. In terms of research design, his advocacy coalition framework is robust because
it does not censor an important dimension of learning, that is the absence of deep learning. The ‘zero value’
of the variable (absence of learning) is as important as the others. Sabatier's original ACF article is a turning
point for another reason. It makes a powerful case emphasizing beliefs rather than interests. This framework
uses belief systems, rather than ‘interests', as its focus because beliefs are more inclusive and more verifi-
able. Interest models must still identify a set of means and performance indicators for goal attainment; this set
of interests/goals, perceived causal relationships, and perceived parameter states constitute a ‘belief system’
(Sabatier, 1987: 663). In a sense, Sabatier carries on and refines Heclo's (1974) intuition that power does not
tell the full story of policy change. But instead of juxtaposing powering to puzzling, he draws on the dualism
of interests and beliefs, and chooses the latter.
Sabatier's emphasis on beliefs takes us into the field of ideational politics. It is revealing that the author who is
closely associated with the study of ideas in politics, Peter Hall, wrote his most important articles on the topic
of policy learning (Hall, 1986, 1993). With Hall, policy learning becomes a cornerstone of historical institution-
alism, thus situating this concept at the core of contemporary political science. Hall starts from the dependent
variable: policy change. He argues that there are three types of policy change (Hall, 1986). First-order change
involves changes of the setting of policy instruments, for example a regulatory standard on a chemical prod-
uct is raised. The second-order change occurs when policy-makers turn from one instrument to another, for
example from command-and-control regulation of chemicals to regulation via the disclosure of information
about emissions. In rare but historically very important moments, societies can change the ideational foun-
dations of their policies, and therefore switch the overall goals of policy, not just the instrumentation. This is
the third-order change. For Hall this third level of paradigmatic change (dependent variable) is explained by
society-wide policy learning. Hence, the third-level change is only possible when learning involves audiences
and actors beyond the bureaucracies, the elected politicians in charge of a given sector, and the experts that
provide knowledge and advice. It is a phenomenon that involves the whole policy worldview in a given society.
The examples made by Hall are taken from economic policy, specifically the change from a Keynesian way of
thinking about state intervention in the economy to monetarism.
Sabatier would object to Hall's argument that intellectual change in public policy is not a process of one para-
digm taking the place of another. There may be a contest of two paradigms operating in a society at the same
time, with the support of advocacy coalitions that compete. Another difference is that, for Sabatier, the scope
of learning as determinant of policy change is limited to shocks external to the policy sectors and to a situation
with a moderate level of conflict with policy fora, whilst for Hall, social learning is the main explanatory factor
that takes a society from one paradigm to another.
Neither in Hall nor in Sabatier do we find an explicit normative proposition about learning. Judging from their
examples, policy learning (including paradigmatic learning) is not necessarily leading to a more efficient set of
policies or to social improvement. Similarly, policy learning may lead or not lead to a degradation of democrat-
ic standards. Out are the normative propositions of their predecessors – in is an analysis that is value-neutral.
Other articles defined the intellectual status of policy learning in the 1990s, but this time with the ambition
of dissecting learning. This is a switch to learning as the object of inquiry, or dependent variable. Essential
in this switch is the aim to unpack the dependent variable and find ways to measure it. A common way to
unpack a concept before measuring it is to think about types. Unsurprisingly then, the 1990s were also a
decade of studies on types of learning. Peter May (1992) assembled a large amount of the literature available
at that time to theorize about three types of learning: instrumental, social, and political. Instrumental learning

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is about evidence on the performance of policy problems, the viability of policy interventions, and how to de-
sign implementation. Social learning allows policy-makers to categorize a policy programme or the problem it
is supposed to handle in novel ways. It often involves changing expectations about problems and changing
policy goals. Political learning is about the political feasibility of certain reforms. It leads to a more sophisticat-
ed advocacy of a policy reform, based on the political awareness of political prospects.
Bennett and Howlett (1992) distinguish between government learning, lesson-drawing, and social learning.
Their reasoning is powerful: a major problem with learning is measurement. How do we know that an actor or
an organization has learned? Yet, progress in measurement has been hindered by conceptual confusion, not
by the objective difficulty of the task at hand. Hence, we need to increase conceptual prevision. They carry on
with these observations:
…the all-encompassing term ‘policy learning’ as it is often used at present can be seen to actually
embrace three highly complex processes: learning about organizations, learning about programs,
and learning about policies. This is one of the major reasons why this concept has resisted oper-
ationalization. For these reasons, we urge the re-conception of the three concepts of government
learning, lesson-drawing and social learning to more accurately describe this complex process of
collective puzzlement which is public policy-making. (Bennett and Howlett, 1992: 289)
Social learning is very much influenced by Hall's approach to policy paradigms. It is a mechanism of ideational
shift that brings a society from one paradigm to another. Instead, government learning is not a wide social
process. It is the more mundane process of governmental officers learning about policy processes and pro-
grams. Its outcome is organizational change, not paradigmatic shift. The third type of change is about learn-
ing lessons from other countries. We have already introduced the concept of spatial inter-dependence in the
introduction. In the 1990s, the main reference to lesson-drawing was a set of studies carried out by Richard
Rose (1991). As Rose (1991: 4) put it: ‘confronted with common problems, policy-makers in cities, regional
governments, and nations can learn from how their counterparts elsewhere respond. More than that, it raises
the possibility that policy-makers can draw lessons that will help them deal better with their own problems'.
Rose went on to identify the scope of the conditions for the kind of lesson-drawing that genuinely improves on
public policy, connecting with the normative dimension of the analysis. His focus on spatial inter-dependence
is echoed by the broad range of studies on policy transfer (Dolowitz and Marsh, 1996) and policy diffusion
(Dobbin et al., 2007; Simmons and Elkins, 2004; Shipan and Volden, 2008; for a review see Graham et al.,
2013). At the risk of over-simplification, we can say that policy transfer is concerned with qualitative studies
of the transfer of one policy from one country or international organization to another country, whilst policy
diffusion scholars tend to prefer large-n quantitative approaches (see also Marsh and Sharman, 2009 on the
complementarity of the two). Transfer scholars have followed the trend in the study of learning to unpack con-
cepts in types. Indeed, transfer has been unpacked as entirely voluntary, voluntary but driven by perceived
necessity, supported by conditionality, or coercive (for the textbook treatment of policy transfer see chapter 12
of Cairney, 2012). They have provided evidence on the behavior of transfer agents like independent research
institutes (Stone, 2017; Stone and Ladi, 2017), epistemic communities (Dunlop, 2009), and on the limited
success, or in some cases failure, of policy transfer.
Diffusion scholars are interested in phenomena of global or clustered convergence (that means convergence
amongst a family of countries with the same institutions or in a geographical area). Some qualitative studies
have shown that diffusion is filtered by domestic institutions, hence it does not lead to convergence (Radael-
li, 2004). But as we said this field is predominantly quantitative. Indeed, quantitative studies of diffusion are
particularly important for methods and research design (Gilardi, 2016). The judicious way to approach the
field is to start from the concept of spatial inter-dependence, not convergence. In fact, units can be spatially
inter-dependent even if the overall degree of convergence diminishes. Country A can respond to policies of
country B, and therefore is influenced by the latter, by doing exactly the opposite of what B has done. In terms
of designing causality, spatial inter-dependence sheds light on Galton's problem: the first person to open an

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umbrella when it rains does so because it is raining. The others may open the umbrella either because they
emulate behavior or because they have felt the rain. In one case we have learning from evidence, in another
emulation or herding.
This problem has implications for countries’ response to economic crisis, natural disasters, and environmental
problems – a similar response is not necessarily caused by diffusion as each unit may have come indepen-
dently to the same policy response. The way to address this and other problems of causality in establishing
the causes of diffusion has led to sophisticated approaches to measurement, including dyadic data and argu-
ments pro and against fixed unit effects in estimation (Neumayer and Plümper, 2012; Plümper and Neumayer,
2010). Given the scope of our chapter, we mention that the approach of spatial inter-dependence has allowed
political scientists to empirically separate policy learning from political learning. Gilardi (2010), in particular,
has shown that policy-makers may be more attracted to features of policy reform that increase their proba-
bility of electoral success or popularity rather than to features that genuinely improve on policy performance.
With a directed dyadic approach and multi-level methods applied to unemployment benefit retrenchment, Gi-
lardi reveals the presence of conditional learning: policy-makers learning selectively from the experience of
others, for example, ideology and party-political preferences make a difference in the way governments learn
from each other.
Recent Trends and Perspectives

Since 2009, we found six journal special issues on policy learning – two on learning and transfer (Dolowitz,
2009; Evans, 2009), a third on learning at the organizational level (Zito and Schout, 2009), a fourth on lesson-
drawing between Australia and the UK (Manwaring, 2016), a collection of articles exploring learning and policy
change (Moyson et al., 2017), and a sixth volume exploring the nexus of policy learning and policy failure
(Dunlop, 2017). With Philipp Trein, we edited a collection on the state of play in 2018 (Dunlop et al., 2018).
What is the current excitement about, and what are the issues that policy learning scholars should address in
future research?
First, these efforts in the field have been explicitly theory-oriented. This is a path where future research should
definitively carry on. On the one hand, there has been work integrating the analysis of learning within Sabati-
er's advocacy coalition framework, hence focused on beliefs and the dynamics of policy change (Jenkins-
Smith et al., 2017: 151–154). Another theory of the policy process is the narrative policy framework. Within
this framework, the efforts are directed towards the explanation of narrative learning (O'Bryan et al, 2015;
Shanahan et al., 2017: 201–202). On the other hand, political scientists have drilled down on the causality of
learning processes directly, without necessarily looking at learning with the aim of perfecting existing theories
of the policy process. In an article in Policy Studies Journal, we have made the case for considering policy
learning a theory of, or lens on, the policy process, rather than a component of the existing theories (Dunlop
and Radaelli, 2018a). The future will tell us about the value of this claim.
What is the causality of this learning theory, then? Heikkila and Gerlak (2013) design the causal mechanisms
from individual to collective learning – taking into account both cognitive and behavioral features of the mech-
anisms at work. In Dunlop and Radaelli (2017), we draw on James Coleman's bath-tub to re-construct learn-
ing from the individual level, then discuss the individual-to-individual relationships, and finally aggregate from
micro to macro. This work is important for the micro-foundations of learning – researchers should in the future
embrace the findings of behavioral public policy. By way of illustration, Kamkhaji and Radaelli (2017) draw
on cognitive psychology and experimental economics to explore the causality of learning and policy change
in the Euro-crisis by making explicit assumptions in terms of micro-foundations. Under conditions of surprise
and crisis, it is behavioral change that causes learning, instead of the inferential process of learning from evi-
dence causing change in behavior. First actors change behavior by responding in novel ways to stimuli, then,
when the right feedback conditions appear, they make sense of what they have done, hence they learn after-
wards. It is a completely reversed order of the causal chain imagined by the classic studies on policy learning
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and change of the 1990s that we have reviewed above: instead of learning leading to change, we find change
leading to learning. This suggests that the conjectures of political scientists on learning and change should
always be checked empirically, by taking into consideration the results of experiments on how individuals be-
have in the real world.
Of course, the interest in micro-foundations is not entirely new. In the late 1980s, Anne Schneider and Helen
Ingram (1988) re-discovered Herbert Simon in their article, ‘Systematically Pinching Ideas', on heuristics
(Schneider and Ingram, 1988). In the last 15 years or so, heuristics have featured yet again in studies of how
coalitions relate to each other and the (in)consistency of learning. The original intuition of ‘Pinching Ideas’ is
also featured in the sub-field on policy design, which is explicit about the aim of drawing on explanations of
policy learning to design governance architectures (Howlett, 2010).
A second strand has made progress on the nature of policy learning types or modes of learning. Instead of
designing types in an ad hoc fashion, in our own work we derived the modes of learning from explanatory
typologies (Dunlop and Radaelli, 2013). Our argument is that the learning modes differ greatly depending on
whether the policy process is epistemic, hierarchical, bargaining-oriented, or reflexive. The four-fold typolo-
gy also allows us to explore what can go wrong with learning – as mentioned above, learning failures and
the paradoxes of learning are an emerging theme in recent scholarship (Dunlop, 2017). Actors have to align
their behavior to the prevalent characteristics of the learning type they are engaging with – otherwise there
will be frustration and limited learning. To illustrate: if an expert takes an epistemic attitude within a bargain-
ing process, they will most likely become irrelevant or professional knowledge will be distorted (Dunlop and
Radaelli, 2016). Another advantage is that this approach allows us to bring together classic intuitions, such
as Lindblom's partisan mutual adjustment, with more recent developments on the policy process, such as
experimentalist governance (Sabel and Zeitlin, 2008). Ansell (2011) contributed to this thread by connecting
learning to governance. Yet another way to explore learning and governance is via organizational theory. Su-
sana Borrás (2011) links learning types to organizational capacity. Silvia Gherardi (1999) raised her critical
voice on how public organizations self-describe themselves as learning organizations to camouflage the poli-
tics of controversial choices or simply silence criticisms of what the organization does.
Third, as mentioned above, there is interest in the failures of learning, in rejection of the assumption that
policy learning is generally benevolent or in line with democratic governance and its standards. Further, at the
organizational level, learning can be dysfunctional.1 Normative implications are fundamental for turning from
empirical analysis to policy design.
Indeed, can policy-makers, societies and governments design policy learning architectures? This is certainly
what Dewey had in mind, and what international organizations are after, with ambitious governance archi-
tectures like the Millennium Development Goals. Can institutions avoid ‘bad learning’ or ‘learning the wrong
lesson'? In our work, we made proposals that are preliminary to this step of design. We argued that learning
mechanisms come with a set of hindrances and triggers. Hence, designers should consider both triggers, to
facilitate learning, and the possible hindrances or blockages to the process (Dunlop and Radaelli, 2018b). For
example, Lindblomian learning through bargaining requires triggers such as repeated interactions, low barri-
ers to contract and mechanisms of preference aggregation. To offer another example, in epistemic learning,
expertise is key to problem-solving, but governments should design their advisory committees and special
commissions of inquiry by recruiting a broad range of experts. The risk of excluding the next Galileo Galilei in
a Ptolemaic committee is always present. At the same time, there are specific hindrances. Learning through
bargaining stops when the winners are always the same, and scientific skepticism will dilute the work of ex-
perts in governmental bodies.
A suite of important research questions is now available for further research. First, the causality of policy
change and learning is today a field where discussions are informed by interdisciplinary theoretical claims
and supporting evidence. No final proposition has gained prominence yet because learning and change are
causally connected in different ways, depending on whether we experiment with conditions of acute political
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and economic crisis or more stable conditions. Second, although we have made progress with conditional
learning and learning types, there is still uncertainty on how to measure learning. We observe phenomena
that one can plausibly explain with learning, but we do not know how to exclude other alternative rival mech-
anisms on the basis of un-ambiguous evidence. The step from concept formation to operationalization and
indicators of learning will most likely require a focused approach, depending on the specific research ques-
tions of the sub-field or whether we are talking about diffusion across countries or learning in a given bureau-
cracy. It is equally possible that others will find the search for measurement at least, in part, elusive and will
move into other ways of corroborating claims and arguments, for example, following social epistemologies of
interpretivism and critical realism (see Freeman, 2006, 2007). Third, the whole set of normative and design
questions can now be tackled by connecting policy learning to theories of governance and public philosophy.
Note
1 On these issues, see the Policy and Politics special issue on policy learning and policy failure (Dunlop,
2017).
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• policy learning
• governance
• public policy
• social interaction
• actors
• comparative politics
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n70

Page 12 of 12
Policy Making: Models
Contributors: Rajesh Chakrabarti & Kaushiki Sanyal

Chapter Title: "Policy Making: Models"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Policy Making: Models

Rajesh Chakrabarti Kaushiki Sanyal
Introduction
Policy making in any country is the result of a complex interplay between various stakeholder groups in the
polity. The general direction and evolution of the policy process are also broader than the mechanics of indi-
vidual legislations and the campaigns leading up to them. The grammar of the interaction is set by institutions,
the relative power of the various groups and, not to an insignificant degree, the political traditions of the soci-
ety.
Are there models of policy making that are universally applicable? Most existing theories of the policy making
process have been developed based on evidence from Western democracies, primarily the United States (for
detailed bibliography on policy process see bibliography by Mooij and de Vos, 2003). However, as democracy
spread throughout the world as a model of polity in the post colonial period, its grammar has begun to show
significant variation in the context of varied socio-economic and cultural settings. Consequently, policy making
processes have started showing considerable heterogeneity as well. Few studies have been attempted to (a)
link these theories with the realities of young democracies, and (b) develop new theories to explain the policy
making process in these countries.
In the next section, we provide a broad overview of the standard models of policy making with a brief discus-
sion; in the third section, we discuss their applicability followed by a summary of a recent empirical analysis
of policy making in a young democracy – India – to bring out the variety of real-life policy making exhibits. In
the final section, we discuss a couple of new approaches to theorizing the policy making process.
Standard Theories of Policy Making Processes

It is fair to say that there is no general theoretical framework tying together the study of public policy. Theory-
building in public policy has used two basic approaches to make sense of the complex world of public policy.
The first is to simplify and make sense of that complexity ad hoc by simply using what works in a given sit-
uation (Sabatier, 1999: 5). The second is through a scientific approach of cause and effects. Specifically, it
means that underlying the highly complex world of public policy making is a set of causal relationships, much
like the assumptions about utility maximization and laws of demand and supply in economics. If these causal
relationships can be identified, presumably they can be linked together logically to build overarching expla-
nations of how the field of public policy works. Thus far, generalizability has proved to be elusive given the
diffuse nature of public policy.
The ad-hoc approach works better since it allows scholars to borrow from a full range of conceptual frame-
works developed across the social sciences. It also lets scholars focus on the reality, as messy as it may
be, rather than trying to shoe-horn conceptual frameworks on to the reality. ‘Analytic case studies can pro-
vide a wealth of information about a particular policy or process even if they are ad hoc in the sense that
they have no grand conceptual framework proposing causal links to empirically verify', observed Smith and
Larimer (2013: 16). This, however, makes it difficult to build cumulative and generalizable knowledge from
what are essentially descriptive studies. Some argue that the attempt to produce generalizable theories of
public policy is not only pointless but hopeless. As Deborah Stone puts it, the scientific approach to public
policy that has occupied the attention of many social scientists is, in effect, a mission to rescue ‘public policy
from the irrationalities and indignities of politics'. (Stone, 2002: 7). Smith and Larimer (2013), however, argue
that this is a failing not only of policy studies, but of many other disciplines including public administration and
political science. They contend that policy scholars may not have produced a unifying theory but have done
a commendable job of producing functional theories within a wide-ranging set of policy orientations such as
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policy process, policy evaluation, policy analysis and policy design. Each of these orientations are disciplines
in themselves with a set of core research questions and conceptual frameworks.
Since this chapter focuses on the policy making process, some of the questions include the following: (a) why
do governments pay attention to some problems and not others?; (b) how are policy options formulated?;
and (c) why does policy change? Based on these questions, some conceptual frameworks such as bounded
rationality, punctuated equilibrium and advocacy coalition were developed.
Stages Heuristic Model

The initial focus of the policy sciences was on developing theoretical frameworks to explain the policy
process. However, it was unclear what the process looked like or what was the starting point. A number of
scholars developed the ‘stages’ model of the policy process, key among them being Lasswell (1956), Easton
(1965), Jones (1970), Rose (1973), Jenkins (1978), Hogwood and Gunn (1984) and Dror (1989). The Stages
Model, as developed by Lasswell (1956) and later Jones (1970), follows a linear pattern of decision making,
reflecting a rationalist perspective. First a problem must come to the attention of the government. Policymak-
ers then develop solutions to the problem, ultimately choosing the one they perceive as most appropriate.
They then evaluate whether it served the purpose or not. Both attempted to model the process of policy mak-
ing. Although Lasswell identified what could be considered stages of the decision process, it is with Jones
that the first attempt was made to model the process of public policy decisions. He identified elements of the
policy process such as perception, definition, aggregation, representation, formulation, legitimation, applica-
tion and evaluation. Later, James Anderson (1974) and Ripley (1985) refined the model in various ways but,
fundamentally, it remained a rationalistic, problem-oriented, linear process on a continual loop. Based on Sys-
tems Theory, Easton (1965) developed an input–output model where inputs were various issues, pressures,
information and the like, to which actors in the system reacted. The outputs were public policy decisions to do
or not to do something.
Critiques, however, point out that (a) this is at best a descriptive classification of the policy process, not a
theory of public policy since a hypothesis cannot be tested against this model; (b) this model divides rather
than unites the scholars as some focus on the agenda setting aspect while others on implementation and
analysis; and (c) this model assumes a linear trajectory of policy making, discounting the idea of feedback
loops between stages or different starting points for the entire process (de Leon, 1999: 23; Sabatier, 2007).
Its utility remains in the fact that it continues to provide a major conceptualization of the scope of public policy
studies and a handy means of organizing and dividing labor in the field.
‘Arenas of Power’ Approach/Typology Framework

The Stages Model describes the policy process but does not say anything about the type of policy produced
and what the difference might mean for politics. This question was asked by Theodore Lowi, a political scien-
tist who wanted to determine if the process changed for different types of policy (Lowi and Olson 1970). Since
public policy is an attempt to influence individual behavior, governments use different types of coercion based
on its target. He divides all policies into four categories: distributive policy, redistributive policy, regulatory pol-
icy and constituent policy. Governments use coercion in each case either to change individual behavior or the
environment which leads to different types of politics. Each policy category amounted to an ‘arena of power',
and he saw policies as a predictable outcome of a regular sub-system of actors. Thus, if one knows the policy
type, it is possible to determine the political interactions between actors in the sub-system (see Table 68.1).
Table 68.1 Lowi's policy typologies and resulting politics

Policy type Applicability of coer- Type of politics Congress President

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cion
Consensual, stable,
Distributive Remote/individual Strong, little floor activity Weak
logrolling
Immediate/environ- Moderate, moderate floor
Redistributive Stable, bargaining Strong
ment activity
Immediate/individ- Conflictual, unstable, bar-
Regulatory Strong, high floor activity Moderate
ual gaining
Remote/environ- Consensual, stable,
Constituent N/A N/A
ment logrolling
Following Lowi, James Q. Wilson constructed his own typology framework using similar assumptions. The
political atmosphere is defined by people's expectations about the costs and benefits of a policy. According to
him, politics is defined by whether cost and benefits are broadly or narrowly distributed. The four categories of
politics are: majoritarian, entrepreneurial, client and interest group. Where benefits were concentrated, there
was stronger incentive for groups to form and cohere than public goods, which usually fell victim to the ‘free
rider’ problem (see Table 68.2). Critics, however, observe that most policies do not fit neatly within a single
category. Therefore, without a clear set of criteria for identifying policies, the typology framework is of little
use (Kjellberg, 1977; Greenberg, 1977; Steinberger, 1980). The models were refined by Spitzer (1987) and
Kellow (1988).
Table 68.2 Wilson's policy typologies

Distributed costs Concentrated costs
Entrepreneurial (strong political
Distributed Majoritarian (broad public debates in legislatures and
actor required to achieve policy
benefits elections)
passage)
Client (behind the scene politics, success depends on the
Concentrated Interest group (High level of
legitimacy which public opinion attributes to the interest
benefits conflict and bargaining)
being benefitted)
Sources: Smith and Lorimer (2013); author.
Bounded Rationality and Incrementalism

Decision making is the core of public policy –who makes these decisions and why are key questions for
policy scholars. Broadly, scholars have used the rational choice theory to explain decision making. The sheer
complexity of most policy issues and the limited cognitive capacity of humans makes fully rational decision
making virtually impossible. The basic tenet of bounded rationality, as propounded by Herbert Simon (1947),
is that humans intend to be rational but are prevented from behaving in a fully rational manner by cogni-
tive limitations. Memory, attention span and information processing capabilities all limit a person's ability to
achieve complete rationality. Instead, people choose among options that are not completely optimal but are
good enough for the situation. Simon labeled such behavior as ‘satisficing', which allowed policymakers to
make decisions that may not be perfect but can solve the issue at hand. Charles Lindblom (1959) applied
these concepts to the study of public policy making and found that policymakers ‘muddle through’ by making
small changes from existing policies. According to him, the process is best characterized by small, incremen-

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tal adjustments where policy decisions are a process of ‘successive limited comparisons', with each decision
building off previous decisions. This model became known as ‘incrementalism'. Davis et al. (1966) first sys-
tematically tested Lindblom's notion of incrementalism by studying the public budgetary processes in the Unit-
ed States. Some scholars have argued that incrementalism offers little in the way of testable predictions and
its tenets are little more than a descriptive model of policy making (Wanat, 1974).
Public Choice and Tieabout Theory

Essentially a neoclassical economic idea, public choice, when applied to the public sector, means that gov-
ernments should supply public programs and services in a similar manner as the private sector businesses,
i.e., citizens, like customers, should be given choices in the programs and services they consume and the
associated costs of providing them. Driven by these quasi-market forces, governments will supply the de-
manded services efficiently. Charles Tieabout (1956) proposed one of the earliest public choice frameworks.
Local jurisdictions, like centralized bureaucracies, are prevented from distributing public goods but they can
offer services that are comparatively superior to that of the surrounding localities (quality of water, garbage
removal, education and taxation). Citizens expressing preference for certain localities over other change the
monopolistic relationship prevalent in centralized jurisdictions. Thus, for Tieabout, citizen choice is the key to
improving organizational efficiency, and this choice manifests itself in the form of fragmented local govern-
ments. Critics have stated that this model equates democracy with free markets, but they are not synony-
mous. Furthermore, it was not clear that public choice worked as well in practice as it did in theory. Empirical
support for the model was mixed at best (Lyons et al., 1992). However, the model was later tested and refined
by Teske (1993) who found that local governments can be competitive and efficient simply by responding to
a small group of citizen-consumers who are high income and tend to be well informed about services in com-
munities.
Institutional Rational Choice

Some scholars argue that rules or institutions can be employed to improve the rationality of individual decision
making, thereby improving the quality of policy making. Labeled Institutional Rational Choice, this approach
to policy making was advanced by Elinor Ostrom (1998). The belief is that institutions can be designed to
solve collective-action problems. Policymakers, citizens and other stakeholders make decisions in the context
of institutional rules. These rules, in turn, shape individual preferences. A good example of this theory applied
to a practical policy problem is John Chubb and Terry Moe's (1988, 1990) work on school choice. Out of the
IRC perspective, Ostrom and others developed an entire research agenda, known as ‘institutional analysis
and development (IAD)’ which used institutionalist theory to solve common-pool resource dilemmas (Ostrom,
2011).
Subsystems Theory
Where does policy come from and how and why it changes are critical questions for understanding the policy
process. The pluralist theoretical tradition in political science suggests that the policy process is mainly a com-
petition among organized groups, each vying to get the government to pay attention to its problems and to
take a particular action (Truman, 1951). Early on, iron triangle theorists argued that Congress, the bureaucra-
cy and special interest groups formed an unbreakable triad, offering ideas and policy solutions with narrow
benefits accrued to themselves at the expense of the public interest. However, this was challenged in the
1970s and 1980s by scholars who claimed the process was more open, emphasizing the role of public and
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private organizations, including think tanks, research institutes, interest groups and ordinary citizens. In what
came to be known as the Subsystems Theory, the policy process was seen as increasingly decentralized,
fragmented and characterized by informal and shifting alliances. Freeman (1965) and Heclo (1977, 1978)
developed this conceptual framework to explain agenda setting and policy change. Heclo's research coined
two terms ‘issue networks’ and ‘technopols'. Issue networks tend to include politically active individuals with
specialized policy knowledge who are drawn to the group for non-economic benefits. Within issue networks,
those with specialized, technical knowledge of the policy at hand or ‘technopols’ tend to wield more power.
This theory was tested by Keith Hamm (1983) in the study of federal policy, revealing the close-knit nature
of policy sub-systems. Yet, these frameworks do not support a pluralist model since elites and well-funded
groups exercise disproportionate indirect power.
Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF)

One of the best theories of the policy process, ACF, was developed to address the questions raised by the
Subsystems Theory. Its main proponent was Paul Sabatier (1988) who, following Heclo, argued that iron tri-
angles are in reality highly permeable and often unpredictable. Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1999: 118) con-
tended that there were five ‘premises’ to this framework, the basic premise being the policy process is dy-
namic. Advocacy coalitions represented groups with shared beliefs (technical expertise and ideology) that
coordinated activity following the emergence of a particular policy on the government agenda. These coali-
tions consisted of legislators, interest groups, public agencies, policy researchers, journalists and other sub-
national actors. ACF helped explain change in the policy process by arguing that advocacy coalitions engage
in ‘policy-oriented learning'. These groups continually adapt to changes in the political and socio-economic
environment. They also revise their preferences in policy designs and goals based on new information. They
coordinate with each other and develop long-term stable alliances. New coalitions are likely when there is
severe dissatisfaction with existing policies. ACF is constrained by its lack of standardized methodology and
some of the practical issues of data collection but remains a useful framework for understanding the policy
process and generating an empirically testable hypothesis (Weible et al., 2009: 127).
Punctuated Equilibrium Framework

The ACF gives some sense of where policy proposals originate but how and why policies change remains
a question. Baumgartner and Jones (1993, 2009) drew attention to the fact that the pace of change is not
always constant or linear, in fact, there were periods of rapid and significant change, which they termed ‘punc-
tuated equilibria'. Significant change to a policy sub-system is likely to result in a radical shift in policy and a
new point of equilibrium. But what punctuates the equilibria? According to Baumgartner and Jones, the dri-
ving force for change is the issue definition – the changes to the tone of an issue can lead to changes in the
attention it receives. They give examples of the nuclear power and tobacco industry to illustrate their point.
As issues emerge on the formal agenda, they leave an ‘institutional legacy’ resulting in a positive feedback
system. Positive feedback is the process by which a change in policy image, based on criticism, results in
a new point of stability. Recent empirical studies continue to refine and expand this framework (Breunig and
Koski, 2012; John and Bevan, 2012). However, it has some limitations: it is descriptive rather than predictive,
policy change is not always in one direction – it can go both ways – and the psychological element of the
framework is imperfectly understood.
Multiple-Streams Approach

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John Kingdon (1995) also argued that the best way to understand the policy process is by examining policy
image. He stated that the agenda setting process and alternative selection were best understood through the
‘garbage can model’ as theorized by Cohen et al. (1972). In this model, ideas were jumbled together and both
problems and solutions were dumped in the proverbial policy making ‘garbage can'. Policy entrepreneurs then
learnt to select alternatives by trial and error. Kingdon revised the garbage can model to include three sepa-
rate streams: problems, policies and politics. Each stream contributed to understanding why government paid
attention to some problems and not to others. This came to be known as the multiple-streams approach. The
problem stream means that policy actors must first recognize that there is an existing problem. The most obvi-
ous way it happens is through a ‘focusing event', such as an event (usually a tragedy) of national prominence.
In the policy stream, alternative solutions are generated to address the emerging problem. Participants in the
policy stream include both a ‘visible’ and ‘hidden’ cluster of actors (Kingdon, 1995). Alternatives move from
being in the primordial soup to being a viable option through ‘softening up’ and through ‘coupling’ (Kingdon,
1995: 200–201). Policy specialists, academics and interest groups can soften up the agenda to ensure fa-
vorable political receptivity. Coupling is the ability to link alternatives with problems. The political stream is
characterized by bargaining among elected officials, constituents and organized political forces. Events such
as election results and a change in the national mood can determine whether a problem will find a receptive
venue. The convergence of the three streams creates what Kingdon calls a ‘policy window', or the opportu-
nity for rapid change. The problem and political stream open the window, the political entrepreneur has to
recognize the window and grab the opportunity of placing policy alternatives or ‘couple’ the three streams
before the window closes. Some empirical work has been conducted on this framework, with mixed results
(Robinson and Eller, 2010; Liu, 2010). Zahariadis (2003) identifies weaknesses in the framework such as a
lack of use in the models of change, an inability to distinguish clear lines of separation between streams and
an absence of empirically falsifiable hypotheses.
Thus, public policy as a discipline does not have a central question that is the basis for all its theories. Each
of the existing theoretical frameworks of the policy making process studies different aspects of the process.
Some may study the role decision-makers (bureaucrats and legislators) play in the process, while others may
study the role played by advocacy/interest groups or study the way policy change takes place.
Are these Models Applicable to Young, Non-western Democracies?

There are divergent views about the applicability of Western policy process theories to non-Western process-
es. Pye (1958) argued that non-Western political systems were distinctive because the political sphere was
not sharply differentiated from the spheres of social and personal relations – political parties tend to represent
a way of life, the political process was characterized with prevalence of cliques and political loyalty. However,
his view was contested by Diamant (1959) and Horowitz (1989). Horowitz (1989: 197) argued,
On the one hand, it is clear that the systemic frameworks of policy – the institutions, participants,
resources, the weight of the state relative to the society, and the capacity of the state to work its will
– all vary as between developing and Western countries. The same is true for the scope of policy
activity, the configuration of issues, and the actual content of policy. On the other hand, the policy
process – the constraints, the ripe moments that produce innovation, the tendency for policy to have
unanticipated consequences, and so on – appears to display regularities that transcend the cate-
gories of Western or Third World state.
Interestingly, Thomas and Grindle (1990) have pointed out that contestations are more common in the policy
formulation stage in developed countries, while for developing nations, the main area of policy contestation is
the process of policy implementation.

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The way various stakeholder groups engage and debate with one another, as well as the interest groups they
represent, can be highly complex and context-specific. The context itself will be determined by the culture and
political climate of the country in question and, of course, the nature of the political issue. The search for a
universal formula, therefore, will be predictably futile. However, while many scholars acknowledge the differ-
ences that exist between countries’ policy processes, there is a strong sense that the insights from concep-
tual frameworks of policy process that have been developed can transcend the boundaries of specific cases
contributing significantly to the study of policy processes in non-US settings.
However, it is also true that most existing studies on the connection between policy, protests and democracy
are country- and context-specific. For example, Gamson's (1975) seminal work The Strategy of Social Protest
studied the outcomes of social movements in the United States. Other works, such as Meyer et al. (2005),
use a range of movements in the United States from anti-war campaigns to the organic agriculture movement
to examine how changing historical, political and organizational contexts matter in setting the stage for collec-
tive action that results in issue creation and new-found social policies and vice versa.
Policy Making in a Young Democracy: A Study of India

In 2017 (Chakrabarti and Sanyal, 2017), we published a study that presented nine detailed case studies of the
journeys of seven laws and two abortive legislative attempts against the relief of standard theories outlined
above to understand the appropriateness of the theories to the present-day realities of a young democracy.
The choice of laws/bills were limited to the last 15 years (1999–2014) in order to balance political change –
both the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and National Democratic Alliance (NDA) periods were covered
– and the availability of documentations, key informants and stakeholders. Each of the laws/bills chosen for
the book were what can be called landmarks, i.e., those laws which were attempting to bring about significant
change in the existing policy landscape, in their specific field, covering social, political, economic and environ-
mental issues. These laws did not cover all landmark laws passed in the 15 years but constituted, arguably,
a representative sample.
Given the range of issues and the variety of context and players covered, it is not even easy to conceptualize
our case studies in a common framework. In spite of the difficulties, we attempted to create a framework
based on the roles played by state and non-state actors in guiding the legislative agenda of the government,
thus taking the policy sub-system (which includes a constellation of actors such as advocates, lobbyists, leg-
islators, bureaucrats, political parties, journalists, lawyers, watch-dogs and think tanks) as a unit of analysis.
Within the sub-system, the behaviors of these actors were modulated by the rules of the game imposed by the
Constitution, the parliamentary system and the judiciary. The strategies employed by different stakeholders to
further their respective interests, the bargaining and negotiations that take place among the constellation of
actors and the external conditions – could be a game-changing ‘trigger’ event or changes wrought by forces
of globalization – all come together to effect change in the legislative agendas.
Learnings and Analysis

As Table 68.3 shows, there is wide variation in the policy processes in India. Some laws have come about
after years of advocacy, some due to a triggering event and some through bureaucratic pressures. Thus, the
theories that seem to fit a case study vary. There are also cases where one theory does not explain the whole
journey. Multiple theories seem applicable and, in some case, none seem to be applicable. However, there
are common patterns that are observable in cases.
Almost none of the laws and bills were written on a tabula rasa or blank slate (except perhaps microfinance);
each came into being as a replacement of an existing law or policy. Thus, most policy making is policy suc-
cession, as observed by Hogwood and Peters (1982).
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The reasons for this are many. In India, and increasingly in contemporary Western political systems, the gov-
ernment is present in virtually every policy space so that there are relatively few completely new activities
in which the government could become involved. Existing laws may themselves create conditions requiring
amendments. Thus, the problem to be tackled may not be a result of no policy, but from existing policy or law.
Hogwood and Peters (1982: 225) observe that policy succession could be a ‘consequence of the relationship
between the rate of sustainable economic growth and the financial implications of the existing policy commit-
ments'. However, two of the proposed laws – child labor and microfinance – could not get enacted. These
bills could not be passed due to a mix of legislative inertia and some push back from groups opposed to the
proposal.
Each of these laws or bills propose significant innovation in the system. Therefore, each had to overcome
certain initial hurdles, such as: (a) legitimacy, (b) a lack of champions within the bureaucracy or the political
elites, and (c) a lack of information on its effectiveness. A consensus on the need for policy change had to be
built from the ground up before there was acceptance at the political level requiring a significant amount of
advocacy by civil society organizations, advocacy groups and lobbies. Thus, each of the laws and bills (ex-
cept, to some extent, the Competition Act) had significant involvement of civil society organizations and key
champions within the ruling parties.
Table 68.3 Timelines of the selected laws and bills

Act/Bill Pre-legislative Legislative
Competition Act 11 years 1.4 years
RTI Act 15 years 5 months
RTE Act 16 years 1 year – CA Act
8 months – RTE Act
Child Labour Bill 25 years Not passed. Introduction to Standing Committee Report: 1 year
Microfinance Bill 14 years Not passed. Introduction to Standing Committee Report: 1.9 years
Food Security Act 21 years 1.9 years
Lokpal Act 3 years 2.4 years
Land Acquisition Act 17 years 2 years
Criminal Laws Act 3 months 1 month
Source: Author.
The speed with which the policy process works can be an indicator of efficiency of the system as well as qual-
ity of the law. If policy change comes about through incremental steps, some serious lasting mistakes may be
avoided. However, it may also mean that the system is not efficient enough to deal with a perceived problem
in a time-bound manner. As Table 68.3 indicates, the government has been responsive in some cases, es-
pecially where an external event has provided a trigger for change, such as the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act
(although the pace slowed once the momentum of the India Against Corruption movement died down) and
the Criminal Laws (Amendment) Act.
The enactment of the RTI Act is the only exception since there was no triggering event. However, the Com-
mon Minimum Programme of UPA in 2004 promised that ‘the Right to Information Act will be made more
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progressive participatory and meaningful'. Also, the formation of the National Advisory Council (NAC), a qua-
si-government group headed by Sonia Gandhi gave the impetus to the process since stalwarts of the RTI
movement, Aruna Roy and Jean Dreze, were members of the NAC. In other cases, the legislative process,
on average, takes about a year and a half to complete, but the pre-legislative process can vary widely. Bills
such as the Food Security Act and the Land Acquisition Act, which were also pushed by the NAC members,
got passed in roughly the same timelines.
Each of the laws has multiple actors influencing the policy process. These include both institutional and non-
institutional actors. Institutional actors include the legislators, the political parties, the judiciary, the Comptrol-
ler and Auditor General (CAG), the National Advisory Council (NAC), the Planning Commission (now NITI
Aayog), the Cabinet, Group of Ministers, Law Commission, Standing Committees, independent regulatory
bodies, the bureaucracy and politicians. Non-institutional actors include advocacy groups, NGOs, policy en-
trepreneurs, multilateral agencies (the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, UN agencies), business lob-
bies (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Confederation of Indian Industry, Associated
Chambers of Commerce and Industry in India), interest groups, media, think tanks and research institutes.
The goals of non-institutional actors generally include changing policy, gaining access to the policy process
and changing social values. As the cases demonstrate, gaining access to the policy process requires differ-
ent tactics, but the system is open and porous enough to allow diverse sets of actors to gain legitimacy. For
example, there were entirely different groups of non-state actors who advocated for the RTI Act as opposed
to the Microfinance or the Child Labour Bill. However, there are also many overlaps, say between RTI, food
security and land acquisition or the RTE and the Child Labour Bill or the Criminal Laws Act and the Lokpal
Act. However, it is more probable that the overlap was issue-based rather than owing to a lack of plurality in
the groups. The key role of civil society groups is to provide inputs to agenda setting and policy development
processes. Policy entrepreneurs are innovators who actively seek dynamic changes in policy or politics. In the
Indian context, people like Arvind Kejriwal (before he joined politics), Aruna Roy and Kailash Satyarthi may
be called ‘policy entrepreneurs’ since they were able to create new opportunities and mobilize citizen demand
to support a fresh vision of the future.
Among the institutional actors, the CAG and the NAC have played an innovative role in the policy process.
The CAG, by publicizing its findings in the 2G spectrum and other cases, created an atmosphere ripe for the
anti-corruption movement. As a constitutional body, it had legitimacy with the citizens and its findings were
credible evidence of corruption in the government. The NAC was set up by an executive order for the specific
function to ‘oversee the implementation of the National Common Minimum Programme’ of the government.
Additionally, it was to ‘provide inputs for formulation of policy by government and to provide support to govern-
ment in its legislative business'. Although the members were carefully chosen, they came from diverse fields.
The NAC gave space to a diverse set of civil society actors to participate formally in the political process.
However, the members were a carefully chosen mix of civil society actors, technocrats, bureaucrats and aca-
demics broadly aligned with the UPA's policy agenda.
Clearly, India's policy process is reactive rather than pro-active. Most of the time, the pace of the policy
process got accelerated or was triggered by an external incident. The trigger for the Competition Act was the
economic liberalization that the country embarked upon in the 1990s due to the balance of payment crisis.
The impetus for the campaigns for the RTE Act and the Food Security Act came through judicial orders. Other
examples include the Lokpal Act, the Criminal Laws (Amendment) Act and the Land Acquisition Act. In cases
where there has been no impetus or trigger, such as the Microfinance Bill or the Child Labour Bill, it did not
result in policy change (although it should be noted that the Child Labour Bill did get enacted in 2016).
In terms of geographical spread, Delhi and Rajasthan seem to be the hotbed of activity in the decade and a
half under study. It may be premature to make any definitive pronouncements given that the sample size is
small, but it is possible that proximity to Delhi is a factor for successful activism in Rajasthan. Land acquisi-
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tion and microfinance stand apart in this respect because its spread includes West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh,
Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.
Strategies used by non-institutional actors to influence the policy process in India include those which are
disruptive as well as peaceful/non-violent. Some of the movements such as the RTI used public hearings or
Jan Sunwais to expose corrupt officials publicly. In recent times, the tactics used by the India Against Corrup-
tion movement stand out as extremely effective. The use of Gandhian symbols (through the persona of Anna
Hazare) and methods (fasting), combined with relentless media coverage at a time when big ticket corruption
cases were being reported in an alarming frequency, ignited the mainly middle-class public to join the protests
in large numbers. The campaigns after the Delhi gang rape case also had a mainly middle-class following but
it was a more spontaneous protest against the lack of safety for women. Nonetheless, these two movements
got the generally apathetic middle class on the streets of Delhi.
The other campaigns included activists who belonged to the middle class as leaders or facilitators of the
campaigns, but the mass mobilizations were targeted at the poor. Demonstrations, processions, mass meet-
ings, rallies, dharna and sit-ins were preferred methods of protests in India right from the time of Indepen-
dence (and before). In fact, these civil resistances increased after Independence since the State was unable
to fulfill many of the demands of its citizens. In fact, public agitations and protests were looked upon as instru-
mentalities supplementing law courts and parliamentary elections (Bayley, 1963). These tactics were used
by the women's movements as well as anti-dam activists quite extensively. As interest and advocacy groups
got more organized and formalized, the government also started opening avenues for consulting with out-
side groups through informal consultations, seminars, conferences and standing committee depositions (from
1992 onwards). The activists also started taking advantage of this window and, along with its public cam-
paigns, intensified its one on one advocacy with political parties and individual legislators.
The introduction of the concept of Public Interest Litigations (PILs) was a great innovation that allowed ac-
tivists to take the judicial route to get their agendas heard. Formation of networks, alliances and coalitions
with many groups working in similar areas in different parts of the country became a common strategy for
many of the campaigns. As mobile phones and the internet became popular, new campaigns based on them
were developed. They were also successfully used to mobilize people at short notice, most notably during the
agitations and protests after the Delhi gang rape.
The media, and in recent years, social media, has played a very active role in the agenda setting process in
India. Newspaper articles and, more importantly, television debates help form public opinions in the country.
The extensive spread of mobile phones and the popularity of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twit-
ter and YouTube have helped people network and communicate at an unprecedented level. It has increased
the level of transparency in the country but also has some negative fall-outs.
How Well do the Theories Fare?

The most common framework that seems to fit India's policy process is a combination of punctuated equilibri-
um theory, multiple-streams theory and the advocacy coalition framework – the Lokpal Act, the Criminal Laws
(Amendment) Act, the RTI Act, the Land Acquisition Act, the Child Labour Bill and the Food Security Act. The
incremental theory also works in some of the cases such as the Competition Act, 2002 and the first phase of
the RTE Act. However, the Microfinance Bill does not fit well with any of these theories since the advocacy for
the Bill had been muted and confined to a relatively small group.
What can we conclude from this about India's policy process? First, the relevance of these theories to the real
world of the bare-knuckle political arena with its pushes and pulls, bargains and quid pro quos is somewhat
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suspect. Decisions in the political arena are influenced far more by the perception of a situation than by any
rational concept of objective reality. It is far more than the difference between a pessimist seeing a half empty
glass, while the optimist sees the same glass as half full. One actor in the decisional drama may view a pro-
gram as essential for the national interest, while another actor may be equally certain that it is nothing more
than an example of petty bureaucrats wasting the taxpayers’ money. Add to this mix personal egos, party dy-
namics and corruption, it becomes apparent how difficult it is not only to theorize, but for any existing theory
to be completely relevant to the realities of policy making. Second, most of the time, change happens slowly.
The pace can sometimes be accelerated due to an unpremeditated incident but there is merit in taking time
to decide on a far-reaching policy change, otherwise the law would not need repeated amendments before it
can become functional. Third, the government is not a monolith. There are many components to it who have
some say in the policy process. Fourth, political parties are more powerful than individual MPs in a parliamen-
tary democracy – especially in India given the constraints placed on MPs due to the Anti-Defection Law. Fifth,
the power of non-violent resistance has been amply demonstrated in each of these case studies and would
add to the list of strategies listed in the Global Non-Violent Action Database. Sixth, the activism that preceded
the enactment of many of these laws were predominantly campaigns, which have more specific goals and a
concentrated period of activity. However, some of these campaigns were part of a larger movement such as
the women's movement or the environment movement in India.
Table 68.4 Proposed legislative strategy framework

Willingness to en- Time taken to influence agen-
Laws/Bills Means of activism
gage da*
Competition Act Collaborative Cooperative Medium
Right to Information
Conflictual Cooperative Long
Act
Right to Education Act Conflictual Confrontational Medium
Child Labour Bill Conflictual Confrontational Long
Microfinance Bill Collaborative Cooperative Long
Conflictual (external trig-
Criminal Laws Act Cooperative Short
ger)
Food Security Act Conflictual Confrontational Long
Conflictual (external trig-
Lokpal Act Confrontational Short
ger)
Land Acquisition Act Conflictual Cooperative Long
* Short: Fewer than 10 years; Medium: 10–20; Long: more than 20 years.
Source: Author.
The Search for New Paradigms

The distance between standard theories and the grassroot process reality compels us to build or search for
better frameworks to explain contemporary facts. We first outline our rudimentary attempt at building one –

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the legislative strategy framework – and then discuss a recent development in the theory horizon – the com-
plexity theory – as a promising approach.
The Legislative Strategy Framework

Since legislative agendas of governments are set through the interaction of different stakeholders within the
sub-system, we develop what we term as a ‘legislative strategy framework’ (Table 68.4). In this framework,
we categorize the actors into two broad groups: elected (legislators and bureaucrats) and non-elected (ad-
vocacy/interest groups, the media, watch-dogs and think tanks) stakeholders. Laws are created through the
interaction of these two broad groups. In cases where the elected representatives may be willing to engage
with non-elected stakeholders, the relationship can be categorized as cooperative, if otherwise, it would be
categorized as confrontationist. The non-elected stakeholders try to exert influence on the elected stakehold-
ers to enact a law. The means influencing vary widely but again can be categorized broadly as conflictual or
collaborative. The time taken to get a law enacted can be the proxy for the impact these interactions have on
the law-making process.
Figure 68.1 Pictorial representation of the legislative strategy framework
Source: Author.
Within this broad framework, the degrees of conflict and collaboration (the two ends of the spectrum) can vary
widely. We depict this range in a diagram (see Figure 68.1) using a score of one to five. Thus, the means of
activism ranges from conflictual to collaborative on score of one to five. Similarly, the willingness to engage
ranges from confrontational to cooperative on a score of one to five.
The pattern that emerges from this framework throws up a few surprises. First, when activism is triggered by
an external event, even if the government is not willing to cooperate, the time taken to influence the legislative
agenda is short. Second, it is, however, much more difficult to influence the legislative agenda without a trig-
gering event if the means of activism is conflictual and the willingness to engage is also lacking among elect-

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ed stakeholders. Third, it is not certain that even if activists use collaborative means of activism and elected
stakeholders are not confrontational, it would lead to a legislative change. This could mean that even if there
is no conflict, the law denotes a significant shift in a different direction and thus requires more deliberation
among stakeholders or it could mean that it is not seen as a top priority of the government. Fourth, even if
governments agree in principle about the need for a piece of legislation, the differences about the fine-print
(especially if it requires significant fiscal support) could make the government hostile to the non-elected stake-
holders. Fifth, if the activists are more collaborative in their tactics, the chances are that the government will
be more willing to engage with them and they may have better success in influencing the legislative agen-
da. As the diagram shows, there is a much lower chance of success without a ‘trigger’ event if the activists
take a confrontationist approach and the government also is uncooperative. Sixth, even if the approach of
both parties (elected and non-elected) is collaborative and cooperative, without a strong champion within the
government to navigate the Bill, the chance of it getting passed is low. Seventh, if the activists want to take
a confrontationist stand with the government, they need to be able to identify and be prepared to take any
‘window of opportunity’ that may arise due to an unpredictable external event to push for their desired legis-
lation. Eighth, influencing the legislative agenda is an uphill task and requires years of sustained effort and
innovative strategies to convince the government of its demands.
Here, it is important to emphasize that the observations above are only broad initial conjectures about the
nature of law-making in India. A proper theory needs to be fleshed out of these stylized observations and
systematically tested using proper statistical methodology using an adequate sample.
Complexity Theory
It may be possible to see patterns in the seemingly random nature of the law-making process by applying
complexity theory to the field of public policy – an approach pioneered by Paul Cairney and Robert Geyer
(Geyer and Cairney, 2015; Geyer and Rihani, 2010). While a complete exposition of the complexity theory is
beyond the scope of this chapter, we introduce here a conceptual tool frequently used in management and
now increasingly in public policy literature to suggest a structure that may be of use in thinking about the cas-
es discussed above.
Figure 68.2 The Stacey diagram

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Source: GP training website.
This is the conceptual tool of the Stacey diagram (Figure 68.2), which analyses the nature of the multiparty
decision-making problem on two dimensions of degree of agreement of objectives among stakeholders on
one hand and the extent of certainty of appropriateness of solutions on the other. The interaction between
these two variables segments the space of problems into ‘simple', i.e., open to evidence-based policy making,
(1 in the figure), political (2), judgmental (3) and the space of ‘impossible’ or chaotic problems (4). Between
these is a space (the shaded one, 5) that is the zone of ‘complex’ problems.
The central narrative of the complexity sciences involves viewing the social system as a complex evolving
system which is beyond the control of government or any other stakeholder. It explores highly inter-connected
systems mathematically and develops models that shed light on how such inter-connected systems work

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(Colander and Kupers, 2014). Complexity theory aims to identify what types of systemic output occur when
its members follow the same basic rules, and how sensitive the system is, or what small changes in rules
will produce profound changes in systemic behavior. In political science, the utility of complexity theory is in
explaining issues that contain unpredictable political events, significant levels of uncertainty and ambiguity or
factors outside the control of policymakers (Geyer and Rihani, 2010; Room, 2011; Cairney, 2012).
Let it here be recalled that the key features of a complex system include (Cairney, 2012: 230):
• The parts of a complex system are interdependent and cannot be described by breaking it down into
its component parts.
• It is next to impossible to predict the behavior of complex systems. ‘They exhibit “non-linear” dynam-
ics produced by feedback loops in which some forms of action are dampened (negative feedback)
while others are amplified (positive feedback). Small actions can have large effects and large actions
can have small effects’ (Cairney, 2012).
• Complex systems are dependent on initial conditions that produce a long-term momentum or ‘path
dependence'.
• The behavior of these systems evolves from the interaction between elements at a local level rather
than a central direction making it difficult to control.
• Complex systems may behave regularly for an extended period but are ‘liable to change radically'.
They may therefore exhibit periods of ‘punctuated equilibria’ – in which long periods of stability are
interrupted by short bursts of change.
• The various problems that complexity theory seeks to address – such as predicting climate change,
earthquakes, how the brain works, and the behavior of social and political systems – can only be
solved by interdisciplinary scientific groups.
Much of the complexity theory application in politics and public policy, to date, has focused on matters of pub-
lic administration and the efficacy of laws and other policy measures. The emergence of a law has not yet
been analyzed using the complexity theory. However, our case studies amply demonstrate that the law-mak-
ing process in India is also marked by the key elements of complexity theory: non-linear dynamics, emer-
gent properties, path dependency and strange attractors that make it appropriate for viewing it as a complex
process and analyzing it using the learnings from the burgeoning literature in that area.
Conclusion
In this chapter, we outlined the standard policy making models and tried to answer the vexing question: is
there a non-Western policy process? According to some studies (Pye, 1958; Horowitz, 1989), there is clear
variation in the institutions, participants, resources, the weight of the state relative to society, the capacity of
the state to work its will and the actual policy concerns between Western and non-Western countries in Asia,
Africa and Latin America; on the other hand, the constraints, the ripe moments that produce innovation and
the tendency for policy to show unintended consequences appear to display similarities that transcend these
boundaries (Horowitz, 1989). An explanation for some convergence of policy process perhaps lies in the fact
that most of the developing countries derived their formal institutions from Western models and their informal
processes mirror those of the West (Horowitz, 1989; Diamant, 1959). In 1957, Fred Riggs had suggested that
all administrative systems could be placed on a point along a spectrum ranging from ‘Industrial type to the
Agrarian type pattern’ and could then be compared with any other administrative system (Riggs, 1957; Dia-
mant, 1959).
However, these are very broad-brush understandings of the policy process given the considerable differences
between developing countries (and developed countries as well) – of resources, political systems and state
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capacity. Perhaps, more nuanced contrasts in the policy process would emerge if specific countries were
compared, which necessitates the development of country-specific frameworks to understand the policy
process. To that end, we provided a study of India's policy making process through nine case studies, which
brought out the complexity of the law-making process: the wide variety in the methods adopted to influence
the process as well as the reactions they evoke from the law makers, and the pace of change and the domi-
nant discourse pertaining to the issue. Put simply, not only the duration and final outcome of the process, but
even the nature of the journey – the number of players involved, the nature of negotiations, the grammar of
engagement –is determined by bafflingly minute variations in a large number of ‘starting conditions'. The re-
sult is something that appears to be almost a random process – sometimes a long, grueling game of patience,
sometimes a blizzard of protest in the wake of an external crisis leading to shotgun legislation. The question
is how we find the method in the madness.
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• policy making
• public policy
• politics
• stages model of the policy process
• policy analysis
• policy theory
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n71

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Regulation
Contributors: David Levi-Faur & Yael Kariv-Teitelbaum

Chapter Title: "Regulation"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Regulation
David Levi-Faur Yael Kariv-Teitelbaum
Regulation – that is, rulemaking, rule-monitoring and rule-enforcement – is both a key policy and legal in-
strument and a pillar of the institutions that demarcate our political, social and economic lives. It appears in
diverse forms with varying degrees of costs and benefits to society in general and certain groups of benefi-
ciaries in particular. It plays restrictive, empowering and constitutive roles and thus shapes the distribution of
power in society in many arenas. Despite the efforts to deregulate or curtail it, regulation is here to stay. How-
ever, regulation is also a pillar that makes our democracy what it is. Transparency and accountability, not to
mention the electoral process, are all inherently consolidated and nurtured by regulation. Purpose, procedure
and effects may vary across time, space, issue area and level, but the tendency to create more and more
regulation has become a key characteristic of our society.
Defining Regulation
The term regulation is employed for a myriad of discursive, theoretical and analytical purposes that demand
clarification (Black, 2002; Levi-Faur, 2011; Koop and Lodge, 2017). It is most often defined as a sustained and
focused control mechanism over valuable activities by means of direct and indirect (delegated) rules. Think-
ing about regulation as a regime often refers to processes and institutions of rulemaking, rule-monitoring and
rule-enforcement. From this core definition, one can move forward towards narrow or broad definitions, where
narrowness and broadness are defined on different dimensions.
Narrow definitions may suggest that, for example, regulatory rule-makers are only public agencies with a clear
legislative mandate and formal mechanisms of monitoring and enforcement.2 Definitions also can be narrow
in other senses, for example, one may argue that for certain purposes regulation includes only secondary
laws (e.g., statutory instruments) and not primary laws. Alternatively, one can define rule-takers (or regula-
tees) only as businesses and social actors outside government, thus excluding rule-takers within government
(e.g., one agency or governmental actor regulating another). Sometimes, narrow definitions are derived from
a hierarchical approach to governance. Placing government and the state in the center suggests a worldview
where the government is solely responsible for achieving policy goals by imposing them on the private sec-
tor. Another way to adopt a narrow approach to regulation is to distinguish it as a unique policy instrument
that differs from other forms of government intervention such as taxation, subsidies, redistribution and public
ownership. State-centered definitions will identify regulators only as administrative public agencies and often
focus mostly on ‘command and control’ techniques to direct the activity of private companies. It will focus on
administrative formal ordinances as the main source of regulation and on formal and intentional mechanisms
of monitoring and enforcement. Regulation is therefore viewed as being within the scope of state authority,
formal regulatory organizations and the ‘art of government'.
Broader definitions of regulation identify it with myriad institutions, mechanisms and means of social control
and/or private (civil or business) actors.3 They may also include private standards or primary laws as sources
of regulation. The different approaches can be attributed not only to opposing perspectives on governance,
but also to different scholarly purposes, as well as disciplinary traditions. One therefore needs to understand
the contextual factors that shape the use of the concept in different discursive applications. Broader defini-
tions of regulation are often grounded in a ‘governance’ perspective on state, society and the economy. They
are extensively connected with the research agenda on governance, known as the ‘new governance’ (Lobel,
2004) or the ‘new regulatory state’ (Braithwaite, 2000). Elements of steering and plural forms of regulation are
emphasized in the effort to capture the plurality of interests and sources of control around issues, problems
and institutions. This approach views the government, industry and society as entities who share responsibil-
ity for achieving policy goals. It seeks to transform the governmental process into a more sharing, decentral-
ized, diverse, dynamic and flexible practice (Black, 2001). Decentered approaches to regulation emphasize

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complexity, fragmentation, interdependencies and government failures and suggest the limits of the distinc-
tions between the public and the private and between the global and the national (Scott, 2004). Such defin-
itions will identify non-state entities as rule-makers as well, as long as they exercise sustained and focused
control. Thus, both private firms and NGOs, local and global organizations, can all be defined as regulators,
even when norms are developed unintentionally or do not include monitoring and enforcement mechanisms.
Broad definitions might also include the government not only as a rule-maker, but a rule-taker that is subject
to private regulation as well (Scott, 2002).
Regulatory Public Agencies and Private Regulatory Regimes
Regulatory Public Agencies

One of the most important indicators of the growth in the scope and depth of regulatory activities in modern
society is the proliferation of regulatory agencies as the administrative core of national and global institutions
of regulatory governance. Regulatory agencies are not a new feature of modern systems of governance.
However, they have become a highly popular form of regulatory governance since the 1990s. A regulatory
agency is a non-departmental public organization mainly involved in rulemaking that may also be responsi-
ble for fact-finding, monitoring, adjudication and enforcement. It is autonomous in the sense that it can shape
its own preferences. The extent of the autonomy varies with its administrative capacities, its ability to shape
preferences independently and its ability to enforce its rules. The autonomy of the agency is also constituted
by the act of its establishment as a separate organization and by the allocation to this agency at the policy
space where it operates its functions and responsibilities (Gilardi and Maggetti, 2011).
As state organizations, regulatory agencies originated in various boards, ad hoc committees and other pre-
modern organizational entities that became worldwide the pillars of the modern administrative state during
the 20th century. Regulatory agencies became a distinctive feature of the US administrative state in the early
20th century. What other countries often nationalized, the United States regulated. Indeed, the history of the
US administrative state is also the history of the establishment of regulatory agencies. However, while the
number of regulatory agencies in the United States has not grown since the mid 1970s, such agencies have
become more and more popular elsewhere in the world.
Jordana et al's. (2011) research that traced the creation of regulatory agencies across 17 different sectors in
86 countries from 1950 to 2017, found an autonomous regulatory agency in 67% of the possible sector–coun-
try units. More specifically, 887 new agencies were created during this period, covering 968 sectors (some
agencies cover more than one sector). The rate of creation picked up in the 1990s up to 2004 (as Figure 69.1
shows, based on the authors’ updated data from Jordana et al., 2011).4
Figure 69.1 Annual creation of regulatory agencies in the sample (left); cumu-
lative annual creation of agencies in the sample (right) (1950–2017)

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It is useful to distinguish between five types of regulatory agencies: economic, social, risk, integrity and moral.
The boundaries between these different types of agencies are not entirely clear-cut. However, the classifica-
tion is useful both because the aims of the agencies are often wider than what their title may suggest, and
because their impact often goes well beyond the mission statement of the agency. Agencification in general,
as well as the distinction between the regulatory role and other roles (such as service-provision) of the agen-
cies, differs between these five types of agencies.
Economic regulatory agencies deal with the functioning of markets and employ a variety of tools to constitute,
manage and supervise them. They aim to advance social welfare by correcting market failures. Thus, issues
of competition and costs of service under conditions of concentrated market power on the one hand, and re-
stricted options for voice by consumers on the other, are often major challenges for the economic regulatory
agencies. Economic agencies appear in sectors such as finance (including central banks, banking, securi-
ties, pension and insurance); utilities (e.g., water, telecoms, electricity/energy, water and postal services); and
competition/anti-trust. Alongside their role of correcting market failures, it is important to note that many of
these agencies also play a constitutive role in the state as the promoter of capitalism (for instance, the federal
bank and the securities authority have a central role in constituting the public trust which is the foundation for
the entire financial system).
Social agencies deal with welfare and equality issues such as health administration, gender equality, disability
issues, labor rights, antidiscrimination, disadvantaged populations. They promote wide social values that of-
ten cannot be measured in economic terms. These agencies frequently face harsh criticism regarding their
ability to define what the relevant social goal is, in a way that is not susceptible to controversy, manipulation
and misinterpretation by interest groups.
Risk agencies include agencies that deal with the environment, food, medicine (pharmaceutical and devices)
and work safety. While the declared aim of many economic regulators is to nurture or increase competition,
the declared aim of risk regulators is to make our lives safer by eliminating or reducing risks or exposure to
risks. Social, economic, political, ecological, technoscientific and even mental health hazards might justify risk
governance by the state. The central goal of risk agencies is to determine the appropriate legitimate risk, the
allocation of risk responsibility and liability between actors, and the degree of investment in prevention and
loss mitigation.
Integrity agencies include all agencies that promote and govern privacy, corruption, accountability, trans-
parency and electoral rules. They aim to maintain and reinforce the integrity of the democratic process or the
administrative mechanism.
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Moral agencies deal with morality issues – with strong ethical dimensions – such as drug use, smoking, drink-
ing, abortion, gambling and gun control. Their goals are derived from moral, often paternalistic, expectations,
where the state is expected by large and varied segments of the society to prefer, advance and protect ethical
values on a wide variety of issues.
Private Regulatory Regimes

One of the manifestations of the expansion of regulation is the shift from regulatory government to regulatory
governance. It is inter alia reflected in the rapidly growing variety of non-state regulatory regimes, such as
private regulation, self-regulation and civil regulation. In these diverse regulatory regimes, regulation can be
designed and implied not only by public actors, but also by private actors such as firms or NGOs. Scholars
have suggested viewing the various forms of public and private regulatory regimes together as the ‘gover-
nance triangle’ (Abbott and Snidal, 2009) or as diverse actor constellations (Grabosky, 2013). A more detailed
model of these various regulatory regimes pointed out that not only public actors, but also private actors, can
act either as rule-makers, rule-intermediators or rule-takers (Abbott et al., 2017).
Private regulation is usually the overall term for any regulatory regime that is not created or managed primarily
by the government or that is privately owned (Scott, 2002). A distinction can be drawn between private reg-
ulation of all three main regulatory roles – rulemaking, rule-monitoring and rule-enforcement – to only part
of them. Because each of these roles may be fully or partially delegated, and since the rule-target may be
either private or public, the reality of the regulatory regimes might often include a hybridity of roles and func-
tions. Private rulemaking can often target public actors via public intermediaries (Abbott et al., 2017). This
is the case, for example, in private arbitration when private actors may force rules on some states with the
help of other states. Private regulation can originate from privatization processes, for example, the transfer of
authority that had been in the state's hands to business or civil actors. This may be motivated by efficiency
considerations, normative orientation or simply power-oriented calculations by public and private interests.
Private regulation can, however, also originate from scratch: for example, standards of fair and safe working
conditions, or standards for environmentally friendly or organic products. These standards can be set by pri-
vate actors, monitored and even certificated by private actors and enforced upon other actors.
Self-regulation is a specific form of private regulation or regulatory regime that is operated by the industry
over itself. A self-regulation regime can be assigned to each private firm individually, but it is usually carried
out by a collective organization comprised of industry representatives. For instance, professional associations
that regulate the training, qualification and disciplining of the profession are a common example of the latter
(Priest, 1998; Green, 2013). Self-regulation regimes are often initiated and declared mandatory by the gov-
ernment that transfers the role of monitoring and enforcement to the industry. However, they can also take the
form of ‘business-to-business regulation', driven by the ability of some businesses to set standards for other
businesses, for instance, the ability of big supermarket chains to set the standards for food manufacturing,
processing and marketing. Self-regulation regimes are usually advanced in order to use the industry's exper-
tise and avoid the arguable inefficiency of the state in executing a supervisory role (Coglianese and Lazer,
2003). However, it is often claimed that asking private firms to police themselves leads to an inherent conflict
of interests (Ogus, 1995; Gunningham and Rees, 1997; Priest, 1998; Haufler, 2013).
While self-regulation applies to regulatory regimes that are operated by the industry over itself, civil regulation
refers to regulatory regimes that are operated by civil society, often NGOs, usually in cooperation with the
industry. The concept of civil regulation aims to capture the institutionalization of voluntary global and national
forms of regulation through the creation of private (non-state) forms of regulation intended to govern markets
and firms (Vogel, 2010). Civil regulations attempt to embed international markets and firms in a normative or-
der that prescribes responsible business conduct in order to promote social goals such as human rights, labor
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practices or environmental protection. Civil regulation may include old and traditional forms of self-regulation
but goes beyond it to include regulatory techniques such as third-party accreditation and certification (Gun-
ningham et al., 1998; McAllister, 2012), gatekeeping strategies (Kraakman, 1986), meta-regulation (Parker,
2002; Coglianese and Mendelson, 2010), enforced self-regulation (Ayres and Braithwaite, 1992), self-regula-
tion (Ogus, 1995; Gunningham and Rees, 1997; Haufler, 2013), league tables (Sauder and Espeland, 2006)
and voluntary codes of conduct (Vrielink et al., 2011; Sethi, 2016). Their legitimacy is not rooted in state au-
thority and they typically operate beside or around the state, using ‘soft law’ and imposing social or market
penalties rather than legal sanctions. Civil regulation regimes have been warmly adopted as they encourage
public participation and operate in cooperation with the industry, but they have also been criticized due to
lack of accountability (Gugerty and Prakash, 2010), fragmentation and their problematic impact on developing
countries (Reed et al., 2013).
Civil regulation is often confused with voluntary regulation. While the two notions retain a close affinity, civil
regulation, unlike voluntary regulation, may at least in principle possess coercive aspects. Voluntary regula-
tion can be initiated by either the state, civil society or the industry and be adopted by firms in order to over-
come collective action problems, lower costs and gain reputation (Töller, 2011).
The Rise of the Regulatory State

The state has had regulatory administration since ancient times, from the macroeconomic regulation of money
in Babylon, the importation duties in ancient Egypt, through the medieval guilds that oversaw crafts and trades
(Braithwaite and Drahos, 2000). All states, modern or pre-modern, have had moral and integrity rules and
establish administration to monitor and enforce them. Nonetheless, the expansion of administration and regu-
lation as a central governance tool occurred during the 20th century, allowing us to point out an important and
significant facet of the state, which has become known as the ‘regulatory state'. The term has drawn more
traction since the 1980s, with privatization and the creation of centralized governance structures, during which
‘[…] modern states are placing more emphasis on the use of authority, rules and standard-setting, partially
displacing an earlier emphasis on public ownership, public subsidies, and directly provided services’ (Hood et
al., 1999: 3).
For a long time, the term regulatory state was a mere label – an empty signifier of the growth of independent
administrative structures within the US Federal Government. The label originated most visibly in the title of
a book written by James Anderson (1962): The Emergence of the Modern Regulatory State.5 Anderson's
book analyzed government and bureaucratic expansion via specialized independent agencies such as those
that originated in the United States’ progressive period. However, Anderson himself did not conceptualize the
term or employ it in a comparative or theoretical manner. Instead, his main effort was towards understanding
the organization and expansion of the administrative state at the Federal level in the context of the popular
revolt against the power of big business. The term caught on only slowly in the United States, and its use
was initially confined to scholars of US administrative law and US public administration. Its slow acceptance
probably came about because US political science – and US social sciences more generally – did not have
an elaborated theory of the state. Neither pluralists nor Elitists and Marxists saw state theory as a central
element of their analyses (Dunleavy and O'Leary, 1987). The enormous power of the US administrative state
was and still is largely hidden, not only because it reflects an inconvenient truth, but also because it is widely
distributed among an exceedingly complex network of institutions, jurisdictions, branches, offices, programs,
rules, customs, laws and regulations (Novak, 2008: 765).
Most notably, for our purposes, ‘regulatory state’ appeared in the subtitle of the fourth edition of the late public
administration scholar Harold Seidman's Politics, Position and Power: From the Positive to the Regulatory
State (1986). Like his predecessors, Seidman does not define the regulatory state, but there is something
new in his understanding of the concept. He sees it as not necessarily connected with the rise of public ad-

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ministration in the progressive period and the product of a social movement fighting big business, but as
closely connected to privatization. For Anderson, the regulatory state was a command and control or hierar-
chical and progressive. The state that was born – at least at the Federal level – at the end of the 19th century
as a result of political struggles by popular movements against big business. By contrast, Seidman employs
the notion of the regulatory state to make sense of Ronald Reagan's ‘revolution’ and the so-called return
to ‘limited government': regulating and providing services without necessarily producing them (Seidman and
Gilmour, 1986: 119). The context is no longer one of popular movements but one of general dissatisfaction
with the administrative state that was followed by the outsourcing of administrative functions by the Federal
government. Unlike Anderson, who equated the term with the establishment of independent regulatory agen-
cies at the Federal level, for Seidman, its ascendancy ensued after the mid 1970s. In other words, Seidman
and Anderson understand the regulatory state in different ways, depending on different periods and different
characteristics. Still, the regulatory state was not central to Seidman's work and he did not develop it further.
The turning point in the popularization of the term ‘the regulatory state’ is to be found in the work of Gian-
domenico Majone (1994, 1997), which popularized it well beyond anyone before him. He found the concept
useful, focusing on the privatization and liberalization in Europe on the one hand, and on the expansion of
EU regulatory capacities on the other. Majone suggested a transition from the positive state to the regulatory
state, arguing that rulemaking is replacing taxing and spending as the main policy instrument. ‘The regulato-
ry state’ relies on regulatory means as a substitute for public ownership, services provision and centralized
bureaucracy. It is characterized by an increase in the extent of administrative legislation, the establishment of
new independent regulatory agencies and the rising influence of judges, experts, regulators and single-issue
movements on public policymaking processes.
It is therefore hardly surprising that the term means different things to different scholars, or that it has been
applied with reference to remarkably different political systems and different eras in the history of the capitalist
democratic state. It should also be clear by now that we need to look for a definition of ‘the regulatory state’
that will help us distinguish core features from characteristics, essence from image, historical context from
core features, the national from the transnational and global, and the normative from the factual. The strat-
egy adopted here defines the term ‘regulatory state’ broadly enough to be useful beyond specific historical
contexts or institutional dimensions, but narrowly enough to distinguish it from competing conceptualizations
such as the Welfare State (Levi-Faur, 2014), the Developmental State (Levi-Faur, 2013b) or the Risk State
(Levi-Faur, 2013a). Unlike the definitions of the welfare, developmental and risk states, this definition does
not attach to the regulatory state any positive or negative goals or aims per se. Rather, the state is defined on
the basis of its instruments of control, that is, ‘the regulatory state’ is a state that applies and extends rulemak-
ing, rule-monitoring and rule-enforcement via bureaucratic organs of the state. The regulatory state claims a
legitimate monopoly over the deployment and distribution of power through rulemaking, rule-monitoring and
rule-enforcement. This is however only a claim of monopoly, which it may delegate or share at will, as op-
posed to a legitimate monopoly on the means of violence.
This definition of the regulatory state allows it to promote equality or economic growth; to advance liberal or
non-liberal values; to emphasize either efficiency or efficacy; to enslave or to empower (or both) at the same
time. It does not require it to have preferences or an inclination towards judicial or quasi-judicial mechanisms
of conflict resolution. This definition can also accommodate decentralized forms of regulatory regimes which
delegate the authority to regulate from the Federal to the local level. It does not suggest that regulatory agen-
cies are unique or sine qua non to the regulatory state, or that capture or autonomy is sine qua non to it.
The basic premise is the entrenchment of the rule of regulatory law in the internal and external workings of
the administrative state. In this way, ‘the regulatory state’ concerns itself with the administrative process of
governing capitalism. The purpose of the regulation, the procedures of rulemaking, the type of monitoring,
the agents of enforcement, the moral judgment and the day-to-day relations with the rule-takers vary from
one ‘regulatory state’ to another and from one period to another. The defining feature, however, remains the
capacity and preference for governing via regulation.

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One of the clearest definitions of the regulatory state identifies it with the expansion of regulation (Hood et al.,
1999: 3). This definition rightly identifies ‘the regulatory state’ on the basis of the instrument that it deploys,
but ‘the regulatory state’ also exists when regulation is not expanding or when policymakers have preferences
for other instruments of control. While it is probably true that regulation is expanding (thus making regulatory
states more visible and crucial to our understanding of the political economy of democratic capitalism), ex-
pansion is not sine qua non according to this definition.
Indeed, this definition goes against the widely held perception that the regulatory state represents a neoliberal
alternative to the positive state (e.g., Majone's interpretation). For example, McGowan and Wallace (1996:
563) argue that the regulatory state is ‘likely to intervene to underpin the market rather than replace markets;
it is concerned to make markets work better and thus to compensate or substitute where markets fail'. Simi-
larly, but from a critical perspective, Kanishka Jayasuriya (2001) suggests that the emerging regulatory state
is best understood in terms of the notion of negative coordination as opposed to the positive coordination of
economic management within social corporatist and developmental state structures. For him, the regulatory
state is a product of globalization, part of the negative coordination. If the regulatory state is about negative
coordination, then the developmental state and welfare state are about positive coordination. Holding to this
definition, and with reference to regulation as an instrument of control, it does not make sense to equate so-
cialist or neoliberal policies with instruments of control. Public ownership, for example, can serve any purpose
including the reassertion of markets. It is not more socialist than the regulatory duty to allow labor organiza-
tions a privileged position in collective bargaining. Similarly, private ownership in itself does not define the na-
ture of the regime. What counts in deciding whether a policy regime is neoliberal are the goals of the regime
and the social results, not necessarily the instruments. This is not to suggest that policy instruments, regula-
tion included, do not have strategic implications. The choice of instrument itself is political and the decision to
draw on regulation rather than on fiscal transfers is often strategic. Nonetheless, the strategic choice in favor
of one instrument over the other does not imply that one instrument is inherently or systematically fairer or
more just, more liberal or more efficient.
Nowadays, the usefulness of the concept of ‘the regulatory state’ extends beyond the United States and
Europe. It characterizes many other countries around the globe. In Latin America, for instance, during the
1990s, countries underwent a large-scale process of liberalization towards privatization and democratization.
Through this process, a complex structure of regulatory governance emerged, in what has been described as
the Latin American regulatory state (Jordana, 2011). A significant tradition of public regulation already exist-
ed in the region, but, during the 1990s, the new institutional design of specialized regulatory institutions was
adopted extensively (Jordana et al., 2011). However, unlike the North American tradition of regulatory com-
missions with a significant agency board, most regulatory agencies in Latin America are designed in a way
that concentrates responsibilities directly in the hands of the head of the agency.
On the other side of the globe, even China has adopted some of the regulatory state's characteristics, estab-
lishing new regulatory agencies whenever occasioned by pressing policy issues. However, it is claimed that
China is using the new regulatory structure to signal its commitment to global rules and standards without
giving free rein to independent bodies. While in Western countries the intervention of politicians in regulatory
affairs is considered a deviation from the norm, in the case of China it is a part of everyday regulatory life.
Chinese regulators are not accountable to the citizens but to the party-state apparatus, their performance is
assessed according to their contribution to the aims of the political elite, and the citizens cannot voice their
discontent with a regulatory agency through the courts, media or political entrepreneurs (Hsueh, 2011).
The historical conjuncture that brought about the rise of the regulatory state in Europe at the same time as
the stagnation or even retreat of the welfare state has led some to suggest that the regulatory state is es-
sentially neoliberal. Yet all regulation, even such that serves neoliberal purposes, extends the sphere of the
political and thus allows contestation within the political process. While not all regulation enhances the public
interest, or is even intended to, it does enhance and extend the public sphere by making the private public
and by making the implicit and the normative formal. To the extent that democratic values and forces shape

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the political, these neoliberal rules are prone to democratic contestation. In other words, while regulations do
not necessarily lead to egalitarian results or constrain ‘market forces', they open new venues for the democ-
ratic control of capitalism. The regulatory state (as well as regulatory capitalism more generally) is therefore
not necessarily a ‘neoliberal state'. Indeed, it may even adopt ‘high modernist’ and neo-mercantilist forms
of intervention (Moran, 2003). The open-ended nature of regulation and governance through rulemaking is
already reflected in the debate between opponents and proponents of private-interest and public-interest the-
ories of regulation (see the discussion below). From a private-interest perspective, regulation can legitimize
public programs that serve the few at the expense of the many; it can serve as a mask for policy actors and
institutions that, in effect, rob or marginalize the weakest members of society. As public-interest theories as-
sert, however, at the same time, regulation can serve as an effective governance tool that enhances public
welfare, corrects market failures and reduces social risks.
Three Theoretical Perspectives on Regulation

Theories of regulation deal with all aspects of the regulatory process. They ask how and why regulation and
regulatory regimes are created (or not), and what results and impacts they have. They attempt to answer
essential questions such as: who are the regulatory actors?; what motivates them?; how to maximize com-
pliance?; how to assess the benefits or costs of regulation before and after?; what ends does regulation
serve?; what is the power balance between regulatory actors and institutions?; how does regulation evolve
and change? While some of the theories are empirically oriented, others are more normative. They represent
a unique combination of the empirical and the normative. Some are prescriptive by nature and explicitly so,
while others are less so. Of course, all these theories essentially draw on the theoretical apparatus of the
social sciences and more generally the ideas and perspectives coming from the natural sciences and the hu-
manities.
Since there are more regulatory theories than we can possibility cover here, we focus on three main per-
spectives, each with its own positive and normative assumptions and predictions: public-interest theories, pri-
vate-interest theories and institutional theories. The discussion focuses on the way each theoretical perspec-
tive views the motivations of the five central actors in regulation: rule-makers, rule-intermediaries, rule-takers,
rule-beneficiaries and the citizens (for a summarizing table, see Table 69.1 below).
Public Interest, Private Interest and Institutions

Public-interest theories perceive regulation mainly as an instrument that is created, designed and applied to
achieve public goals. The administrative structure of the regulatory state is perceived as an autonomous body
with the capacity to shape its own preferences and advance the public interests. Most public-interest theories
have a positive attitude towards regulation as a problem-solving instrument. They rest on normative, historical
and empirical studies regarding market failures to suggest when and how to regulate in order to fulfill public
goals and maximize social welfare. The best-known public-interest theories are those that explain how reg-
ulation can promote economic values by correcting market failures against the power of big business. Pub-
lic-interest theories usually focus on formal regulatory authority in order to create the best regulatory design.
They will explain the continuous expansion of regulation as a positive and necessary result of the new chal-
lenges posed by our constantly changing and complex world. More regulation, preferably smart and efficient,
is considered the proper response to the public demand for order, justice, public integrity, welfare and moral
behavior.
Private-interest theories originated in the 1960s as a critical reaction to both the expansion of the state in
the postwar period and public-interest theories. A group of mainly American scholars challenged the premise
that regulators are fairly motivated by a sincere intention to advance public interests. Private-interest theories

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focus mostly on what motivates regulatory actors and how regulation is created and implied in practice to
advance their self-interests and benefit specific interest groups. Advancing a rational decision-making model,
they assert that every actor, either a politician, bureaucrat, interest group or citizen, acts as a rational player
to promote its own self-interest. They therefore view the regulatory state as an organ that is incapable of ad-
vancing public goals and suggest focusing on generating the best economic incentive for each actor to create
the best regulatory design. A dominant private-interest theory is the ‘public choice theory', a basic premise
of which is that all people – public officials as well as private actors – act to maximize their personal benefit
(Buchanan and Tullock, 1962). Therefore, it has been argued that regulation is designed and implemented to
maximize the benefit of interest groups (Stigler, 1971; Jarrell, 1978; Priest, 1993).
Public choice theory was first used to positively explain how public decisions are made. It was later used to
normatively identify the flaws in the decision-making process and to suggest possible solutions. One central
private-interest assertion that derives from public choice theory is ‘regulatory capture', which aims to explain
how special interest groups can overcome the decentralized public and ‘capture’ their regulators to design
and imply regulation in a way that promotes their economic interests (Olson, 1965; Laffont and Tirole, 1991).
Regulatory capture was originally coined to describe the final stage in the institutional lifecycle of regulatory
agencies, in which regulators lose the public's interest and political support and therefore are forced to accept
the demands of the regulated industry in order to avoid being dismissed (Bernstein, 1955). Over the years,
private-interest theories have been criticized under the claim that certain regulations truly advance the public
interest and not solely private interest. Others have criticized the focus on individuals, which leaves out insti-
tutional interests of the regulatory agency. Private-interest theories will explain the continuous expansion of
regulation as a negative development in which small but highly organized privileged interest groups manage
to capture rule-makers to create and expand regulation that benefits them. Regulation can also expand in the
form of a backlash to former regulation, as part of the constant competition between different interest groups.
Thus, interest groups will often be more successful in advancing new regulation that compensates for former
regulation than in abolishing existing regulation.
Institutional theories view institutions as key factors that explain the content, scope, development and legiti-
macy of regulation. They also focus on regulatory actors and how they act and interact – but from a broader
perspective that includes social norms and institutions. Their basic premise is that people are social actors
who act in accordance to a diverse array of incentives and pressures that are deeply influenced by the insti-
tutional structure and common social norms. They therefore view the ability of the regulatory state to advance
public interests as dependent on the institutional design of the agencies and the regulatory regime. Institu-
tional theories can be classified into three main approaches: sociological institutionalism, historical institution-
alism and rational choice institutionalism (Steinmo, 2008; Hall and Taylor, 1996).
Sociological institutionalism suggests that individuals act not just to promote their personal benefit, but also
to please the society in which they live. Hence, regulation that is perceived by the society as inappropriate
will not be legitimate and therefore will most likely not be accepted. Moreover, institutions do not only limit
individuals’ behavior but also dictate the way they interpret the environment and reframe their preferences.
Historical institutionalism suggests that historically shaped institutions create the context and shape people's
perceptions about what is possible, legitimate and desirable (Hay and Wincott, 1998). Historical institutional
arrangements have a self-reinforcing dynamic and positive feedback loops that create a path dependence of
any present or future development (Pierson, 2004). Therefore, the institutional inertia will reinforce the exist-
ing regulatory agencies and make any change and innovation difficult to achieve (Hall and Taylor, 1996; The-
len, 1999). Rational choice institutionalism suggests that regulatory institutions are established by individuals
in order to maximize their collective benefits. However, unlike the economic rational choice theory, the insti-
tutional theory views collective benefits not as solely defined by the market, but as structured by institutions
such as social norms, codes of conduct and procedures (Knight and Jack, 1992). Once a regulatory agency
is established, individuals will comply and cooperate with its rules and norms as a strategic behavior, even if
it does not maximize their self-interests in a specific situation (Koelble, 1995; Steinmo, 2008; Hall and Taylor,
1996).
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Institutional theories in general therefore focus on how to create the best institutional design and structure to
achieve public goals. They will explain the continuous expansion of regulation as an inevitable result of the
self-reinforcing dynamic of regulatory institutions to gain more power. More specifically, independent regula-
tory agencies are established and extended through diffusion, as a way to improve the credibility of the reg-
ulation, in response to the pressures of other institutions, and as a part of an emulation process (Levi-Faur,
2005).
What Motivates Regulatory Actors?

Five actors can potentially participate in the regulatory game: rule-makers, rule-intermediaries, rule-takers,
rule-beneficiaries and the citizens. Each of the three theoretical perspectives – public interest, private interest
and institutional – casts a different light on the various motivations of each actor in a way that deepens our
understanding of regulation.
Rule-Makers
Rule-makers are the actors who hold the power to set regulatory rules, such as administrative agencies, politi-
cians and public officials. Public-interest theories view all of them as actors with the motivation and capacity
to advance public interests in order to promote social good. Contrarily, private-interest theories view politi-
cians as actors who rationally act to better their chances of being re-elected (Downs, 1957); and regulators
as actors who act to improve their chances of being employed outside the government (Eckert, 1981). Politi-
cians and regulators thus tend to bypass official public goals and replace them with goals that promote their
own interest to gain capital, reputation or better jobs (Buchanan and Tullock, 1962). How does it happen?
According to regulatory capture theories, both politicians and regulators are captured by small interest groups
to promote the latter's private interests through regulation. The revolving doors theory explains that the rule-
takers capture rule-makers and ensure the regulators’ loyalty by creating the expectation of future rewarding
jobs in the industry (Makkai and Braithwaite, 1992). Regulatory capture of rule-makers can also be the result
of asymmetrical information and expertise, cultural identification with the regulated industry and the industry's
power to damage the regulators’ reputation or to manipulate perceptions and ideas (Carpenter and Moss,
2013). However, it is important to note that although regulatory capture is a common and much cited theory,
it still struggles on the empirical level to prove its central claims according to high evidentiary standards.
In contrast, institutional theories will argue that regulatory capture of rule-makers can be restrained and even
overcome under the right regulatory design. For instance, it can be reduced by exposing the interaction be-
tween rule-makers and rule-takers to public criticism through mechanisms of transparency, accountability and
public participation. More broadly, institutional theories view rule-makers as actors who not only wish to max-
imize their own self-interest, but also act to benefit their organization and comply with its social norms. Rule-
makers will therefore be strongly influenced and bound by the institutional inertia of the agency in which they
work and try to avoid making any fundamental changes (Hall and Taylor, 1996; Thelen, 1999). A different insti-
tutional approach will argue that given the self-reinforcing dynamic and positive feedback loops of regulatory
institutions, regulators will act to constantly maximize the agency's budget, influence, reputation or authori-
ty (Pierson, 2004). In a different context, institutional theories focus on the interaction between two kinds of
rule-makers: politicians and regulators. They explain why politicians relinquish power and delegate it to inde-
pendent regulatory agencies (Moe, 1987). According to ‘the delegation of powers’ theory, delegation allows
politicians to reinforce their credibility in the eyes of the voters and the regulated market by creating profes-
sional, stable and neutral agencies that will continue to implement their policy even after they are no longer
in power (Horn, 1995). Delegating power also allows them to distance themselves from the responsibility for
unpopular decisions, usually on complicated and sensitive issues (Hood, 2011). On their part, regulators will
try to maintain their reputation by rolling the blame back to the political arena in cases of catastrophe or avoid

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activities that might damage their reputation in advance (Carpenter and Moss, 2013).
Rule-Intermediaries
Rule-intermediaries are actors who have obtained a partial regulatory power that mediates between rule-mak-
ers and rule-takers. They may focus on only one aspect of the regulatory process, such as monitoring com-
pliance, or on many. They may be created or advanced by either rule-makers or rule-takers. A wide range of
actors can be identified as intermediaries – from “technical-neutral” practitioners (e.g., lawyers and accoun-
tants) to nongovernmental bodies with a clear agenda (e.g., environmental or human rights NGOs) (Abbott
et al., 2017). Public-interest theories will view rule-intermediaries as actors who act to fulfill the tasks they
were assigned. From this perspective, they are an effective mechanism for enhancing the monitoring, trust
and compliance that advance the public interest. According to private-interest theories, rule-intermediaries
are rational actors who act to maximize their own self-interest – for instance, to receive job offers by pleasing
the actor who selects them or pays for their services. Take, for instance, an accounting firm that serves as the
controller who checks whether the rule-target is following the obligatory accounting standards in its reports.
If the rule-target can choose which accounting firm to hire or even just pays for its services, then this rule-
intermediary is most likely to check compliance as laxly as possible. Institutional theories will naturally view
rule-intermediaries as social actors who take institutional cues and act in accordance with the institutional de-
sign. They will therefore act also according to their ethical norms, social values and institutional incentives.
For instance, rule-intermediaries that are for-profit companies would most likely be obliged to the profit line
and might produce different results than nonprofit organizations that are committed to wider social norms.
Professional rule-intermediaries that are influenced by specific ethical norms and peer criticism will also act
differently than intermediaries that do not belong to a specific professional group.
Rule-Takers
Rule-takers are the subjects of the rules – the actors whose behavior the rules are intended to modify. Public-
interest theories view them as passive players who act to obey the rules which the rule-makers set. On the
contrary, private-interest theories perceive rule-takers as influential active actors who act to maximize their
own self-interest through strategies of avoidance, resistance and gaming the system. While the costs of reg-
ulation that prefers the interest of a specific interest group will be distributed among the general public and
therefore affect each citizen minimally, its benefits to the interest group are considerable (Stigler, 1971; Jar-
rell, 1978; Priest, 1993). Rule-takers can therefore organize in the form of a small and united interest group to
influence rule-makers or rule-intermediaries by rewarding them for advancing regulation that benefits them,
thus creating regulatory rents (e.g., require licenses that serve as market entry barriers). The effectiveness
of rule-takers who manage to organize as interest groups can be explained as the outcome of ‘the collective
action paradox’ (Olson, 1965). While small and centralized groups can more easily motivate their members,
monitor and punish their behavior, large and decentralized groups lack these abilities and suffer from ‘free
riders'. It is important to note, however, that one interest group might come across a different interest group
with contradictory goals. In such cases, the regulatory outcome will ultimately be determined by the relative
power of each interest group and the pressure it exerts (Becker, 1983). Focusing on the diffusion versus the
concentration of the costs and benefits of regulation, can reveal which interests a given regulation will pro-
mote (Wilson, 1980). From a different angle, institutional theories view rule-takers as social actors who tend
to follow their peers and can be socialized to obey. Once a regulatory agency is established, rule-takers will
comply and cooperate with its rules and norms as a strategic behavior, even if it does not maximize their self-
interests in a specific situation (Koelble, 1995; Steinmo, 2008; Hall and Taylor, 1996).

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Rule-Beneficiaries
Rule-beneficiaries are the objects of the rules – the actors who benefit from them. Public-interest theories will
identify these actors with the formal goal of the rule – whoever the rule declares it is aiming to protect. They
may be the general public (e.g., regulation intended to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases) or a more
specific public group (e.g., securities holders or people with disabilities). From this theoretical perspective,
rule-beneficiaries are viewed as passive actors who do not need to be active since rule-makers serve as their
trustee representative. Private-interest theories naturally reject this assumption. They will argue that whoev-
er has been declared by the formal rule as its beneficiaries is only a cover for the actual interest group that
benefits from it. For instance, they may claim that regulation that on its face is designed to benefit consumers
of electrical products by imposing safety standards, is in fact, promoting the interests of powerful manufac-
turers of these products by imposing costs that block potential competitors. Rule-beneficiaries can therefore
partially overlap with rule-takers. The beneficiaries of regulation are not the public, but a hidden, small and
organized group that manages to capture the rule-makers and thus control a disproportionate share of the
benefits of regulation. According to institutional theories, the actual beneficiaries of regulation are not whoev-
er is declared by the regulation as its beneficiaries, but are determined by the regulatory institutional design.
They can therefore be the specific public that the rule was designed to protect under the right institutional de-
sign or undesired interest groups and other unintended beneficiaries in cases of a wrong regulatory design.
Citizens
The citizens are the general public. They may be voters or simply any private individual in a given society.
According to public-interest theories, citizens are autonomous and active actors with the capacity to partici-
pate in the public sphere and empower politicians to work for the greater good. Voters use their suffrage to
discipline politicians, by choosing representatives who advance public interests and voting out politicians who
promote private interests. Private-interest theories reject this premise and view citizens as disempowered and
unorganized actors who are subject to manipulation. Voters are described as rationally ignorant. In order to
make the right political choices, voters must invest a considerable amount of time and effort. Given the mini-
mal chance that a single vote will cause a political change, the rational decision is to avoid any investment in
political literacy. Since voters’ knowledge of, and interest in, the political sphere is low, public supervision of
politicians is lax, and even more so as regards bureaucrats (Downs, 1957; Campbell et al., 1960).
Unlike small interest groups, the general public does not have the ability to organize effectively to actively par-
ticipate in the democratic process and make sure that regulation advances public interests. A broader private-
interest approach might, however, recognize NGOs and other public organizations as a way to overcome the
collective action problem and promote the public interests of a specific group of citizens. More broadly, insti-
tutional theories view the general public as an important actor that can influence the regulatory process under
the right institutional design. For instance, as social actors, citizens will vote, protest and otherwise participate
in the political decision-making process even though it is not a rational decision, motivated by their commit-
ment to social norms. Even in a specific regulatory process, citizens can effectively advance their interest if
the regulatory design includes mechanisms of transparency, accountability and participation. More generally,
the general public has a significant role in granting legitimacy to regulatory agencies and regimes. Regulation
that is perceived by the society as inappropriate will not be deemed legitimate and therefore will most likely
not be accepted.
Table 69.1 Three theoretical perspectives on regulation: basic premises, actors’ motivations, capture
and regulatory expansion
Public-Interest Theo- Private-Interest Theories of Institutional and Structural Theo-
ries of Regulation Regulation ries of Regulation
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The regulatory state

with its independent There are no public inter-
agencies and its ex- ests, only private interests. The ability of the regulatory state
Basic perts, technocrats and Administrative agencies, to advance public interests de-
Premise of regulocrats is capable politicians and public offi- pends on the institutional design of
the Regulato- of shaping its own cials are self-interested ac- the agencies and of the regulatory
ry State preferences and has tors that only advance what regime. Good institutions create
the capacities to ad- maximizes their private in- good regulation.
vance the public inter- terest.
ests.
Basic
Premise Re- Create the best legally
Create the best institutional design
garding How empowered and legiti- Create the best economic
and structure of regulatory
to Create the mate regulatory au- incentives for each actor.
regimes.
Best Regula- thority.
tory Design
Law-abiding actors
Basic
who act in accordance Social actors who act not just to
Premise Re- Rational actors who act to
with what the law in- maximize their self-interest but al-
garding Peo- maximize their own self-in-
structs, not least be- so in accordance with social
ple's Motiva- terests.
cause they respond to norms and institutional structures.
tion
deterrence strategies.
Motivations of
Act to maximize their own
Act to advance public Institutional actors act to benefit
Rule-Mak- self-interest (for instance, to
interests in order to their organization's resources and
ers obtain better jobs, gain repu-
benefit all citizens. prestige in legitimate ways.
tation and influence, etc.).
Act to maximize their own
self-interest through strate- Act as social actors who follow
gies of avoidance, resis- their peers, and can be socialized
Rule-Takers Law-abiding actors.
tance, and gaming the sys- to obey by good institutional de-
tem, all in order to create sign.
regulatory rents.
Act to fulfill the tasks
they were assigned. Act to maximize their own Take institutional cues. Good insti-
Rule-Inter- An effective mecha- self-interest (e.g., respond to tutional designs can increase the
mediaries nism for increasing the pay-master; maintain utility of intermediaries in the regu-
monitoring, trust and their reputation). latory regime.
compliance.
The specific public Often not those who are de-
which the regulatory clared by the regulation as Not those who are declared by the
regime is designed to its beneficiaries, but a hid- regulation as its beneficiaries, but
Rule-Bene-
directly benefit: either den, small organized group the actual beneficiaries which are
ficiaries
the general public or a that manages to control reg- determined by the institutional de-
more specific group of ulatory rents and capture the sign.
citizens (e.g., securi- regulator.
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ties holders) benefiting

whom advances the
general good of soci-
ety.
Act as autonomous
and active actors with
the capacity to partici- Act most effectively in institutional
pate in the public Disempowered actors who designs that include mechanisms
Citizens
sphere and to empow- are subject to manipulation. of transparency, accountability and
er the politicians to participation.
work for the greater
good.
Regulatory capture is the outcome
Regulatory capture is
of intentional or unintentional
rare. Rule-takers have
weaknesses of regulatory designs.
the right to try to ad- Regulatory capture is preva-
Good institutions are immune to
vance their self-inter- lent. ‘Regulation is acquired
capture and other forms of one-
Regulatory est as part of the de- by the industry and is de-
sided interests (for instance, a reg-
Capture mocratic commitment signed and operated primar-
ulatory process that allows public
to freedom, but their ily for its benefit’ (Stigler,
participation by civil society and
influence is restrained 1971: p. 3).
active individuals or exposes it to
by capable and public-
public criticism by an autonomous
oriented rule-makers.
and strong academia and media).
Regulation expands Regulation expands when a
since our constantly small but highly organized Independent regulatory agencies
changing and complex and privileged interest group are established and empowered
world demands more manages to capture rule- through diffusion. Regulation gen-
regulation for the sake makers to create and ex- erally expands as a result of the
Continuous
of order, justice, public pand regulation that benefits self-reinforcing dynamic of regula-
Expansion of
integrity, welfare and them. It can also expand in tory institutions (which motivates
Regulation
moral behavior. The the form of a backlash to for- actors to increase not just budget/
emphasis should be on mer regulation as a part of manpower but also the regulatory
better regulation, not the constant competition be- power of the agency through more
necessarily on less tween different interest regulation).
regulation. groups.
Source: Author.
Central Challenges and Regulatory Techniques

To conclude, we present three key challenges to regulatory regimes and outline central strategies and tech-
niques that have been developed over the years to address them. The first challenge concerns the effec-
tiveness of regulatory regimes. The degree of effectiveness is, of course, a controversial issue. For some,
regulation fails – all too frequently – to achieve its goals, often due to their rigid, static, coercive and formal
nature. For others, even if regulatory regimes are effective, the costs are often higher than the benefits. So
far, the academic discussion has not produced a conclusive measurement or assessment at the regime or
national level but has focused on different techniques of impact analysis (e.g., benefits vs. costs) to assess a
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single rule.
The second challenge to regulatory regimes is democratic control. Most regulatory regimes suffer from an
inherited democratic deficit (Majone, 1999) since regulators are not elected and are therefore accountable to
the people only indirectly (Kerwin, 1994: 161). This deficit is deepened in the new era of expanding ‘transna-
tional regulatory regimes’ (Braithwaite and Drahos, 2000: 3–4) and ‘private regulatory regimes’ (Haufler, 2013;
Hall and Biersteker, 2002), which weaken democratic legitimacy and may alter the balance of power between
states and transnational organizations and corporations. Moreover, regulatory regimes can undermine the
fundamental legal principle that people should be subject to fixed, known and certain rules. Given the sheer
number of rules that are frequently changing in diverse regulatory regimes, most individuals are incapable to
act without legal advice (Kosti and Levi-Faur, 2019). Therefore, a large volume of regulations represents a
challenge for democratic, judicial, parliamentary and administrative systems of control (Hewart, 1929; Dotan,
1996; Majone, 1994, 1997).
The third challenge to regulatory regimes, which is often neglected in the literature, concerns the value of
justice. This is a more fundamental concern regarding their rightness and fairness. At the procedural level, a
regulatory regime can undermine the value of fairness if it imposes rules in a rigid ‘top-down’ process. Such
processes often do not enable rule-takers to share their position and ignore their special circumstances (e.g.,
compliance, history, size). On the other hand, a collaborative and flexible regulatory process that does not
address all rule-takers uniformly might also be considered to undermine procedural fairness and equality. At
a more fundamental level, regulatory regimes should also be evaluated according to their wider implications,
which may often be immoral or unjust (e.g., their distributive effects). Thus, a regulatory regime may benefit
powerful groups over weaker ones at the national level (e.g., strong interest groups over the general public)
or the global level (e.g., developed countries over developing countries).
Over the years, diverse regulatory strategies and techniques have been suggested to improve the effective-
ness of regulatory regimes (Gunningham et al., 1998; Croley, 2008). Some of them also have the potential
to advance the values of justice and democratic accountability. The first and most controversial strategy is a
return to ‘deregulation’ accompanied by an attempt to ossify rulemaking. This might result in a race to the bot-
tom or degradation of economic and environmental performances, unmitigated risk and immoral economies
and societies. The second is to turn to ‘lite’ and management-based regulation and to harness economic
incentives as much as possible towards politically determined public goods (Coglianese and Lazer, 2003).
The third is to promote responsive regulation, in which the regulator adopts a ‘tit-for-tat’ approach by grad-
ually escalating up the enforcement pyramid, from persuasion and education to administrative and criminal
sanctions, in response to prolonged noncompliance by the rule-taker (Ayres and Braithwaite, 1992). A later
version suggests risk-based regulation, in which the regulator uses inspection and enforcement resources
based on the assessment of risks posed by a rule-taker (Hood et al., 2001). The fourth is the integration of
private bodies in regulatory roles as a substitute or complementary method for inefficient government con-
trol. ‘Smart regulation’ emphasizes the use of non-state controls in regulatory regimes (Gunningham et al.,
1998), whereas other approaches advance voluntary, negotiated and cooperative forms of regulation (Vogel,
2005, 2010). The fifth is to improve the regulatory arsenal (e.g., employing auctions and using benchmarking)
as well as the quality and training of the regulators (Sparrow, 2000) and the quality of the regulatory design
(Maggetti, 2007). The sixth is to institutionalize regulatory impact analysis and cost–benefit techniques that
integrate mandatory public participation mechanisms (Sunstein, 2002). Such control measures are becoming
increasingly popular, and some countries have even established regulatory agencies to regulate regulation
itself (e.g., the Dutch ‘Advisory Board on Administrative Burdens', the British ‘Better Regulation Executive’
and the ‘Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs’ in the United States). The seventh and last is the use
of behavioral economic insights, through the integration of positive reinforcement and indirect suggestions in
a regulatory design, thus nudging groups and individuals towards better behavior without directly infringing
their liberties (Thaler and Sunstein, 2008).

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Notes
1 Parts of this paper are a revised and updated version of a series of papers on the topic.
2 Selznick's well-known definition, for instance, defines regulation as ‘sustained and focused control exer-
cised by a public agency over activities that are valued by community’ (Selznick, 1985: 353).
3 Scott's definition captures regulation broadly, defining it as ‘any process or set of processes by which norms
are established, the behavior of those subjects to the norms monitored or fed back into the regime, and for
which there are mechanisms for holding the behavior of regulated actors within the acceptable limits of the
regime’ (Scott, 2001). According to Baldwin et al. (1998: 4), regulation extends ‘to mechanisms which are
not the products of state activity, nor part of any institutional arrangement, such as the development of social
norms and the effects of markets in modifying behavior'.
4 For more on the project see, https://www.globalreg.info/.
5 It had probably originated in an earlier dissertation with the same main title (1960). The notion was used
occasionally in the literature even before that but not as centrally as in the title of Anderson's work.
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Handbook on the Politics of Regulation, pp. 499–512. Edward Elgar: Cheltenham.
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ings Institution: Washington, DC.
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ness and Society, 49(1), 68–87.
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• regulations
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Welfare State
Contributors: Maurizio Ferrera

Chapter Title: "Welfare State"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Welfare State
Maurizio Ferrera
History of the Subject

The welfare state is one of the greatest political and institutional achievements of the 20th century. A true Eu-
ropean invention – dating back to Wilhelmine Germany – its essence lies in the formal commitment of public
authorities to take care of the needs of their citizens in the event of a pre-established catalogue of social risks,
most notably old age, disability, work injuries, unemployment, sickness and maternity. Welfare programmes
have come to represent a key defining feature of Europe's market democracies and have inspired similar
developments throughout the world. The increasing salience of the welfare state has also prompted a heat-
ed debate on the expansion of this institution, its cross-national variations, their causes and consequences.
Comparative welfare research has thus become one of the liveliest fields of study in several disciplines.
The full bloom of welfare institutions took place during the first three decades after the Second World War. In
most European countries, between 1950 and the early 1970s, social expenditure increased from below 10%
of the GDP to more than 20% (Flora, 1986/1987). The vast majority, if not the totality, of the population had
come to be included in social protection schemes for all the standard risks. At least in terms of eligibility, Eu-
ropean welfare states had ‘grown to limits’ (Flora, 1986/1987): they had reached or were about to reach their
widest possible domestic boundaries, coinciding with the whole citizenry.
The 1970s marked the apex of the growth parabola of the welfare state as a real-world institution. This decade
also witnessed the take-off of another parabola: that of systematic comparative analyses of the welfare state
as an object of study. The initial focus was on the dynamics of quantitative and qualitative expansion. In many
respects, the appearance of Esping-Andersen's Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism marked the apex of the
academic discussion on the Trentes Glorieuses (Esping-Andersen, 1990). This landmark book gave original
contributions on several fronts: concepts, theory and empirical indicators (Emmenegger et al., 2015). In the
mid 1970s, the developmental trajectory of the welfare state as a thing started to invert its direction. The
economic and financial crisis of the 1970s suddenly altered the nature of the international economic order.
Keynsianism gave way to monetarism and neo-liberalism, triggering off a gradual ‘de-conciliation’ between
the logic of closure – underpinning domestic solidarity arrangements – and the logic of opening embraced by
economic policies.
Between the 1970s and the 1980s, it became clear the European welfare states had started to be afflicted by
a number of endogenous, increasingly troublesome challenges and dynamics (such as demographic ageing
or the post-industrial transition). Starting from the 1980, the ‘crisis’ debate became a growth industry – and is
still ongoing. We cannot offer here a systematic reconstruction of the expansion and crisis debates (for good
reviews see Castles et al., 2010). They will serve however as general backgrounds for the discussions that
will be presented in the next sections.
Basic Concepts
Welfare, Markets, Families and State Policies

In economics, the term ‘welfare’ indicates the satisfaction of the utility function (i.e. a set of hierarchically or-
dered preferences) of a single individual and/or the maximization of the utility functions of all the individuals
that make up a given community, whatever their specific content. In sociology and political science, the con-
notation of the term has remained closer to its etymology, i.e. the condition of ‘faring’ or doing well. In this

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broader sense, the norms of welfare attach pre-eminently to the life chances of individuals, to the resources
and opportunities on which they can count in the various phases of the life cycle. Welfare policies can thus
be defined as courses of action aimed at setting the norms, standards and rules relative to the distribution of
those resources and opportunities which are considered particularly relevant for people's living conditions and
therefore worthy of being somehow ‘guaranteed’ by the authority of the state. In contemporary democracies,
these norms, standards and rules are incorporated into the notion of social citizenship (Marshall, 1950). Wel-
fare policies are also aimed at concretely organizing the production and distribution of these resources and
opportunities, for example, through public insurance schemes or health services. Public schemes and state
officials are not the only actors in the sphere of welfare: they interact with families, kin and social networks,
intermediary associations and market actors. The quadrangle constituted by the state, the family sphere, the
labour market and intermediary associations is sometimes called the ‘welfare diamond'. The system of formal
and informal relations between the four corners of the diamond is in turn called ‘welfare regime’ or ‘welfare
mix'. The state does play a predominant and superordinate role within the diamond: on the one hand, it is in
fact the container of all the processes that affect individual welfare; on the other, the state is the sovereign
regulator of these processes, its presence provides the ultimate ‘anchor’ that makes life chances more sta-
ble, predictable and secure. The outer borders of the diamond also represent the territorial boundaries of the
welfare system of a given country and therefore play a filtering role vis-à-vis non-citizens.
The Welfare State

In contemporary democracies, welfare policies constitute a relatively integrated system and are perceived as
such by citizens. This integrated set of policies makes up the welfare state, which can thus be formally defined
as ‘a set of public policies through which the state secures to its citizens protection against a pre-established
catalogue of risks and needs introducing, among other things, specific social rights as well as specific duties
of financial contribution'. The ‘rights’ element is key. The introduction of social rights was a far-reaching in-
novation in the evolution of the modern state. In fact, it represented not just a functional extension (the state
took on new tasks), but a transformation of nature and the logic of the state and its functioning. The growth
of the welfare state can be understood as the gradual emergence of a new system of power composed of
‘distributing elites', ‘service bureaucracies’ and ‘social clienteles', guided by new logics and dynamic of polit-
ical legitimation. The objectives of external security, civil and political freedom and the rule of law are largely
replaced by a new raison d'être: the guaranteed provision of social services and cash transfers according
to standardized criteria and routinized procedures, not limited to emergency assistance (Flora and Heiden-
heimer, 1981: 34–35).
Modes of Welfare Provision

The historical-comparative literature has identified that, since the 1950s, there has been three typical modes
of public intervention for social protection purposes: ‘assistance', ‘insurance’ and ‘social security'. Assistance
(public or social) includes all those programmes that are means-tested and often discretionary, aimed at re-
sponding in a targeted way to specific individual needs or to circumscribed categories of people in need. It is
with this type of intervention that the modern state made its appearance. Today, social assistance still com-
prises a significant range of programmes and has given rise to a new form of ‘individualized’ rights, i.e. formal
entitlements to benefits and services tailored to the particular needs of persons and households (Rosanval-
lon, 2000).
Social insurance connotes a type of public intervention which is based on the provision of semi-standardized
services in a generally automatic and non-discretionary manner, centred on specific individual rights/duties

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(such as the payment of contributions) and according to highly specialized and centralized institutions. Social
insurance is the central core of the modern welfare state. The presence of at least one compulsory insurance
scheme within a given country is almost always a sufficient indicator to define that country as a welfare state
(Flora and Alber, 1981). Social insurance was a large-scale application of insurance techniques developed
by the private market in the first half of the 19th century. However, the new schemes had two main features
of great originality: compulsory (rather than voluntary) membership and financing through social contributions
rather than premiums. Thanks to these two features, social insurance was able to cover particularly ‘difficult’
risks, such as unemployment, and to redistribute not only in a ‘horizontal’ direction (between non-damaged
and damaged, as in the case of private insurance) but also in the ‘vertical’ direction (from higher to lower in-
comes).
The term social security officially appeared in the United States, designated to the first compulsory insurance
schemes against old age, disability and survivors introduced with the Social Security Act of 1935 and, even
today, it is used in reference to these insurance schemes. In Europe, in the wake of the Beveridge Report of
1942 and the ensuing reforms in the UK, the term indicates a new system of universal protection extended
to all the active population in terms of income protection and to all citizens regarding health care, aimed at
providing uniform services corresponding to a ‘national minimum’ considered essential for living a dignified
life, and therefore disconnected (at least to a large extent) from any contributions paid. The universal model
of social security came to full bloom in the Nordic countries (Erikson et al., 1987), pervading virtually all social
protection domains.
Institutional Differentiation: Types and Typologies
The Great Historical Bifurcation

Closely observed, each national welfare state presents a unique combination of features and therefore makes
a case for itself. However, by observing the process of institutional differentiation over time, it is possible to
identify number of ‘models’ or ‘types’ of welfare state. A great evolutionary bifurcation took place in the first
half of the 20th century between universalist or Beveridgean models, on the one hand, and employment-
based or Bismarckian models, on the other. In the former (adopted by the Anglo-Scandinavian countries),
social protection schemes cover all (active) citizens, regardless of their job position; in the latter (adopted
by the great majority of European-continental countries), social protection schemes are aimed at workers,
who are covered by a plurality of different schemes. The universalistic models created a single great basin of
solidarity and redistribution, corresponding to the entire political community. On the other hand, employment-
based models reproduced the traditional demarcations between productive sectors (for example, industry and
agriculture, employment and self-employment), and occupational hierarchies (for example, blue-collars and
employees), fragmenting the political community into many different redistributive collectivities. The choice of
who to include has historically been preliminary and much more controversial than the decision on how much
and how to protect. In fact, it urged the various social groups to define their own interests and position vis-
à-vis the others as well as the state as such, in the face of the new redistributive scenarios, evaluating the
economic and political implications of the possible solutions. This initial choice inaugurated a path of develop-
ment, orienting subsequent developments in well-defined directions, with long-term political and institutional
consequences (Lynch, 2006).
The Three Regimes

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During the expansion phase (1945–1975), the European welfare state passed through a second important
evolutionary juncture in which the how much and how dimension became increasingly significant. A new ty-
pological differentiation between European welfare states emerged and consolidated – a differentiation that
gave rise to a complex and fruitful debate among scholars. The author who most influenced this debate is
Esping-Andersen (1990). According to this scholar, during the long expansive period of Keynesian capitalism,
three different welfare regimes consolidated themselves: the liberal (emblematic case: the UK), the conser-
vative-corporatist (Germany or France) and the social-democratic one (Sweden). With the expression ‘wel-
fare regime', Esping-Andersen refers to the whole system of interrelations between states, labour markets
and households. To what extent have social policies (and in particular monetary transfers) offered workers
resources and opportunities to counter their dependence on the labour market and to supplement family pro-
visions? And to what extent have these policies succeeded in creating a ‘community of equals’ in the face of
social risks and needs, eliminating income and class differences? Analytically, such questions identify two dif-
ferent dimensions of variation: de-commodification, i.e. the degree to which individuals located within a given
welfare system can freely abstain from work, without risking their jobs, significant losses in terms of income or
general well-being; de-stratification, i.e. the degree to which welfare benefits cushion the differentials of em-
ployment status or social class. The three regimes differ significantly along these two dimensions, giving rise
to different ‘worlds of welfare capitalism’ characterized by their different effectiveness in modifying the distri-
bution of life chances produced by the sphere of the market and that of the family. Effectiveness is highest in
the social-democratic regime, average in the conservative-corporative and minimal in the liberal one. Regime
differentiation is essentially due to socio-political dynamics such as the strength of the labour movement and
left parties in the social-democratic regime (prevailing in the Nordic area); the weight of corporate traditions,
the hegemony of moderate or conservative parties and the social doctrine of the Church in the conserva-
tive-corporatist regime (prevailing in Continental Europe); the hegemony of the capitalist bourgeoisie and of
market liberalism in the liberal regime (prevailing in the English-speaking countries). While the three regimes
originated in Western Europe, the basic features of the conservative-corporatist regime can also be found in
Japan (see also infra). In turn, the liberal regime is clearly recognizable in the other advanced English-speak-
ing democracies of North America and the Antipodes.
Gender and Welfare

As highlighted by the rich debate on gender and welfare (Daly, 2000; Orloff, 2010), during the expansion
phase, welfare regimes took different trajectories also in terms of gender relations, women's rights and sup-
port for women's employment and care activities. These paths were not necessarily homogeneous within the
three regimes identified by Esping-Andersen. For example, within the conservative-corporatist regime, France
adopted a distinctive model of relationships between paid work and unpaid work (and more generally of family
and gender relations). Lewis and Ostner (1994) defined this model as a moderate breadwinner model, to dis-
tinguish it from the strong breadwinner model prevailing in the other conservative-corporatist countries. In the
Nordic countries, a third model started to consolidate itself, called the dual-earner model, based on the double
participation of men and women and on a gradual involvement of the former even in unpaid work (Crompton,
1999).
The South European Model

The tripartition of Esping-Andersen was elaborated starting from a large sample of countries in the OECD
area, including the United States (an emblematic case of the liberal regime) and Japan (placed by Esping-An-
dersen in the conservative-corporate world). The only country in Southern Europe included in the sample was
Italy, characterized as a conservative-corporatist case. The analysis of the other Southern European coun-

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tries (Spain, Portugal and Greece) made it possible to identify a ‘family’ or a separate regime, with distinctive
features: unbalanced levels of de-commodification (very high for some categories, very little or entirely absent
for others, due to the belated and patchy development of a basic safety net); a specific pattern of re-strati-
fication, partially transversal to the class structure, opposing insiders – i.e. holders of strong entitlements –
against outsiders and holders of weaker or no entitlements. Two other elements justify the placement of the
four Southern European countries in a separate cluster. At the end of the long expansive cycle, all four coun-
tries established national health services with a universal vocation. These were important innovations, ‘out of
line’ with respect to the Bismarckian path, and quite significant in terms of both of de-commodification and de-
stratification. The second feature – especially notable in Italy and Greece – is the high degree of particularism
that has historically characterized the functioning of the welfare state, both on the supply side (such as clien-
telistic manipulations and frauds) and on the financing side (large-scale contributory evasion tolerated by the
administration, healed from time to time through ‘tax amnesties’ and so on). In Southern Europe, it is not just
‘welfare’ that has historically assumed a sui generis configuration, but it is also the ‘state': a state apparatus
rather distant from the ‘Weberian’ ideal-type, largely infiltrated and easily manipulated by organized interests
and in particular by political parties (Ferrera, 1996, 2010).
The Post-Socialist Welfare States

The former socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe joined the EU between 2004 and 2013. Before
accession, these countries had to face the very difficult task of creating and consolidating a market econo-
my and a mature democratic system, seeking the support of international institutions and, in particular, the
International Monetary Fund (IMF). The transition was accompanied by enormous social and employment up-
heavals which caused a marked increase in poverty and inequality. The old schemes created by the Commu-
nist regimes were replaced by new systems of protection based on three pillars: a basic means-tested safety
net; contributory social insurance; private insurance and services (Cerami and Vanhuysse, 2009). A mix, in
short, of the employment-based approach and the liberal, residualist and market-friendly approach. Born with
a programmatically hybrid blueprint, CEEC welfare states are, today, facing the challenge of how to balance
popular aspirations of ‘European’ standards of provision without compromising the competitive advantage
represented by market economies based on low taxation and labour costs. Outside the EU perimeter, Rus-
sia and the other countries of the former Soviet Union had to face extremely turbulent transitions. After the
breakup of the USSR, Russia's statist (ineffective and largely corrupt) welfare system underwent substantial
liberalization under the spur of the World Bank, which mainly resulted in ‘spontaneous privatization', informal-
ization and racketeering. Starting in the mid 2000s, the trend has been reversed, resuming a statist approach
which has prioritized health care, housing and education, as well as a markedly pro-natalist agenda (Cook,
2007).
Crises and Hybridization

The long sequence of crises which followed the Trentes Glorieuses can be considered a new critical juncture.
The three worlds are still recognizable but they have all taken up new features. Largely thanks to European
integration, a process of reciprocal ‘hybridization’ has begun to take place. Thus, for example, in the Nordic
area, the traditional fixed-sum formulas have been replaced (or heavily supplemented by) contribution-related
formulas and their proverbial universal services have moved towards ‘differentiated universalism’ (Anttonen,
2012). The Continental countries have weakened their ‘corporative’ imprint and introduced new polities to pro-
mote employment and work–life balance (Palier, 2010). In the Southern European countries, new schemes
of minimum guaranteed income against poverty have been introduced. The more recent comparative debate
has also begun to discuss regional and local welfare systems (sometimes displaying distinctive features which

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are at odds with the respective national ‘model') and to revive attention towards the fourth corner of the dia-
mond, i.e. intermediary associations and the increasing role of the ‘third sector’ (Kallman and Clark, 2016).
The Advent of Permanent Austerity

The shift to permanent austerity – a context of persistent fiscal constraints on public budgets – has been the
result of exogenous pressures (essentially: globalization and European integration) and endogenous ones,
i.e. changes in domestic economies and social structures. Let us briefly review the nature and impact of these
pressures.
Globalization
Globalization is generally understood as the international integration of markets as well as the international-
ization of production (Genschel, 2004). Both dynamics have undergone a rather dramatic acceleration since
the 1990s, in the wake of technological advances and policy liberalization. Globalization affected the welfare
state by restricting the margins of manoeuvre for designing, managing and funding social protection systems.
The globalization of finance has seriously weakened governments’ control over national tax bases. The costs
of deficit spending (a tenet of Keynesian demand management) have significantly increased due to the in-
ternational rise of interest rates and the high-risk premiums that need to be paid in case of lax spending.
Economic opening has made firms in the exposed sectors more sensitive to the costs associated with social
regulations. The new ‘exit options’ for investors and firms through production outsourcing and offshoring have
made it much more difficult for the state to steer the economy and the labour market and to reconcile the twin
goals of economic competitiveness and social consensus.
European Integration
When it was launched in the 1950s, the project of European integration did not intend to challenge the institu-
tional foundations of the nation-based welfare state. Quite the contrary, the Founding Fathers conceived Eu-
ropean integration as a project capable of creating and sustaining a virtuous circle between open economies
and outward-looking economic policies on the one hand and closed welfare states and inward-looking social
policy on the other (Ferrera, 2005). This compromise did not survive the deep economic and financial crisis
which burst out in the mid 1970s. The Single European Act of 1986 unleashed a dynamic of ‘market mak-
ing’ which gradually erased cross-system boundaries turning European markets into a single, unified space
of transactions. Free movement provisions and competition law hold a ‘supreme’ status in the EC legal order.
By setting fixed macroeconomic requirements and deadlines for admission, the establishment of EMU has
imposed further constraints on the autonomy of national governments in the welfare state sphere.
The Post-Industrial Transition

The expansion of welfare programmes had taken place in the context of ‘industrialism'. Starting in the 1970s,
a rapid transition towards a new ‘post-industrial’ order has taken off. In a service economy it is much harder
to increase productivity – a problem that has huge consequences for the labour market. Rising productivi-
ty in the age of industrial expansion had made it possible to combine wage increases with lower prices: the
resulting rise in demand could be translated into new jobs. In the service economy, such a virtuous circle is
impossible, employment creation in private services is highly sensitive to wage levels and dynamics (Esping-
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Andersen, 1999). The shift from an industrial to a post-industrial economy has prompted serious upheavals
in European occupational structures. ‘Fordist’ employment (i.e. stable and guaranteed jobs with permanent
contracts) has been witnessing a steady decline, not fully compensated by the rise of non-standard ‘a-typi-
cal’ forms of employment (such as temporary or part-time jobs). Unemployment has registered an alarming
surge in Europe, especially in certain regions and among some categories (for example, young people). Low
wages and poor-quality jobs have increased the numbers of the ‘working poor', a group that is systematically
exposed to the risk of labour market and social exclusion. Some authors speak of a new ‘age of dualization’
in labour markets and social structures (Emmenegger et al., 2012). The digital revolution has, in turn, started
to create increasing upheavals in social and employment relations, opening up ambiguous scenarios.
Demography, Families, Gender

Due to lower birth rates and higher life expectancy, the proportion of elderly people in European, and more
generally OECD, societies has been constantly increasing in the last few decades, putting pension and
health care systems under increasingly severe financial stress. The post-industrial age is characterized by
a greater plurality of household forms: dual-earner families, single-parent households, de facto unions and
so on (Lewis, 2007). In parallel with the increase of separations and divorces, these changes point towards
a general precarization of social relations in European societies. Another important trend has been the in-
creased participation of women in the labour market – a phenomenon which is closely connected to the rise
of the service sector (Esping-Andersen, 1999; Daly, 2000). In some European countries, the gender gap in
participation rates has virtually disappeared and women's income now accounts for almost 50% of all house-
hold income. These transformations have generated a host of new social risks and needs: from new forms of
poverty and social exclusion to personal dependency and from skills obsolescence (and thus ‘un-employabil-
ity') to situations of work–life ‘imbalances’ (Armingeon and Bonoli, 2006). Especially in the ‘Bismarckian’ sys-
tems of Continental and Southern Europe, these new risks have tended, however, to remain under-protected,
if not totally neglected, due to the ‘crowding out’ effect of established programmes and their expansionary
inertia even under conditions of budgetary austerity.
Welfare State Transformations

Institutional adaptation has been a complex incremental process which has proceeded with different speeds
and successes across the various countries and which has involved different policy areas: from macro-eco-
nomic management and industrial relations to tax policy and labour market regulation (Hemerijck, 2013).
When limiting ourselves to the core elements of social protection, at least four key general trends of reform
can be identified.
Structural Reforms
The first – and most significant – of these trends is constituted by structural adjustments in response to socio-
economic developments. In the field of pensions, since the 1990s, a substantial wave of reforms has unfolded
and in, some cases (for example, Sweden or Italy), has promoted ‘paradigmatic’ changes (Immergut et al.,
2009). In the field of health care, reforms have been introduced with an aim to enhance efficacy and efficien-
cy in the allocation of resources and in the provision of services through better incentives at both the macro
and the micro levels (Pavolini and Guillén, 2013). Social services and family policies have also witnessed
some innovation in both substantive and organizational terms, with the aim to respond to the rising needs of
the elderly population, the changing gender division of labour and new forms of poverty and exclusion (Leon,
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2014). In terms of financing, most countries have reviewed the incentives of their tax/benefit systems in order
to make them more ‘employment-friendly'.
Activation and Social InvestmentA second general trend has been a move to an active approach. The ‘job
first’ principle has gradually made its way throughout European (un)employment protection systems (Clasen
and Clegg, 2006), making access to benefits more restrictive and conditional. Activation strategies have pro-
ceeded hand in hand with wider exercises of labour market re-configuration, under the banner of ‘flexicurity’
(Bonoli, 2013). Reforms in this field have received explicit spurs by the EU and in particular by the Lisbon
and Europe 2020 strategies. Since the late 2000s, the reform agenda has also witnessed a ‘social investment
turn', politically sponsored and promoted by the European Commission. The social investment paradigm in-
terprets the crisis of the welfare state in terms of excessive emphasis on ‘repairing’ the damages of social
risks rather than ‘preparing’ people to face up to those risks in the first place, with the support of capacitating
services (especially quality child care, education, training and long-life learning, job search assistance and so
on) (Hemerijck, 2017).
Recalibration
The early crisis debate tended to take a rather biased and restrictive view, interpreting change primarily in
negative terms, i.e. as steps backwards from the golden age. Traditional benefits were indeed reduced or
even eliminated in certain sectors and in certain countries. However, a lot of other things have been taking
place – often in those very sectors and countries. To capture both sides of these transformations, Ferrera et al.
(2000) suggested the notion of recalibration. The metaphor connotes institutional reconfigurations along four
dimensions: (1) functional recalibration, which has to do with the social risks around which welfare provision
has developed over time – it involves acts of re-balancing both within and across the established functions of
social protection (for example, ‘less pensions and more social services and family benefits'); (2) distributive
recalibration, which has to do with social groups, referring to policy measures aimed at rebalancing social
protection in favour of the most vulnerable, and at ironing out inequitable disparities between insiders and
outsiders; (3) discursive recalibration, which has to do with norms, arguments and justifications and denotes
symbolic initiatives addressing the social justice dilemmas of the status quo and the future directions of policy;
and (4) politico-institutional recalibration, which has to do with the levels and actors that are be involved in the
governance of social protection, including supranational, trans-national and sub-national levels and actors.
The Financial Crisis and the Great Recession

Since 2008, the OECD economies have been hit by an unprecedented financial crisis which then provoked
a severe recession. The latter was particularly long and pronounced in the EU, where it had dramatic social
consequences. The crisis weakened the ability of welfare systems to perform their function of economic and
social stabilization, particularly in countries with major budgetary problems. Under pressure from financial
markets, these countries had to increase taxes and/or reduce social spending very quickly, contributing to the
general compression of consumption. Although belatedly, the EU reacted by establishing supranational emer-
gency lending schemes, such as the European Stability Mechanism, but governments’ access to these loans
was strictly conditional on the rapid restoration of balances of budget and containment of sovereign debt. The
fall in real incomes and the rise of poverty were an unwelcome consequence of such austerity policies and
unsettled established political patterns, especially in the Southern periphery (Morlino and Raniolo, 2017). Al-
though slowly, since 2014, the recession has been easing, but the scars in the economic and social fabric
are destined to survive for a long time to come (Taylor-Gooby et al., 2017). Given the vastness and depth of
the challenges which the welfare system must confront today, it could be considered whether there is a sec-

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ond Great Transformation in place. The term was coined by Karl Polanyi (1957) in reference to the industrial
revolution of the 19th century. The dynamics described in the previous section can be considered as the ‘first
movement’ – what Polanyi called disruption – of a second Great Transformation. But this time around, the
‘second movement’ – which in the early 20th century led to the construction of the welfare state – does not
seem to have taken off. According to some scholars, ‘precariousness’ could today play the role of the driving
force for change (Standing, 2011). The politics which prevails at the end of the 2010s is, however, difficult
to decipher, and includes mobilization directed towards a resurrection of the past, often of a xenophobic or
neo-nationalist nature.
Welfare States and Politics: Theoretical Debates

‘Politics’ has always played a dominant role in explanatory arguments about the ‘welfare state'. The causal
link between the two has been theorized in a variety of ways, in the context of grand perspectives on social
and political development as well as of more modest middle-range propositions on specific aspects or mo-
ments of change. At the risk of over-simplifying, we can identify four general and interrelated approaches.
Old Politics Approaches

Initially seen as a sort of functional by-product of ‘industrial modernization’ or ‘late capitalism', the welfare
state has later come to be seen as the outcome of complex and largely contingent power struggles, with the
participation of a plurality of actors moving within thick institutional configurations. ‘Polanyian', society-centred
perspectives, emphasizing the role of classes and social conflict à la Esping-Andersen, have been supple-
mented by ‘Rokkanian’ state-centred perspectives (Flora and Alber, 1981), highlighting the role of political
structures/actors and institutional dynamics – a shift which can also be interpreted as a sign of the increasing
contribution of political science relative to sociology. The expansion debate was largely dominated by the so-
called power-resources theory (Esping-Andersen, 1990; Korpi, 1983). Distributional conflicts and outcomes
– thus goes the theory – critically depend on the control of power resources. In capitalist democracies, the
latter derive basically from two elements: the control over the means of production and the organization of the
working class into collective action, through unions and political parties (typically social democratic parties).
If the latter acquire strength in the wake of high levels of workers’ mobilization, then distributional outcomes
will be shaped in the interest of wage-earners, leading to the formation of generous and universalistic welfare
state programmes financed by progressive taxation (Korpi, 1983). Empirically grounded in the Swedish expe-
rience, power-resource theory (also known as ‘social democratic/left-party', ‘politico-organizational’ or ‘class
mobilization’ theory) has been the object of extensive theoretical refinements over the years and of equally
extensive quantitative and qualitative testing, becoming a sort of standard model for interpreting observable
welfare state variations, both cross-sectionally and cross-time. An important complement to such a theory
has been the view according to which in certain countries Christian-democratic parties have played the role
of ‘functional equivalents’ of Social-democratic ones (Manow and van Kersbergen, 2009). While acknowledg-
ing the importance of class structures and power resources in shaping the substantive profile of public pro-
grammes (especially in terms of de-stratification), the Rokkanian school, led by Peter Flora, has attracted at-
tention to another significant dimension of welfare state development: the degree of stateness, i.e. the capaci-
ty of subjecting the non-public sphere of welfare to politico-bureaucratic control. In this perspective, the power
struggles around social protection cannot be reduced to the class cleavage alone, but also to the presence of
other cultural-linguistic and religious cleavages (such as in Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland) (Flora,
1986/1987).

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New Politics Approaches

The shift to permanent austerity has promoted the elaboration of theories about ‘the new politics of welfare’
(Pierson, 2000). Retrenchment (and more generally recalibration) is qualitatively different to expansion: it im-
plies ‘taking away’ rather than ‘giving', subtractions rather than distributions. While the distributive politics of
expansion was essentially about credit claiming, the subtractive politics of retrenchment is essentially about
blame avoidance. Moreover, retrenchment takes place in an institutional context shaped by the social pro-
grammes which are already in place, in the wake of previous expansions. Large segments of voters benefit
directly from such programmes – a fact that has prompted the formation of several interest organizations.
Based as they are on codified entitlements, state commitments in the core schemes (pensions, health care)
are inherently hard to transform. Changing the distributional status quo without suffering heavy electoral pun-
ishment is not impossible: but it requires shrewd and sophisticated political strategies (Jacobs, 2011). The
new politics literature focuses on the fine grain of political processes and institutions, drawing heavily on polit-
ical science. It treats the welfare state less as a dependent variable and more as an independent variable, i.e.
as a trigger of group formation, as an arena for policy-specific forms of political interaction and as a source of
path dependence; it attributes great importance to timing and developmental sequences, taking history very
seriously.
Linked to the new politics perspective, the debate on ‘new social risks’ stemming from socio-economic
changes is another interesting frontier of contemporary welfare state research (Armingeon and Bonoli, 2006).
Its specific contribution is a novel attention on changes in the composition of electoral constituencies in the
wake of the post-industrial transition as well as on constraints on reform policies stemming from particular
patterns of party competition (Lindvall and Rueda, 2018). More generally, this literature has called for closer
links between welfare state research and electoral and party research, moving closer to these and other fields
of comparative politics (Manow et al., 2018).
Spatial and multi-level approaches

The encounter between nation-based social programmes and the EU has attracted scholarly interests to-
wards the spatial dimension of the welfare state linked to the new multi-level institutional context. Three main
strands of debate can be highlighted. The first focuses on legal frameworks and decision making rules, sug-
gesting that tensions result from a contest between market-making and market-correcting logics, support-
ed by distinct actor coalitions and governed by asymmetric decision rules (negative vs positive integration:
Scharpf, 2010). A second strand, mainly inspired by political economy, has in turn imputed the growing asym-
metry to the weakening of the power resources of the Left, caused by the internationalization of capital(ist)
markets, intensifying globalization and international cost-competition (which the Eastern enlargement has
brought directly within EU borders) (Streeck, 2014). A third strand of debate has brought the process of in-
tegration under the umbrella of the classic ‘state-building’ school, aimed at analysing the historical formation
of nation-states (Bartolini, 2005; Ferrera, 2005). According to this perspective, European integration can be
seen as a new phase in the long-term development of the European state system, a phase characterized by a
gradual weakening of national boundaries and an overall re-structuring of socio-political and institutional con-
figurations, aimed at ‘EU-building'. The welfare state was (and still is) a key component of the nation-state; it
serves essential functions of economic stabilization, social cohesion and political legitimation. The integration
process has been posing increasing challenges to the welfare state's institutional foundations (in particular,
territorial closure and preferential treatment for the native population), originating a ‘sovereignty contest’ over
the bounding rules that govern social sharing practices and thus define, through the democratic process, ‘who
has access to what forms of protection'. If it is true that globalization has originated an almost intractable
trilemma between economic integration, democracy and national sovereignty, then ‘nowhere is this trilemma
clearer than in Europe’ (Rodrick, 2015: 63).

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The Political Consequences of the Euro-Crisis

The Euro-crisis and ensuing recession has exacerbated the clash between economic and social Europe and
its politics (Vis et al., 2011; Schäfer and Streeck, 2013). Political science and political economy have provided
a wealth of encompassing analyses of the crisis, especially in its social dimension. Fiscal austerity has placed
national welfare states between a rock and a hard place. Domestic interest constellations were suddenly and
brutally altered (Beramendi et al., 2015), executives were further burdened by novel policy challenges relat-
ed to peaking unemployment, heightened poverty risks and the underdevelopment of national peripheries. A
number of scholarly works have also addressed the new conflict constellation that has come to surround the
welfare–EU nexus: for example, Dyson (2014) on the creditor–debtor conflict, Thatcher and Schmidt (2013)
on the influence of neo-liberalism, Vandenbroucke (2017) on the prospect for a European Social Union.
The Global Scene

A child of Western-type rationalization, the welfare state has now become a key component of political sys-
tems around the world – or at least a desirable objective to achieve. Moreover, outside Europe, institutional
differentiation largely depends on the specific shape taken by the welfare diamond and the specific mix of pro-
vision modes illustrated above (assistance, insurance, social security). While Esping-Andersen's three regime
forms still constitute a useful point of reference as ideal types, the logic of development and functioning of
the welfare state in regions such as East Asia and Latin America shares significant features with Southern
and Central/Eastern Europe: high familialism, low stateness, large informal economies, a tendency to abide
by the IMF/World Bank's blueprint in the overall architecture of welfare provision.
East Asia
The most developed East Asian countries (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan) now display relatively extended wel-
fare states. Focusing on the long-term evolution of state policies in this area, scholars have coined the con-
cept of ‘developmental (welfare) state’ stressing the absolute dominance of economic development over all
other policy goals. The original East Asian models had a cultural bias against direct welfare state expansion
in favour of state cooperation with employers and with civil society, counting on the family as the welfare-
providing institution as the last resort (Aspalter, 2006). While not ignoring or contesting the significance of a
deliberate link between growth promotion and social policies, a recent strand of literature (Estévez-Abe et
al., 2016) has highlighted some striking resemblances between East Asian and Southern European social
protection systems (especially if observed circa the 1990s), such as the dominance of pensions (at least in
terms of institutional formulas) to the detriment of social services and family policies, a patchy safety net and
sharp divides between some over-guaranteed occupational groups at the expenses of the under-guaranteed.
In addition, in both Southern Europe and East Asia, labour markets were highly segmented between core and
peripheral sectors, with large pockets of pre-modern activities, informal employment and patronage-based
relations. Female participation was very low, and the male breadwinner model was deeply entrenched. Fa-
milialism was dominant in social relations, with a highly unequal division of labour between genders and high
flows of intergenerational solidarity. As in Southern Europe, in East Asia these features co-evolved over time,
reinforcing each other. Such features gradually combined to form a coherent set of almost complementary
pieces (Ferrera, 2016). In the last two decades, just like Southern Europe, the East Asian welfare states have
been hit by the waves of demographic ageing, labour market flexibilization, the transition to the service econ-
omy, fiscal imperatives, the rise of new needs and – last but not least – the gender revolution (Walker and
Wong, 2005). A recalibration agenda has emerged, with a view to ironing out insider–outsider segmentation
and promoting more gender- and child-friendly policies. Specific responses have differed, creating an intrigu-
ing divergence criss-crossing regional (and even policy) lines (Saraceno, 2016).
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As former British colonies, Singapore and Hong Kong have developed less inclusive welfare systems, largely
centred on regulated market provision and ‘individualistic’ schemes. A similar trajectory is underway in Chi-
na, especially with regards to pensions. The latter country has inaugurated a rudimentary minimum income
scheme (the dibao) in 1999 and a basic network of health care centres (Gao, 2018). The Chinese socio-eco-
nomic system is still based on the hukou regime, which severely limits free movement and has, so far, repro-
duced traditional cleavages (for example, rural–urban) and welfare segmentation (Chan et al., 2008).
Latin America
Familialism, informality, patronage, state and democratic fragility have long dominated socio-economic and
political relations in Central and South America, shaping welfare state developments from their inception
(Handlin, 2017). The similarity with Southern Europe is higher in this region of the world owing to three ad-
ditional factors: the influence of Catholicism and its social doctrine; deep ideological polarization between a
maximalist left and authoritarian right; and low fiscal responsibility. While East Asian developments were led
by ‘productivism', the Latin American trajectory was shaped by the strategy of Import Substitution Industrial-
ization (ISI). The latter intensified dualization between relatively protected urban and unionized workers and
peripheral/informal workers (Huber and Stephens, 2012). The frequent economic and financial crises of these
countries made them often dependent on international financial institutions. Just like in Central and East-
ern European countries, Latin American welfare states had to comply with exogenous policy prescriptions
inspired by the so-called Washington consensus – especially as regards pension privatization. A legacy of
such prescriptions is also the adoption by most Latin American governments of conditional cash transfer pro-
grammes (CCTs), i.e. transfers to poor families (in preference the mother) in exchange for keeping their chil-
dren in school and under regular medical supervision. The most popular CCTs are Mexico's Opportunidades
plan and Brazil's Bolsa Familia.
Global South
In the less developed countries of South East and Central Asia, most of Africa (but also a few Latin American
countries, such as Costa Rica or Ecuador) the very notion of the welfare state is hard to apply, due to the
lack of properly functioning social insurance schemes with a minimum of effective coverage (North and Cato,
2017). In the so-called Global South, the social protection regime ranges from proto-welfare states (for exam-
ple, Belarus, Tunisia, Costa Rica, South Africa) to rudimentary welfare mixes combining small and local tar-
geted public programmes with informal security mechanisms (for example, the Indian sub-continent or Ghana
and the Congo). In most of sub-Saharan Africa, the presence of the state is so intermittent, weak and corrupt
that can itself become a source of insecurity; poverty, malnutrition and diseases are widespread and generate
a system of chronic insecurity that well deserves to be designated as outright ‘illfare’ (Gough and Therborn,
2010).
Conclusion
Since its early establishment, the welfare state has been a fundamental ingredient for the modernization of
European society: its programmes have greatly contributed to consolidating democratic institutions and to
harmonizing economic growth, with changing social needs. Yet, despite its unquestionable historical success,
the welfare state has entered the new millennium in conditions of strain and uncertainty. A child of the na-
tion-state and industrial society, it stands increasingly disoriented amidst the new socio-economic and po-
litical context, characterized by the rapid transition to post-industrialism, the advent of the digital economy,
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increasing globalization, sweeping changes in demography and social relations, rising migration flows, trends
towards supranational integration and a new, ‘post-cold war’ politics. The Great Recession has further exac-
erbated scars and problems. No institution can survive without adapting and it must be acknowledged that
the welfare state has been seriously and bravely struggling with the difficult challenge of modifying its old
instruments in order to respond to the new context. Among the top priorities, we must include the goal of be-
coming more programmatically adaptable in the first place and of possibly changing, once again, the division
of labour between the four corners of the welfare diamond (for example, reviving the role of civil society and
intermediary associations). Only through such a re-adaptation can the welfare state relaunch its mission and
confirm its centrality for the further progress of Western societies.
The ‘spirit’ of public welfare has made significant headways around the world. Whole regions and many indi-
vidual countries have already become (or are on their way to soon becoming) fully fledged welfare states by
adopting some variant of the Western European blueprint. However, history is open-ended: it is implausible
to expect that such blueprint will invariantly be reproduced everywhere else in the world. China, for one, may
inaugurate a different path, less centred on the collective management of risk and more oriented towards the
encouragement of private savings, as is already the case in Hong Kong and Singapore. Latin America may
leapfrog Southern Europe and entirely re-centre its welfare provision around semi-universal conditional cash
transfers. Africa may go through a long phase of alternative ‘socio-developmental’ policies based on micro-
credits, school-based nutrition programmes, mobile health and social services, price subsidies and so on.
The African context may also become the first laboratory for experimenting with new forms of protection that
partially bypass national authorities by anchoring themselves directly to transnational or international chan-
nels of solidarity. All these substantive transformations will prompt scholars to update, extend and move partly
beyond established conceptualizations and theorizations in order to recognize and account for new develop-
ments. As mentioned in the introduction, since the 1970s, comparative welfare state research has been one
of the liveliest fields of study in the social sciences. There is no reason to doubt that this field will be up to the
challenge of renewing itself in the face of changing realities, aiming for new successes.
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• welfare state
• insurance
• welfare
• social security
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n73
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Diplomacy
Contributors: Geoffrey Wiseman

Chapter Title: "Diplomacy"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Diplomacy
Geoffrey Wiseman
Introduction
Diplomacy is conventionally understood as the processes and institutions by which the interests and identities
of sovereign states are represented to one another (Wiseman and Sharp, 2017: 297). This chapter makes
five inter-related arguments about diplomacy. First, ideas and practices of diplomacy have a multi-millennial
history, much longer than is generally thought. Second, this long history has been characterized by perpetual
and productive tension between continuity and change, with diplomacy's critics under-estimating its capacity
for adaptation. Third, nowadays, traditional diplomacy, as a coherent set of state-based, distinctive practices –
and the diplomats who carry it out – is not diminishing, but growing, in importance. Fourth, diplomacy has be-
come increasingly more ‘complex’ than at any time in history – we can now claim that in both theory and prac-
tice it is more multifaceted, involving four dimensions: traditional bilateral diplomacy (state–state relations),
multilateral diplomacy (three or more states), polylateral diplomacy (state–non-state relations), and omnilater-
al diplomacy (relations between non-state entities).1 Fifth, and finally, Diplomatic Studies is now, in the words
of the editors of The SAGE Handbook of Diplomacy, a ‘rich and expanding’ academic subfield within the field
of International Relations (Constantinou et al., 2016a: 1) and indeed within the still broader, global discipline
of Political Science.
By Diplomatic Studies, I mean the self-conscious study of, or research on, interactions and relationships be-
tween entities with standing in global politics (such entities include sovereign states, international organiza-
tions, and, increasingly, non-state actors) that are intended to manage relations peacefully, reduce conflict,
and promote cooperation. Diplomatic Studies is generally distinguished from other subfields of International
Relations (IR) by the strong distinction it draws between foreign policy – the formulation of a state's grand
strategy or worldview – and diplomacy – the implementation of that grand strategy or worldview (Wiseman,
2015: 317). The foreign policy–diplomacy distinction is more widely accepted in Europe and elsewhere than
in the United States. As for research methods, Diplomatic Studies is typically less influenced by quantitative
social science methods and more by analytical eclecticism, involving historical analysis, qualitative, interpre-
tative, and interdisciplinary approaches. Whatever method is used, the serious study of diplomacy is warrant-
ed for the important reason that diplomacy shapes and even ‘makes’ world politics (Sending et al., 2015).
Some of the key questions that motivate scholars of diplomacy include the following: what exactly is meant
by the term ‘diplomacy'?; what are its origins?; what practices distinguish it from other forms of international
interaction?; who or what can legitimately be called a diplomatic actor?; is diplomacy only performed by sov-
ereign states?; and can non-state actors – both good and bad – reasonably be called diplomatic actors?
History of the Subject2

The history question, ‘when did diplomacy start?', is inevitably linked to how diplomacy is defined and by
whom. For contemporary diplomats, defining diplomacy is a fairly straightforward matter: diplomacy is what
the professional representatives of more than 190 sovereign states do as they represent their country's ‘na-
tional interest’ in a capital city abroad, such as Beijing or Washington, DC, or in a multilateral forum, such as
the United Nations (UN). If diplomacy is seen as the processes and institutions by which the interests and
identities of sovereign states are represented to one another, then diplomats are understood to be people
accredited by those they represent to undertake this work.
Standard definitions of diplomacy tend to rest on three key assumptions: (1) relations will be peaceful; (2) they
are conducted between mutually recognized sovereign states; and (3) they are continuous and long-term.
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Thus, some definitions of diplomacy equate diplomacy with a particular diplomatic activity, such as a broad
understanding of negotiation (Nicolson, [1939] 1963). Others stress the manner in which the activity should be
undertaken: for example, with honesty, tact and understanding (Callières, [1717] 2000; Satow, [1917] 2009),
or peacefully (Berridge, 2015). Still, others pay attention to who is entitled to undertake diplomacy and on
behalf of whom. Some claim that only the official representatives of sovereign states and international orga-
nizations may be properly viewed as engaging in diplomacy, as formalized, for example, in the 1961 Vienna
Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Increasingly,
others have opened the door to diplomacy being undertaken by ‘other entities with standing in world politics’
(Bull, 2002: 162; Langhorne, 1997; Sharp, 2009)
The definitional issue, then, is at the heart of any scholarly and practical consideration of diplomacy and its
conceptual boundaries. Definitions have clearly changed over time and place, and the trend is a move away
from a narrow conception to a broader one. Moreover, the singular idea of diplomacy is becoming outdat-
ed with some researchers now referring to plural diplomacy or ‘diplomacies'. For example, the field-defining
SAGE Handbook of Diplomacy includes chapters on so-called hyphenated diplomacies: public-diplomacy,
secret-diplomacy, crisis-diplomacy, coercive-diplomacy, revolutionary-diplomacy, pariah-diplomacy, city-diplo-
macy, citizen-diplomacy, celebrity-diplomacy, digital-diplomacy, sports-diplomacy, and indigenous-diplomacy.
At the risk of reductionism, diplomacy's long history can arguably be presented in three broad phases: (1)
the pre-modern or pre-Westphalian; (2) the modern or Westphalian; and (3) the post-modern or post-West-
phalian. Debate about this history can provide useful clues about diplomacy's conceptual and definitional evo-
lution, its practical limits, and its potential to contribute to peace and security.
Pre-modern, or Pre-Westphalian, Diplomacy

There is now abundant scholarship testifying to a multi-millennial history of diplomatic practices, even if these
practices were called something else. Something like diplomacy likely occurred between peoples in pre-his-
tory. Taking diplomacy to mean ‘the maintenance of peaceable relations between tribes and nations', the
Finnish scholar-diplomat Ragnar Numelin (1950: 13) argued that
As long as human communities have existed side by side without living in a permanent state of en-
mity – and sometimes even then – there have evolved certain rudimentary forms of diplomatic us-
age. It has been necessary for the leaders of primitive societies (kings, chiefs, councils of elders) to
maintain some sort of mutual relations, first through occasional messengers, later through envoys
and other suchlike representatives (Nicolson, 1963; and Sharp, 2009).
Combining insights from anthropology and International Relations, Iver B. Neumann (2018) reinforces, with
an evolutionary twist, Numelin's arguments that diplomacy as an institution of social life has been developed
by humans over tens of thousands of years, rather than the last three or four millennia. Neumann suggests
that writings on diplomacy over the last century use the concept of ‘evolution’ in the everyday sense of ‘emer-
gence’ rather than making reference to evolutionary theory in which diplomacy could be understood as an in-
stitution evolved by a species shaped by its social and material environment. Thus, ‘[h]umanity shapes diplo-
macy, and diplomacy shapes humanity’ (Neumann, 2018: 4). On this argument, diplomacy has essentially
existed wherever human beings have.
Diplomatic historian Raymond Cohen (2018: 21) locates diplomacy's origins less expansively. He argues that
‘[s]ince the dawn of recorded history 4,500 years ago, sovereigns have conducted their relations through of-
ficial emissaries', suggesting that ‘the earliest evidence of diplomacy appears in royal inscriptions dedicated
to the gods, found in the ruins of ancient cities dotting the fertile plains between the Tigris and Euphrates
Rivers of southern Mesopotamia, now modern Iraq’ (Cohen, 2018: 22). Cohen points to historical records of
negotiations in the Old Testament and older fragments from an archive of relations between pharaohs, their
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clients, and other great kings in the 14th century bc, known as the Amarna period (Cohen and Westbrook,
2000; Cohen, 2018: 24, 26). From this inclusive and even multicultural Amarna system, there is evidence of
missions travelling with trade caravans to arrange dynastic marriages, secure gifts, reassure allies, negotiate
with rivals, and, on occasion, experiment with public-diplomacy. Thus, Cohen (2018: 21) concludes, ‘some of
the major tools of diplomacy already existed in rudimentary form thousands of years ago and evolved very
gradually in response to changing needs'.
In contrast to the work of scholars such as Numelin, Cohen, and Neumann, the customary view has been
that the history of diplomacy dates from ancient Greece (Adcock and Mosley, 1975). In this account, while
most peoples only managed to send missions when there was something to negotiate, the Greeks are distin-
guished by their permitting proxenoi (local citizens) to represent them, although without plenipotentiary (ne-
gotiating) powers (Hamilton and Langhorne, 2011). The Romans, as hegemons, are conventionally present-
ed as uninterested in the give-and-take of diplomacy (Nicolson, 1954; Campbell, 2001). As discussed below,
the Renaissance Italians, in contrast, are credited with preparing the ground for modern diplomacy (Matting-
ly, 1955; Queller, 1967; Anderson, 1993). They established permanent resident missions (embassies) whose
ministers (ambassadors) had plenipotentiary powers and developed a rudimentary collective sense of them-
selves as a diplomatic entity sharing common professional interests and values. As for the rest of the world
– including, China, India, the Americas, and Africa – its diplomatic achievements were judged unimportant
since it was eventually absorbed by the expansion of Europe's international society (Bull and Watson, 1984).
I return to diplomacy's non-European legacy below.
In sum, scholarly interest has been revived in how diplomacy was conducted in Europe before its states-sys-
tem was consolidated, in other parts of the world before the Europeans arrived uninvited, and between the
Europeans and indigenous peoples they encountered (Jennings et al., 1985; de Costa, 2006; Beier, 2016;
Chong, 2016). Interest has also been revived in how indigenous peoples conducted (and in many cases still
conduct) their own diplomatic relations.
The significance of this discussion of the pre-modern era is that we can now point to a great deal of what
can plausibly be characterized as diplomacy – even if these diplomatic antecedents fall short of constituting
a fully developed and self-aware diplomatic system – long before the rise of the Italian city-states of the 15th
century.
The Modern, or Westphalian, Era

The orthodox English-speaking historiography sees modern diplomacy, in its bilateral (state-to-state) form
emerging on the Italian Peninsula during the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance period, starting around
the 15th century. In this view, the key diplomatic players of the time included Florence, Venice, Naples, Milan,
and the papacy in Rome. Machiavelli, the Florentine diplomat, who in 1513 authored The Prince and other
works on how best to negotiate with rival sovereigns, did so in terms that are now synonymous with a pow-
er politics worldview (Berridge et al., 2001: 13). Thus, as noted above, Renaissance Italy's main contribution
to the development of the ideas and practices of diplomacy was thought to be the creation of resident am-
bassadors. On this model, and unlike in the past when ambassadors tended to go on short-term diplomatic
missions, ambassadors would reside in the host country for years, sending reports to their governments back
home by whatever means were available. A product of the exchange of resident diplomats was the develop-
ment of the diplomatic-corps concept, the corporate collection of diplomats in any one capital, from Constan-
tinople to London (Sharp and Wiseman, 2007).
Scholars using Italian-language sources have challenged this orthodox account of the origins of modern diplo-
macy, suggesting that the transition from pre-modern to modern diplomacy was not, in fact, as clear-cut and
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progressive as had been advanced by Mattingly, Queller, and Anderson. These ‘new diplomatic history’ schol-
ars, for example, point to the multiple terms used in the 1400s and early 1500s to describe individuals en-
gaged in diplomatic activities. Thus, according to Daniela Frigo (2008), ‘the ambassador was only one of
many functionaries the new sovereigns used to establish and reinforce their dominion'. In Frigo's (2008) view,
‘Chancellors, secretaries, couriers, military emissaries, nunzi, procurators, agents, informers, correspondents,
merchants, and clerics crowded the stage of relations among many centers of republican and seignorial pow-
er'. Frigo (2008: 20) concluded that ‘[o]nly gradually . . . did the figure of the resident ambassador emerge
from this welter of protagonists handling relations between states as a central diplomatic player'. In this inter-
pretation, moreover, the putative professionalization of diplomats, the coherence of the diplomatic corps as a
body, the assumption that diplomacy was a male-only institution, and even the abstract concepts of diplomacy
and the sovereign state came later in the modern period (Watkins, 2008: 2–7).
Many scholars regard the 1648 Treaties of Westphalia that ended Europe's Thirty Years’ War between Protes-
tants and Catholics as formalizing (but by no means inventing) the principle of state sovereignty and thus an-
nouncing the era of modern diplomacy. Even though some resident diplomatic missions had emerged earlier,
Westphalia's significance is usually associated with the rise of the modern sovereign state and its associated
bilateral diplomatic form. Still, it is to some extent significant as a precursor to the 19th-century development
of multilateral diplomacy as seen at the 1815 Congress of Vienna and the 1856 Congress of Paris (Hamilton
and Langhorne, 2011; Davis Cross, 2007). In short, Westphalia reinforced bilateral diplomacy, which was al-
ready recognizable on the Italian Peninsula, while also pointing to a more multilateral future for diplomacy.
With bilateral diplomacy (the resident mission) in place and multilateral congresses foreshadowed by the 17th
century, other innovations followed. Notable was the invention by Cardinal Richelieu – first minister of France
under Louis XIII from 1624–42 – of the foreign ministry: the now taken-for-granted institution under one roof
in a country's capital that works with government ministers to formulate foreign policy and supervises a coun-
try's international network of diplomats and embassies (Berridge et al., 2001). Thus were formalized several
key diplomatic norms, such as the need for unity of direction in a country's management of external relations,
the need for continuous negotiations, and the idea of the professional diplomat – all key features of modern
diplomacy.
For most writers on diplomacy, the diplomatic conduct of the great powers mattered most. Great powers were
supposed to be responsible for maintaining the balance of power but, as the Napoleonic Wars had demon-
strated, were also capable of posing deadly threats to the peace of Europe. Great-power dominance of mod-
ern diplomacy's evolution is well demonstrated by the 19th-century Concert of Europe, an informal yet power-
ful periodic meeting of European states that negotiated treaties, but typically did not meet in a single assembly
(plenary) that would have allowed the smaller powers a larger voice in proceedings. Thus, the Concert was
dominated by exclusive meetings of the leading statesmen from Austria, Prussia, Russia, Britain, and France,
such as Prince Metternich (Austria), Lord Castlereagh (Britain), and Prince Talleyrand (France). The Concert
is widely associated with a period of relative international peace in Europe for much of the 19th century and
up to the outbreak of war in 1914.
Thus, arising from these Renaissance and Westphalian building blocks, modern diplomacy generally became
associated with sovereign states. By the early 20th century, modern diplomacy consisted of essentially two
forms: bilateral and multilateral. Seen as the older, more traditional form, bilateral diplomacy is the conduct
of relations between two mutually recognized political actors, usually sovereign territorial states. Multilateral
diplomacy, the conduct of relations between three or more states at permanent or ad hoc international con-
ferences, was seen as a ‘newer’ and more inclusive form of diplomacy.
In diplomacy's modern history, the First World War (1914–18) stands out for two reasons. One, the war was
blamed on diplomats conducting the ‘old diplomacy’ of secret treaties, shifting alliances, and great-power

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backroom deals. Two, in the war's aftermath, the multilateral method was taken to a new institutionalized level
with the creation of the League of Nations. Under the League, diplomats conducting more open parliamen-
tary, multilateral, or ‘new’ diplomacy would no longer meet for a few days at a time in a European capital and
then return home (as was the Concert model). Now, some diplomats would be permanently accredited to an
international organization, rather than to a country. This represented an important conceptual shift, albeit one
that failed in this instance, with the disbandment of the League following the Second World War, which it man-
ifestly failed to prevent.
However, the establishment of the UN in San Francisco in 1945 represented a further, and this time more
successful, attempt at institutionalizing the multilateral diplomatic method. An important lesson seemed to be
that sovereign states were willing to try again, rather than give up on a promising idea. The Second World
War had also initiated renewed interest in the role of public opinion in the formation of foreign policy, and, to
some extent, in its conduct by professional diplomats. After the war, the ideological conflict known as the Cold
War (roughly 1945–89) saw the re-emergence and general acceptance of institutionalized multilateralism with
the establishment of the extensive UN system, even if there was a sense that the UN was not central to the
diplomacy of the great-power Cold War contest that was surfacing at the time (Mazower, 2009). During the
Cold War, many countries lined up, some of them reluctantly, behind the two superpowers of the day: the
United States and the Soviet Union. Key features of the bipolar Cold War diplomatic system were nuclear
arms control, crisis management, and summitry. The advent of nuclear weapons and their use by the United
States in 1945 against Japan introduced a novel and sharply dangerous element into the management of
crises and the convening of high-level meetings by political leaders. If the over-riding strategic concept of the
nuclear age was mutual nuclear deterrence, the underlying foreign policy concept was containment – an idea
advanced by George Kennan, a serving professional US diplomat, that Soviet communism could be managed
(contained) without the use of military force.
Decolonization provided an important context in which Cold War diplomacy played out. This process whereby
the colonies of the European powers achieved their juridical independence had a dramatic impact on Interna-
tional Relations in general and diplomacy in particular. First, while many of the newly independent countries
identified and allied with one or the other superpower, many others sought to keep some political distance
from them, forming groupings such as the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), officially created in September
1961, and the Group of 77 (G77), launched in 1964, in order to strengthen their independence from the Cold
War giants. A small minority of the ‘new’ states, such as China, Cuba, and Libya, branded themselves, or
were seen by others, as revolutionary states, at first rejecting but later accepting diplomatic norms and proce-
dures.
A second effect of decolonization was a dramatic proliferation of sovereign states in the international system.
Some 51 countries signed the UN Charter in 1945. By 1989, the UN's membership had grown to 159. In 2019,
the world body had 193 members. At the UN, the impact of the proliferation of new states had two almost con-
tradictory effects: radicalization and socialization. Radicalization was manifested in claims for economic and
social development and demands for a New International Economic Order. Socialization was manifested, for
example, in acceptance of the idea that the UN now acted as the membership committee for the international
community (where previously this had been left to countries acting bilaterally). In addition, new members gen-
erally accepted the norms and routine practices of UN-style multilateral diplomacy (Wiseman, 2011). In short,
the trappings of sovereignty – embassies, ambassadors, and UN membership – were attractive at a time
when the political goal was sovereign independence. Given the divisions created by the Cold War and the
decolonization process, it is striking that the international community could come together to agree – notably
with the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations – on the formal rules governing their diplomatic
conduct (Langhorne, 1992). It also codified the immunities and privileges accorded to diplomats while serving
abroad. The importance of decolonization notwithstanding, from the late 1940s to the late 1980s, the bipolar
Cold War nuclear overlay dominated diplomacy of the era. The Cold War's end in 1989 led to yet another ex-
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pansion of international society, with the addition of over twenty new countries from the disintegrating Soviet
Union and former Yugoslavia, a series of events that reinforced the persistence of sovereignty.
With the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the United States’ unipolar moment (Krauthammer, 2002/
03), a widely held early post-Cold War view was that the United States conducted a form of hegemonic diplo-
macy, not unlike imperial Rome. Former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali (1999: 198) captured
a widely held attitude at the time when he wrote in his memoirs: ‘The Roman Empire had no need for diplo-
macy. Nor does the United States'. Until the early 2000s, it was common to talk of a unipolar world, as distinct
from a bipolar or even multipolar one, revolving around the sole remaining superpower: the United States.
In fact, the United States conducted its affairs unilaterally, bilaterally, and multilaterally. The George W. Bush
administration tended to emphasize the unilateral (while in practice operating in all three spheres); the Oba-
ma administration tended to emphasize the multilateral (while also in practice operating in all three spheres)
in ways that no other country could match. The Trump administration displayed a radical, personalized bilat-
eralism which defaulted, seemingly at the President's whim, to a radical unilateralism if satisfaction was not
promptly obtained from negotiations.
Even as the (re)emergence of rising powers such as Russia, Brazil, India, South Africa, and, especially, China
challenged US claims to global leadership, the rise of new powers in no way suggested that these power
shifts would be undertaken without diplomacy and diplomats. In a league of its own among the rising pow-
ers, China's worldwide diplomatic representation expanded rapidly to match its rising status (on status, see
Pouliot, 2016; Renshon, 2017).
Yet, as discussed further below, there are countervailing trends pointing to a world less dominated by a state-
based diplomatic culture grounded unmistakably in sovereignty. The UN today is not simply a meeting place
for the diplomats of over 190 sovereign states, but is becoming an amalgam of players from the business and
non-governmental worlds, where sovereignty-questioning norms such as the responsibility to protect (R2P) –
the idea that the international community could intervene with force after a state had failed to protect its own
citizens – are evolving (Evans and Sahnoun, 2002).
To sum up thus far, the norms, assumptions, and practices of the modern Westphalian institution of diplomacy
have many of their origins in pre-historic, indigenous, and ancient forms of practice. But the largely European,
Westphalian state system produced major innovations in diplomatic practices that, for many, came to be
equated with the international diplomatic system of sovereign states. The next section examines whether this
view is being challenged by a fast-changing and more complex diplomatic system.
Diplomacy in a Post-Modern, Post-Westphalian, World

The persistence and resilience of the state-based Westphalian system of diplomacy outlined in the previous
section is obvious to any follower of contemporary world affairs. In general, sovereign states are still regarded
as the most important actors in International Relations and – in traditional diplomatic terms – state actors
continue to deploy an extensive system of embassies and consulates coordinated by a foreign ministry such
that they and their interests and identities are represented to each other in a more or less continuous manner.
However, there has been a significant shift both in the way traditional state-to-state diplomacy is conducted
and – contemporaneously – in the way we think about diplomacy as an exclusively narrow-band state prac-
tice to one that is progressively seen as a broader-band social practice.
This shift in thinking is tied to claims that sovereign states and their diplomacy are disappearing (or at least
diminishing in relevance) and growing empirical evidence that a great deal of International Relations takes
place in which sovereign states, their foreign offices, and their diplomats are not central or even involved
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(Badie, 2012, 2018). As noted above, the UN is not restricted absolutely to sovereign-state members (Bátora
and Hynek, 2014) and the secretariats of the UN and the EU have long conducted interactions with non-state
actors such as global civil society organizations and private-sector groups (Willetts, 2006). Individuals working
independently or in a semi-official capacity have long been employed by states to seek agreements and se-
cure interests when conventional diplomacy has been judged to be ineffective or inappropriate. This category
might include humanitarian-diplomats and other track two-diplomats who work in zones of conflict to secure
ceasefires between warring militias and protect non-combatants when fighting is going on (Minear and Smith,
2007). Goodwill-ambassadors, celebrity-diplomats, and influential former leaders work to raise consciousness
of, for example, humanitarian and environmental issues, lobbying those in a position to help and pressuring
those causing problems (Cooper, 2008, 2015; Wheeler, 2011). Citizen-diplomats may seek to advance the
profile and interests of their home towns in trade delegations and through cultural exchanges, act as interna-
tional civil society lobbyists, or seek to get around or subvert a particular aspect of their own country's foreign
policy with which they disagree – for example, US citizen-diplomacy toward Cuba (LeoGrande, 2015). In this
view, there is more to diplomacy than what sovereign-state representatives do and the increasing number of
non-state participants of consequence – and with standing – in world politics point in the general direction of
a less state-centred global system.
This short review of the pre-modern, modern, and post-modern ideas and practices of diplomacy confirms a
very long history indeed. Even if there is disagreement about the pre-modern origins of diplomatic practices
in forms that we would recognize today and about the periodization of diplomacy's evolution, there is little
doubt that diplomacy preceded the sovereign-states system. Throughout these three broad historical periods,
we see many examples of a diplomatic system that is capable of reproducing itself, but also of reconstituting
itself, in significantly different forms. The evidence of diplomacy from the pre-Westphalian period is important
because it seriously undermines the deeply ingrained state–diplomacy link assumed in the scholarly literature
and indeed by most contemporary practitioners. On this argument, we can therefore imagine a future without
the state. But as the subject is represented here, it is difficult to imagine any future without diplomacy. Even
within the context of a state-based international order, diplomacy is becoming more important because it and
the people who are said to practise it are increasingly needed, arguments convincingly made by Paul Sharp
(2009). Still, if indeed International Relations are moving in a post-hegemonic, multipolar direction, then diplo-
macy is more likely to prosper. In one form or another, the United States, China, and other major players see
advantage in returning to it. At the same time, there is clear evidence of an emerging non-state diplomatic
conception in which well-organized groups are now acting, or claiming to act, diplomatically, to some extent,
even if not yet in the full Vienna-Convention sense, a theme developed further below.

Building on the above three-phase historical account of diplomacy's evolution, this section adumbrates the
main ways in which contemporary scholars of diplomacy tend to explain diplomacy in theoretical terms.
Pauline Kerr and I have proposed three general approaches to theorizing diplomacy in the current complex,
multifaceted context. These are: (1) a traditional, state-based view; (2) a hybrid, multi-actor view; and (3) a
cosmopolitan, non-state, or humanist, view (Kerr and Wiseman, 2018: 1–5, 346–56). These three theoret-
ical approaches do not currently represent well-recognized, competing paradigms, traditions, or schools of
thought about diplomacy – as with realism, liberalism, and constructivism in IR – but they form a basis on
which the Diplomatic Studies subfield might frame debates about key concepts and distinctions – for example,
war–peace, state–non-state, sovereignty–heteronomy, foreign policy–diplomacy, bilateralism–multilateralism,
old–new diplomacy – that underpin or challenge each approach.
In the traditional, state-based view, diplomacy is an institution linked by definition to the sovereign states that
make up the international system. This view focuses on professionally trained and accredited diplomats who
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work in foreign ministries at home and at embassies, consulates, and permanent missions (to international or-
ganizations) abroad (Berridge, 2011; Hamilton and Langhorne, 2011). This traditional view gives great weight
to diplomatic history but differs from traditional historical methods in its attempts to conceptualize diplomatic
practices in both historical and contemporary ways. In this view of diplomacy, ‘traditional’ diplomats are usual-
ly associated with elites representing the state's ‘national interests’ to the elites of other states in the interna-
tional system. In the influential structural realist view of IR (Waltz, 1979), diplomacy and diplomats are gener-
ally overlooked. More important for these theorists are hard power, military force, and coercion, less important
are soft power, diplomacy, and persuasion. Moreover, Realists, as is true of many kinds of IR theorists, tend
to focus on structure and macro decisions rather than on agency, micro decisions, and practices. This neglect
by structural Realists, and indeed within the mainstream American International Relations discipline (Murray
et al., 2011; Rathbun, 2014), seems greatly out of place given the evidence of diplomacy's relevance to so
much that is happening in the world.
A second hybrid, multi-actor view of diplomacy acknowledges the continued relevance of state-based diplo-
macy but gives weight to a wider range of actors that ‘do’ diplomacy of some sort. This ‘hybrid', ‘multi-actor',
or ‘integrative’ (Hocking et al., 2012) view of diplomacy sees a greater role in diplomacy being played by
governmental ministries other than the foreign ministry, comprising a national or whole-of-government diplo-
matic system, actors that in turn relate diplomatically with a wider range of non-governmental groups and
actors. This group is perhaps numerically the largest of the three. The hybrid/multi-actor diplomacy theorists
ask foundational questions such as ‘who are the diplomats now?’ (Langhorne, 1997). For them, diplomats
are not only accredited state representatives (see also, Nicolson, 1963; and Sharp, 2009), but also global
civil society actors organized into groups that want to remain separate from, and have diplomatic relations
with, other groups (Sharp, 2009). This group of theorists is methodologically eclectic and transdisciplinary.
It embraces macro foreign policy decisions but shows a willingness to consider micro, everyday diplomat-
ic practices (e.g., Neumann, 2005, 2012). Hybrid/multi-actor theorists comprise historians and globalization
scholars (e.g., Langhorne, 1997); IR scholars who focus on diplomacy (e.g., Jönsson and Hall, 2005; Sharp,
2009; Pigman, 2010; Cooper et al., 2013; Kelley, 2014); IR scholars who draw heavily on anthropology and
international political sociology (e.g., Neumann, 2012; Adler-Nissen, 2014; Pouliot and Cornut, 2015); social
constructivists (Johnston, 2008); IR scholars who draw on social psychology and communication theory (e.g.,
Rathbun, 2014; Trager, 2017; Holmes, 2018; Adler-Nissen and Tsinovoi, 2019); and public-diplomacy theo-
rists (e.g., Snow and Taylor, 2009; Wang, 2010; Zaharna et al., 2013; Gregory, 2008, 2016; Seib, 2016; and-
Cull, 2019). This group would by no meansnecessarily self-identify with the Diplomatic Studies subfield and
some might feel more comfortable in the following category.
A third, emerging group of diplomacy theorists advance a cosmopolitan, non-state, or humanist conception of
diplomacy, according to which there is not one diplomacy but many diplomacies, not one diplomatic culture
but many diplomatic cultures (Constantinou, 2013; Dittmer and McConnell, 2016; McConnell, 2018). Indeed,
in Constantinou's (2013) humanist conception, anyone who is in social intercourse with others is capable of
thinking and acting (in most circumstances) diplomatically (leaving open the thorny question whether terrorist
groups could be considered diplomatic actors). Even traditional diplomats, Constantinou argues, intriguingly,
are capable of responding to both statist and humanist impulses. Accordingly, diplomacy is more than states
acting diplomatically or states and non-state actor groups interacting routinely and diplomatically, but is a uni-
versal social phenomenon (Constantinou, 2013; Constantinou and Der Derian, 2010).
Also, intriguingly, Constantinou et al. (2016b: 36) argue that the pluralization of diplomatic actors and diplo-
matic cultures – beyond officially accredited, professional state representatives – is producing the transprofes-
sionalization of diplomatic practices, by which they highlight ‘the “new” skills and knowledges that non-state
actors bring to the diplomatic realm, from expertise and specialized knowledge pertinent to the increasing
prevalence of issue-based diplomacy to innovations in digital technology and advocacy strategies'. In other
words, diplomatic training is no longer only about skills development for professional foreign-service officers,
but it is also required for non-state actors as well, working in war zones, with development projects, or provid-
ing disaster relief.
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All three approaches have advantages and disadvantages. Arguably, all three operate in a state of healthy
epistemic co-existence, with a degree of scholarly overlap between the three tendencies. Evidence for this
optimistic account of the field is the range of topics and approaches considered by the Diplomatic Studies
section of the annual convention of the International Studies Association. Similar evidence is also seen in The
SAGE Handbook of Diplomacy (2016) cited above, a volume with over 50 chapters written by authors who
plausibly fit in more than one of the three categories.
To my earlier three-phase historical account and to the just-described three ‘paradigms’ classification of diplo-
matic scholarship, I now turn to another three-part differentiation: that between universal, regional, and na-
tional notions of ‘diplomatic culture'.
Differentiating Global, Regional and National Diplomatic Cultures

There is much evidence supporting the existence of a deeply rooted, ‘universal', state-based diplomatic cul-
ture with its distinctive characteristics that are constituted and reproduced by routine practices. Building on
an earlier definition (Wiseman, 2005: 409–10), I now define diplomatic culture as ‘the accumulated commu-
nicative and representational norms, rules, institutions and practices devised to improve relations and avoid
war between interacting and mutually recognizing political entities'. Important texts on this concept are Bull
(2002), Der Derian (1987, 1996), and Sharp (2004). Even the most powerful states, such as the United States
at the height of its paramountcy in the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, came under heavy criticism for
transgressing five norms of diplomatic culture that are widely accepted, if often internalized: the use of force
as a last resort, transparency, continuous dialogue, multilateralism, and civility (Wiseman, 2005). In both nor-
mal and crisis times, we can see that a universal diplomatic culture exists, for example, in the widespread
adherence to the 1961 and 1963 Vienna Conventions mentioned above. Moreover, as Hedley Bull observed,
the diplomatic corps – described above as the diplomats of different sovereign states resident in the capital
of another sovereign state and at the headquarters of major regional international organizations – is the most
tangible expression of that universal culture (Bull, 2002; Sharp and Wiseman, 2016: 171).
Within the wider framework of the universal, state-based diplomatic culture, individual countries relate dif-
ferently to that culture. Take, for example, the American approach to diplomacy. For me, the United States
participates in international society's diplomatic culture in a distinctive way.3 In other words, there is evidence
to support the idea that there is a universal (or perhaps more precisely an international society-based) diplo-
matic culture and yet within that universal culture there are individual national diplomatic cultures, or national
diplomatic styles.
Diplomats from most countries have long been interested in this concept. Notable among this group is the
British diplomat Harold Nicolson who provided us with many insights on different nations’ diplomatic styles
and methods – but in doing so flirted with the danger of drifting into national stereotyping (Nicolson, 1963).
Raymond Cohen's (2002) Negotiating Across Cultures was more successful in describing how national cultur-
al differences explain diplomatic behaviour and outcomes. Cohen's work was a major publication that framed
a multi-year series of studies by the United States Institute of Peace on national negotiating styles – for ex-
ample, French, German, Iranian, and American. Jeffrey Robertson (2016) has further illustrated the idea of
national diplomatic style in relation to South Korea. National cultures and styles can be identified and are
meaningful in practice, even if they are far from being fully developed in research programs.
This line of argument begs the question whether, between the universal and national conceptions of diplomat-
ic culture, there might be an interstitial dimension to the pluralizing diplomatic cultures literature that could be
explored and developed further: namely, regional diplomatic cultures. There is of course a substantial litera-
ture on regional organizations but very little on the idea of regional diplomacies (Bátora, 2018).
One possible way to test the regional diplomatic culture concept is to compare it with the considerable litera-
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ture on strategic culture (Johnston, 1995). In terms of this strategic vs. diplomatic culture dichotomy (Haacke,
2003), diplomatic culture is dominant over strategic culture in the Pacific Islands region (Fry and Tarte, 2015;
Fry, 2019). In stark contrast, it is difficult to identify a Northeast East Asian regional diplomatic culture, except
to say that it is an essentially traditional, realist one in which strategic culture is overwhelmingly dominant over
diplomatic culture (Kerr and Taylor, 2013; Melissen and Sohn, 2015; and Robertson et al., 2019. On South
Asia, see Singh, 2018). Deepak Nair (2019) sees remnants of an emerging diplomatic culture in ASEAN (As-
sociation of Southeast Asian Nations) face-saving practices. However, he argues that they are not rooted in
diplomacy's better side, or norms, nor are they rooted in the putative essentialism of Asian values, but in the
hard-nosed reality of authoritarian political systems (see also Davies, 2018).
Over and above these possible Asia-Pacific ‘sub-regional’ variations – and given the rise of Asia as a locus of
global power and activity – there is a case for considering whether a broad, overarching Asian diplomatic cul-
ture or style exists. In a study of five Asian foreign ministries – China, India, Japan, Singapore, and Thailand
– representing three Asian sub-regions – East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia – Kishan Rana, a former
senior Indian diplomat, examined this question (Rana, 2007: 166). He concluded that ‘the diplomatic culture
of Asia reflects limited congruence', while noting ‘some information sharing on diplomatic practices’ (Rana,
2007: 177. Cf. Chong, 2016). Intriguingly, Rana refers to the ‘evolving styles’ of the Asian countries studied,
a pertinent reminder to avoid stereotyping and essentializing diplomacy and culture.
Interestingly, Rana evaluates the five Asian countries in terms of high-context and low-context cultures, a
framework popularized in Diplomatic Studies by Raymond Cohen. In Cohen's account of the distinction be-
tween a high- and a low-context negotiating style, a high-context negotiating style is characterized by an em-
phasis on process and relationship building and on indirect, implicit, and non-verbal forms of communication,
typically practised in older, more traditional societies, such as Japan and China. For such communally minded
cultures, Cohen argues, ‘negotiation is less about solving problems…than about attending to a relationship’
(Cohen, 2002: 69, 36–43). In contrast, a low-context negotiating style focuses on results rather than rela-
tionships, is direct and explicit in communication preferences, and is typically practised in newer societies in
which the individual is said to be valued more than community, such as the United States.
Using this framework, Rana concluded that the five Asian countries might broadly be characterized as high-
context, with India an exception given its results-oriented obsession. This conclusion, admittedly tentative,
points us toward a possible working hypothesis about ‘Western’ vs ‘non-Western’ diplomacy: namely, that
Western diplomacy tends to be low context (with the United States a good example) while non-Western diplo-
macy tends to be high context (with Japan a good example). Given China's blended communist-capitalist
system, the high context vs. low context distinction seems inapt as both communism and capitalism are re-
sults-oriented systems. At the international level, another hypothesis might be that those whose context it is
(those who largely created the context and the rules of the game) tend to act in low-context terms.
Thus, positioned between a universal, state-based diplomatic culture and national diplomatic cultures, there
are variations of substance and style in the identifiable or self-identifying regions of the world. Building on the
‘regional security-complex’ concept (Buzan and Waever, 2003), it does not seem unrealistic to conceptualize
‘regional diplomatic complexes', based in large part on shared understandings of regional diplomacy. This dis-
cussion leads us to contemplate whether there are Western versus non-Western conceptions of diplomacy,
to which I now turn.
Western (or European) Diplomacy

While the emerging historical evidence increasingly reveals diplomacy's many non-European origins, Euro-
pean practices – from around the 15th century onwards – contributed greatly to how most Western scholars
think about diplomacy today (Bull and Watson, 1984; Berridge et al., 2001. Cf. Neumann, 2019). Ironically,
while the European diplomatic imagination did more than anything else to link diplomacy inextricably to the
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sovereign state in the modern, Westphalian era, that imagination took a new leap of faith in the post-Second
World War period to the present in the various evolutionary cycles of the EU – a particular and, for many,
controversial form of Western diplomacy. The EU model – ‘pooling resources toward the creation of a region-
al diplomatic system, including a set of dedicated institutional structures for performing diplomacy’ (Bátora,
2018: 308) – is highly significant for at least two reasons. First, the EU model institutionalized a key distinc-
tion between intergovernmental and supranational cooperation. In short, the EU imagined forms of political
organization that in significant ways transcended the sovereign state. Second the EU set in motion what Báto-
ra describes as ‘a global trend toward increased regional diplomatic institutions and processes, inspired and
catalysed by development in the EU, while not necessarily copying the European “model”’ (Bátora, 2018: 308;
Hocking and Spence, 2005; Spence and Bátora, 2015).
Overall, the EU path toward supranational diplomacy has waxed and waned, as demonstrated by the mixed
performance of the European External Action Service (Adler-Nissen, 2014) and as painfully illustrated by
Brexit, the British withdrawal from the Union. However, when we view the EU in the entire arc of diploma-
cy's history, the achievements have been generally impressive, further supporting my claim about diploma-
cy's ability to innovate and adapt to the times – to a point (as Brexiteers and other EU sceptics argue) that
amounts to innovative overreach.
Non-Western Diplomacy
While European or Western conceptions of diplomacy dominated diplomatic thought and practice from the
15th century, the 20th century's post-Second World War period appeared at certain moments to challenge
that dominance. For example, several revolutionary states – such as China, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba,
Libya, and Iran – initially rejected the institutions and practices of Western diplomacy. Several authors associ-
ated with the English School (Bull and Watson, 1984; Armstrong, 1993; Sharp, 2005) have noted that, as with
the Soviet Union in the 1920s, these new revolutionary states came to adopt and to value (most) diplomatic
norms, institutions, and practices. In short, these states were eventually ‘socialized’ into traditional diplomacy
and the diplomatic culture of Western international society. Moreover, the great majority of the new, non-rev-
olutionary states adopted the whole repertoire of diplomatic practices, including UN membership, the estab-
lishment of embassies and consulates, close adherence to performative rituals and protocol, and many other
diplomatic practices. On this argument, what was happening was the continued expansion of European inter-
national society with the implication that there was now just one diplomatic culture: the universal diplomatic
culture of the Vienna Conventions, described above.
Yet, throughout the decolonization period, the developing Global South protested what it regarded as the post-
colonial hegemonic policies of the developed Global North, as ‘the West’ came to be called. These protests
were foreshadowed at the 1955 Bandung conference in Indonesia (Shimazu, 2014), and subsequently in the
formation of groups such as the NAM and the G77 (for critiques of Eurocentrism in diplomacy scholarship, see
Barkawi, 2015; Opondo, 2016; Neumann, 2019). In Global South Perspectives on Diplomacy, former South
African diplomat Yolanda Spies has lamented that the South has ‘yet to make a definitive mark on diplomatic
studies’ (Spies, 2019: 2. On regional diplomatic institutions in Africa and South America, see Bátora, 2018:
310–14). The distinction I draw here is that while the Global South has been critical of Western foreign poli-
cies, it has generally voiced those criticisms through the norms and institutions that are generally seen as
manifestations of Western diplomacy – for example, Cuba's Fidel Castro and Libya's Muammar Qadhafi lam-
basting Western policies (for hours on end) at the UN General Assembly (a Western creation).
The question of whether Western (or Northern) conceptions of diplomacy will continue to dominate global
diplomacy in the future will, to a considerable extent, hinge on how fast and how far China can rise – militarily,
economically, and ideationally – at the expense, in a zero-sum world, of the continued, if increasingly tenuous,
dominance of the West (primarily the United States and Europe). China's ambitious Belt-and-Road initiative
(a potent mix of geo-politics and geo-economics) symbolizes its rise. At the diplomatic level, China's rise is
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clearly evident in its more active role as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, its development
and promotion of a range of Chinese strategic concepts based loosely on ancient Chinese concepts such
as wu-wei (‘effortless action', or ‘non-agency') that buttress or perhaps rationalize its peaceful-rise intentions
(Xuetong, 2014; Moeller, 2015: 103–6; Zhang, 2018: 291–2), and in its pro-active embrace and modification
of Western ideas of soft power, public-diplomacy, and branding (Melissen and Sohn, 2015).
Yet such efforts sit uneasily with Beijing's aggressive military action in the South China Sea, its norm-bending
diplomatic tactics toward the ASEAN countries, its ‘debt trap diplomacy’ in struggling parts of the world, and
its reported political interference and deployment of sharp power techniques in a number of Western coun-
tries. Moreover, as Zhang (2018: 306) argues, ‘China's diplomacy is not the diplomacy of the state but that of
the Party'. In that domestic context, China's diplomacy since 1949 has reflected the country's changing iden-
tity: from a revolutionary state to a developing country, to a country that is both developing and developed, to
a country that is now on the brink of becoming in the eyes of many a global power (Zhang, 2018: 295).
Even as the West struggles with its own diplomatic identity, manifested by Brexit and Trump's idiosyncratic
worldview, on balance, the socialization advantage – or who's socializing whom, in Alice Ba's felicitous (2006)
phrase – remains for now with the West (see also Johnston, 2008). Yet, after five centuries, as Alan Chong
(2016: 227) argues, ‘Asia is still philosophically different from western mindsets of what diplomacy should be
about'.
It is difficult, therefore, to tell where the literature on universal vs. regional diplomacy might in future intersect
with the literature on Western vs. non-Western diplomacy. But there are cautiously modest grounds for argu-
ing, given the recent publishing output on non-Western diplomacy (Rana, 2007; Chong, 2016; Grincheva and
Kelley, 2019; Spies, 2019), that Diplomatic Studies might well avoid Acharya and Buzan's (2017) lament that
there is no Non-Western Theory of International Relations.
Conclusion: Major Advances and Ongoing Debates

To conclude, I address directly the five inter-related questions posed at the start of this chapter. First, there
can be little doubt that ideas and practices of diplomacy have a multi-millennial history. This conclusion is sig-
nificant for many reasons, not least of them being that it illustrates convincingly that diplomacy is not owned
by the sovereign state. Diplomatic practices were evident in history long before the rise of the sovereign, ter-
ritorial state system in Europe. Should the state system ever disappear, returning – for example – to what Bull
(2002: 254–5) called a ‘new medievalism', the need for diplomacy would continue.
Second, diplomacy's long history, characterized by perpetual yet often productive tension between continuity
and change, reveals diplomacy's notable – if far from perfect – adaptive capacity over time. Critics tend to
focus on diplomacy's preoccupation with seemingly insignificant protocol and other norms, but these norms
have changed and, more importantly, they play a role in maintaining peace and order, and, arguably, allow-
ing for a measure of justice. The emerging diplomatic zeitgeist seems unlikely to fall under a pre-modern,
modern, or post-modern rubric, but rather a trans-Westphalian one, where elements of all three eras are dis-
cernible.
This tension between continuity and change is well illustrated at the UN. Consistent with major international
transformations since 1945 – notably decolonization and the end of the Cold War – UN diplomacy has evolved
over the decades. The rising influence and activism of newer member states, expansion of the issue areas
under purview, use of thematic World Conferences, and the growing significance of UN officials and NGOs
are some developments that have been accompanied by changing diplomatic practices at the world body.
Indeed, the diversity of issues and actors has led to a hybrid diplomatic culture at the UN. Despite innovations
in UN diplomatic practices, however, the UN's basic structure has not evolved with the changing internation-
al political climate and configurations. Most obviously, the Permanent Five member states’ privileged status
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has skewed the relations between government representatives who otherwise hold equal legal status in the
international system. Formal charter reform has been rare, and the often-discussed potential reform and en-
largement of the Security Council seems more unlikely than ever in the current political climate. Yet reform
at the informal level is evident as with, for example, the appointment process for a new Secretary-General
(Wiseman, 2015). As a diplomatic venue, the UN represents a dynamic fusion of traditional structure with
non-traditional actors and daunting global issues for deliberation (e.g., Laatikainen and Smith, 2017; Weiss
and Daws, 2018).
Another indication that traditional diplomacy has adapted to the times, although still slowly, is evidence that
more women are seeking a formal diplomatic career. Feminist scholar Cynthia Enloe (1990) famously high-
lighted diplomacy's gendered history. There is also now an impressive array of scholarly works on how women
have been excluded from diplomacy. However, that systematic exclusion has begun to be rectified in national
foreign services and in several academic disciplines, with either direct or indirect links to Diplomatic Studies
(McCarthy, 2014; Sluga and James, 2016; Aggestam and Towns, 2018).
Third, as a coherent set of distinctive practices in the modern era, what we regard as traditional state-based
diplomacy – and the diplomats who carry it out – is not diminishing, but growing, in importance. The surge
in practitioner interest has been evident for several years but has been given a boost by real-world develop-
ments – such as the controversial 2003 US-led intervention in Iraq under George W. Bush and the quirks and
quiddities of the Donald J. Trump presidency. A subsequent, recurrent theme has been whether states ac-
cord more or less weight to diplomacy in their foreign policies. The surge of practitioner and academic interest
in diplomacy in the 21st century, documented in this chapter, has been accentuated by international factors
such as the shock of the 11 September, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States, a subsequent belief
in the need to engage with foreign publics via public-diplomacy to minimize future attacks, criticism of what
many regarded as Washington's misguided response to those attacks, and heightened awareness of other
transnational issues such as climate change.
Looming over all such challenges, however, is the impact on diplomacy of new information and communi-
cation technologies in the so-called digital age. In the 1990s and early 2000s, quite a few foreign ministries
and diplomats in the field optimistically embraced internet-based platforms as part of their public-diplomacy
or what Bruce Gregory more accurately describes as the ‘public dimension of diplomacy’ (Gregory, 2016).
However, the injudicious, even incendiary, use of Twitter by leaders such as President Trump and mounting
revelations about the abuse of digital technologies – for example, business malpractice by social-media gi-
ant Facebook and by the political data firm Cambridge Analytica, and the use of sharp-power techniques by
Russia and China to manipulate open political and digital-information environments in democracies – have
all led to ‘growing public cynicism, social distrust and even technophobia’ (Bjola and Pamment, 2019: 1). In a
world of cyberterrorism, cyberespionage, and cybercrime, former British diplomat Shaun Riordan argues with
cautious optimism that the ‘role of diplomats in both physical space and cyberspace will be crucial’ (Riordan,
2019: 116; Fletcher, 2016; Bjola and Pamment, 2019: 179).
Fourth, and building on the previous points, diplomacy has become increasingly more ‘complex', so that
we can now claim that both its practice and theory is arguably more multifaceted – bilateral (state-to-state
relations), multilateral (multi-state relations), polylateral (state–non-state relations), and omnilateral (non-
state–non-state relations) – than at any time in history. Moreover, as argued, it is no longer reasonable to see
only a universal, state-based diplomatic culture but also regional and national diplomatic cultures. In addition,
arguably, superseding those more formal diplomatic cultures are countless less formal possibilities of plural
diplomatic cultures, reflecting Sharp's group-based perspective and perhaps Constantinou's (2013) view that
diplomacy is intrinsic to all forms of social life.
Fifth, and finally, the practical, real-world complexity in which diplomacy operates has been met by an ex-
ponential leap in theorizing diplomacy in recent years. The evidence presented in this chapter suggests that
Diplomatic Studies is indeed a ‘rich and expanding field’ (Murray, 2013). In addition to this indicative publica-

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tion record, new textbooks have appeared, for example, by Hare (2015); Holmes and Rofe (2016); Bjola and
Kornprobst (2018); Kerr and Wiseman (2018); and Sharp (2019). Moreover, two major handbooks underscore
the growth of Diplomatic Studies broadly defined (Cooper et al., 2013; Constantinou et al., 2016a), as does
the publication of a four-volume Encyclopedia of Diplomacy (Martel, 2018). This growing publication record is
complemented by the continuing impact of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, the launch of the journal Diplo-
macy and Foreign Policy, new book series dedicated to diplomacy, and a growing number of journal articles
in mainstream International Relations journals.
Diplomatic Studies is now established as an emerging academic subfield within the field of International Rela-
tions and, in turn, the broader, global discipline of Political Science. Some of the key questions that motivate
scholars of diplomacy described at the start of this chapter – what is diplomacy? who or what can legitimately
or reasonably be called a diplomatic actor? is diplomacy only performed by sovereign states? can non-state
actors of various stripes reasonably be called diplomatic actors? – now have a solid basis for more reflective
consideration. Theoretically, diplomacy is increasingly seen as much more than a formal system of commu-
nication and representation between sovereign-state entities based on Western conceptions. Even within an
essentially state-centric view, diplomacy can be seen, for example, as moving toward a system of global gov-
ernance (Cooper et al., 2008). Diplomacy's boundaries are shifting in more complex ways than ever before.
Arguably, diplomacy might now be viewed not simply as one of Bull's five institutions – along with war, the
balance of power, the great powers, and international law – but rather the site, or milieu, where the other four
play out in the making of world politics (Sending et al., 2015). Indeed, this perspective might be interpreted as
a tacit endorsement of Martin Wight's (1986: 113) ambitious notion of the ‘diplomatic system’ as the ‘master-
institution’ of International Relations.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the editors for their judicious comments on drafts. I also wish to thank Tevvi Bullock for her
excellent research assistance.
Notes
1 These terms are defined below and more fully in Wiseman, 2010: 24 and Wiseman, 2019: 150–51).
2 This section draws on and updates the author's co-authored chapter with Paul Sharp in Wiseman and Sharp
(2017).
3 This distinctiveness emerges from seven interrelated characteristics: (1) a long-held distrust of diplomats
and diplomacy; (2) a high degree of domestic influence over foreign policy and diplomacy; (3) a tendency to
privilege hard power over soft power in foreign policy; (4) a preference for bilateral over multilateral diploma-
cy; (5) an ideological tradition of diplomatically isolating states that are considered adversarial; (6) a tradition
of appointing a relatively high proportion of political rather than career ambassadors; and (7) a demonstra-
bly strong cultural disposition toward a direct, low-context negotiating style; Wiseman, 2011. On an American
model of diplomacy, see Henrikson (2006).
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• politics
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n74

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Foreign Policy Analysis
Contributors: Jonathan Paquin

Chapter Title: "Foreign Policy Analysis"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Foreign Policy Analysis

Jonathan Paquin
Introduction
Foreign policy analysis (FPA) has evolved significantly since its inception as a field of research. It builds on
a multidisciplinary literature dating back to the mid 20th century. While it is beyond the scope of this chapter
to summarize this entire literature, the objective here is to provide a comprehensive overview of the field by
focusing on its historical development, core theories, major advances, and new perspectives. To this end,
the chapter is structured around two debates that have shaped the field: (1) between agent-centred theories
of foreign policy and structure-centred models of international relations (IR), and (2) between rational choice
and cognitive models of foreign policy. Through these debates, it is possible to reconstruct the evolution of
the field. As this chapter shows, FPA has benefited greatly from these debates and scholars have ultimately
managed to reconcile these differences by generating new theoretical models, leading to a more nuanced
understanding of foreign policy.
What is Foreign Policy?

There is no common definition of foreign policy. Whereas IR's theories are organized around specific defin-
itions and variables, foreign policy is polysemic and context specific (Rosenau, 1980). For some, it includes
states’ international actions and reactions, which can vary considerably over time. For others, it refers to the
underlying visions and principles guiding states’ behaviour. Given the rich and burgeoning literature on foreign
policy, it would be misguided to limit this field of research to a strict definition. For this reason, I have adopted
a broad definition that does not intend to settle this debate. Elsewhere, I have defined foreign policy as ‘a
set of actions or rules governing the actions of an independent political authority deployed in the international
environment’ (Morin and Paquin, 2018: 3).
At the crossroads between theories of IR and public policy (Rosenau, 1971), foreign policy analysis brings
together an eclectic community of scholars. Several experts from the field of IR theories (see Hellman, Chap-
ter 76, this Handbook) look at foreign policy through the lens of IR research paradigms such as realism or
liberalism (Elman, 1996; Moravcsik, 1997; Schweller, 2003). Others produce analyses similar to those found
in the public policy domain (Lentner, 2006). Classic examples include the work of Graham Allison (1969) and
Alexander George (1980). This diverse body of work over the years has contributed to making foreign policy
analysis a vibrant field of research.
Foreign policy analysis is defined by its dependent variables, that is, the puzzles that researchers seek to
explain. Why did Western powers intervene in Libya on humanitarian grounds but fail to do likewise in Syria
(Tocci, 2014)? Why do states in possession of nuclear weapons sometimes decide to dismantle them? For-
eign policy puzzles are endless and so are their potential sources of explanation. For this reason, foreign
policy analysis does not focus on one specific level of analysis. Instead, it has evolved as a multilevel and
multidisciplinary enterprise.
It is multilevel because independent and intermediate foreign policy variables range from micro- to macro-
level analysis; from the personality of a state's leader at one end to the material and ideational structure of
the international system at the other. Everything in between can also potentially be a source of explanation:
political institutions, partisan ideology, interest groups, the media, and public opinion. It is multidisciplinary
because FPA draws on multiple disciplines, including political science, history, economics, psychology, and
public administration, isolating the best explanatory variables to make sense of the interaction between states
and their environment. Over the years, FPA has generated a vast array of theoretical arguments, putting the
field at the forefront of multi-disciplinarity in the social sciences (Hudson and Vore, 1995; Kaarbo, 2003).
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A Short History of the Discipline

Before becoming a discipline in of itself, the study of foreign policy emphasized descriptive and interpretative
approaches traditionally used in diplomatic history (see Wiseman, Chapter 71, this Handbook). Basic rational
choice assumptions were applied to states’ behaviour and there was no real distinction between foreign policy
and IR studies (see Paine and Tyson, Chapter 11, this Handbook). The distinction emerged with the behav-
ioural revolution that hit the social sciences in the mid 20th century. The levels of analysis introduced by Ken-
neth Waltz (1959) and David Singer (1961) helped to distinguish FPA from IR. In Man, the State and War,
Waltz (1959) argued that three images (or levels of analysis) can explain international conflicts: human na-
ture (first image), the state level (second image), and the international system (third image). This organizing
scheme had a profound impact on the field and, to some extent, contributed to a split between the disciplines
of FPA and IR. From then on, foreign policy analysis essentially focused on the first and second images, that
is, the domestic factors involved in the decision-making processes. Focusing on subnational factors such as
the personality of leaders, the bureaucracy, institutional designs, or social groups, FPA generated process-ori-
ented theories that were resolutely agent-centred (Hermann, 1980; George, 1980). By contrast, the field of IR
increasingly focused on Waltz's third image. In explaining interstate dynamics, it looked at the distribution of
power in the international system, international regimes of cooperation, and the impact of international norms
on states’ interactions (Waltz, 1979; Gilpin, 1981; Keohane, 1984; Onuf, 2013). IR scholars thus focused on
structure-centred and outcome-oriented theories.
In the wake of the behaviourist revolution, leading FPA author James Rosenau (1966) and others called for a
more systematic analysis of foreign policy. The idea was that, in order to grow as a scientific field of research,
FPA needed to move beyond descriptive and single case analysis. The aim was to reach a higher degree of
generalization through data collection and systematic analysis. In the 1960s and 1970s, comparative foreign
policy analysis (CFPA) set new research agendas aiming to isolate empirical patterns across multiple coun-
tries and generate models that could explain foreign policy behaviours. Datasets, such as the World Event
Interaction Survey and the Conflict and Peace Data Bank, were used to conduct a systematic comparison of
domestic sources of foreign behaviour (Rosenau, 1968).
Unfortunately, the attempt to reach generalized accounts of foreign policy behaviour was largely unsuccessful
for the simple reason that states’ foreign policy is context specific; it fluctuates according to leaders’ percep-
tions, cultural and historical experiences, economic development, and national political values. Hence, com-
parative foreign policy analysis failed to produce large-range theories that were sufficiently parsimonious to
have universal reach, thereby contributing to the relative decline of the field in the 1980s. This awareness re-
inforced the idea that structure-centred theories of IR (Waltz's third image) provided better alternatives for un-
derstanding international dynamics than the comparison of foreign policies across countries. Hence, a series
of macroscopic theories created in the 1970s and 1980s including neorealism, regime theory, and world-sys-
tem theory garnered significant appeal because they sought to understand international interactions through
policy outcomes rather than a detailed analysis of decision making.
The emergence of the structural theories of IR exacerbated the agent/structure debate. Most FPA theories
emphasized the importance of agents. These theories implied that decision makers are autonomous actors
and together can shape the structure of the international system. IR structural theories, on the other hand,
consider that the study of the international structure must take precedence over that of agents because de-
cision makers are functionally equivalent units, existing within an international structure that conditions their
behaviour. Whether it be Kenneth Waltz's neorealist theory, the English school of IR associated with Hed-
ley Bull and Martin Wight, constructivist approaches such as that of Nicholas Onuf (see Ayukawa, Chapter
2, this Handbook), or the neo-Marxist theory of the world-system developed by Immanuel Wallerstein (see
Guo, Chapter 7, this Handbook), all of these theories consider agents to be so entrenched in the international
structure, that is, the organizing principles of IR, that this structure largely determines their behaviour.
The end of the Cold War, however, showed the great limitations of the structural theories of IR. These theories
were notoriously unable to account for the fall of the Berlin Wall or the collapse of the Soviet Union because
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they were not designed to look at the individual or state level of analysis. They did not consider, for instance,
the role played by Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader of the Soviet Union, or by Lech Walesa, the head of the
Polish labour union – Solidarity, in the disintegration of the Soviet Bloc.
These events compelled IR scholars to acknowledge that foreign policy actors do engineer change in inter-
national politics. As pointed out by Hudson and Vore in the 1990s, it was easier to create systemic theories
during the Cold War because the international system appeared to be well defined, and it was very difficult to
study the Soviet system from the inside. Since the end of the Cold War, however, the international system has
been more fluid and unstable and, consequently, internationalists have had to act with humility, agreeing to
turn to theoretical models of medium-range significance. As a result, it became clear that FPA and IR theories
were complementary – while the international system helped explain continuity in IR, foreign policy agents
were better suited for the analysis of change.
This coincided with the resurgence of FPA as a dynamic field of research at the dawn of the 21st century
(Kaarbo, 2003; Hudson, 2005). This time around, FPA scholars abandoned the search for large-range theo-
ries of states’ behaviour. Instead they began to focus on medium-range theories explaining a limited number
of decisions. This is an intermediate position between, on the one hand, the structural theories of IR that
cannot explain particularisms or changes in IR and, on the other hand, the complexity of the real world that
cannot be comprehended in an orderly and intelligible manner.
In terms of research, a journal exclusively devoted to FPA, Foreign Policy Analysis, was created in 2005,
which is indicative of the well-being of the discipline. This journal is well read and has a respectable impact
factor. It takes pride in the openness of the discipline by promoting multi-causality and multi-disciplinarity. In a
2010 issue of the journal, the editors pointed out that:
The theoretical and methodological approaches used in foreign policy analysis are as varied as the
substantive questions asked. Thus, the strength of foreign policy analysis is its integrative approach
that emphasizes individuals, groups, and institutions at or within the level of the state as driving
forces in foreign policy behaviour and outcomes. (Drury et al., 2010: 188)
This is the message that the FPA community is promoting. FPA is not troubled with paradigmatic warfare or
pledges of allegiance to specific schools of thought. On the contrary, researchers are invited to combine lev-
els of analysis and theoretical models to achieve a better understanding of foreign policy and IR.
Empirical Databases
Starting with Rosenau's call for a more systematic study of foreign policy in the late 1960s, foreign policy and
IR scholars built multiple event-based databases, often with the financial support of the US National Science
Foundation. These empirical databases aggregate a vast quantity of information and record it on a common
numeric scale according to a detailed coding manual. This facilitates comparisons between countries, do-
mains, or periods. Most of these databases are now accessible via the website of the Inter-University Consor-
tium of Political and Social Research (www.icpsr.umich.edu). Following are some of the most important ones.
The Conflict and Peace Data Bank (COPDAB) is a longitudinal database of daily international and domestic
events covering the period 1948–1978 for approximately 135 states. The World Events Interaction Survey
(WEIS) records the actions and reactions of close to 100,000 state and non-state actors, as reported daily in
the New York Times from 1966–1978. The Penn State Event Data Project (KEDS) records English-language
news reports on the Middle East, the Balkans, and West Africa. It includes more than 304,000 events from
1979–1999. The Conflict and Mediation Event Observations (CAMEO) is often presented as a new genera-
tion of event-base automated coding following in the footsteps of traditional databases such as the COPDAB
and WEIS. The Minorities at Risk (MAR) project based at the University of Maryland gathers political, eco-
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nomic, and cultural data on close to 300 ethnic groups that are politically active. MAR provides standardized
information on each of these groups for comparative analyses. The Comparative Research on the Events of
Nations (CREON) is a dataset on the international actions of 36 states, including ‘actors, actions, resources,
targets, and behaviour’ for the years 1959–1968. CREON also provides data on the governmental processes
associated with these international actions. The Manifesto Project records the positions of over 1,000 political
parties, including their foreign policy positions, identified in their electoral platforms from 1945 to the present.
These parties operate in over 50 states on all continents.

It is beyond the scope of this section to summarize all the main theories of foreign policy. The objective is
rather to present a selection of classic theoretical arguments that have helped shape the discipline. Most of
these theories were generated decades ago, yet their explanatory power remains largely valid today. Whether
it is bureaucratic politics (Allison, 1969), role theory (Holsti, 1970), or perception bias (Jervis, 1976), these
notions continue to be mobilized in current FPA research. While the terminology has sometimes changed and
research methods have significantly improved over the years, the fundamental theoretical conclusions remain
much the same.
The Rational Actor

The rational actor model was, in a way, the starting point of FPA (see Paine and Tyson, Chapter 11, this Hand-
book). It was partly in response to this model, in seeking to address some of its limitations, that the field of
FPA evolved. Rooted in microeconomics, the rational actor model argues that no matter how policy makers
behave, they are expected-utility-maximizing-agents (Schelling, 1960; Lake and Powell, 1999). It builds on
the following assumptions: first, decision makers are conscious of making choices; second, actors systemat-
ically classify, by order of preference, the different possible actions to be undertaken; and third, actors act in
accordance with the option that maximizes their utility, considering the information available and the associat-
ed risks. This argument implies that decision makers’ behaviour follows certain patterns that can be explained
by an outside observer or even modelled, predicted, and manipulated.
The rational actor model is parsimonious, explaining a large number of foreign policy decisions by mobilizing
a few straightforward assumptions. However, it also shares some of the great limitations shown by other mod-
els over the years. Cognitive bias and organizational weaknesses often lead decision makers to make errors
of perception and interpretation. These errors, in turn, cause these actors’ behaviour to deviate from that pre-
dicted by rational choice theory. Hence, one central criticism of this model is that rationality is limited.
Allison's Models of Decision Making

Graham Allison introduced two decision-making models in the late 1960s that greatly contributed to the disci-
pline: the organizational model and the bureaucratic politics model. These models provide alternative expla-
nations to the traditional rational actor model. In fact, in explaining American and Soviet behaviour during the
Cuban Missile Crisis, Allison rejected the idea that foreign policy results from rational calculations made by a
central and coherent authority (Allison, 1969, 1971). Instead, he showed that underneath the appearance of
states’ rationality, foreign policy is actually shaped by competing organizations and individuals.
Allison's organizational model shows that foreign policy is the product of complex organizational mechanisms.
He asserted that bureaucracies are conglomerates of organizational units performing independent tasks with
parochial priorities. These units operate according to standard operating procedures (SOPs) in all kinds of

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situations. SOPs include all aspects of government action, ranging from drafting official speeches to the re-
sponse to terrorist attacks. The problem with SOPs, however, is that they make bureaucracies rigid and slow
to respond to new situations. The persistence of SOPs can have dramatic consequences. Strategies that
have proven to be effective in one specific context can be ineffective in another context. For instance, the
intelligence procedures set up during the Cold War failed to help the American government prevent 9/11 (Ze-
gart, 2007).
Allison's bureaucratic politics model, for its part, maintains that foreign policy decisions result from bargaining
among Cabinet members in government positions. Players must defend their viewpoint and their own inter-
ests against other players. They must negotiate with one another to ensure that the government's actions
reflect their vision and serve their own interests in order to justify the essence of their agency. This logic is
summarized by Allison's famous adage, ‘Where you stand depends on where you sit'. In other words, an in-
dividual's position on an issue depends on the post they occupy. This is why players are often equated with
bureaucratic units in competition with one another (Marsh, 2014). The outcome of the bureaucratic game also
depends on the distribution of resources among the players. The scale of the budget, the level of expertise,
social support, and transgovernmental alliances constitute resources that players can use to exert a signif-
icant influence. This model has also been criticized. Stephen Krasner (1971), for instance, argues that Alli-
son's bureaucratic model discharges elected leaders from responsibility, as they can use the model to blame
the bureaucracy for their mistakes.
Perceptions and Misperceptions

Political leaders may be rational actors on the surface, but they can only assimilate the international environ-
ment by simplifying reality, making assumptions about the world, and relying on personal and historical analo-
gies to make sense of IR (Jervis, 1976; Tetlock and McGuire, 1985; Hall and Yarhi-Milo, 2012). The problem
with perception, however, is that any attempt to reconstruct it is risky, as it is impossible to slip into decision
makers’ minds to see the world through their eyes.
Fortunately, Robert Jervis helped overcome some of these methodological difficulties. In Perception and Mis-
perception in International Politics (1976), Jervis showed that leaders’ perceptions of other world leaders fol-
low detectable and predictable patterns because leaders perceive the world with the same basic biases. One
of the most common forms of perception bias is for leaders to overestimate the hostility of rivals. Another fre-
quent bias is for leaders to underestimate how much other world leaders mistrust them. Few leaders define
themselves as threatening or aggressive and it is hard for them to imagine that they may be perceived as
such. Jervis explains that the combination of overestimating the hostility of others and underestimating the
threat one represents as perceived by others can lead to a spiral of misunderstanding and mistrust (Jervis,
1976; Larson, 1997). This spiral often leads states to increase their military capabilities out of fear for their se-
curity, which in turn leads their rivals to perceive this as a threat and react by increasing their military capabil-
ities. Actions that are in fact strictly defensive are frequently perceived as being offensive. This is the famous
security dilemma whereby defensive measures fuel insecurity rather than increasing security. For instance,
while most protagonists were not seeking territorial gain prior to the First World War, they were all under the
impression that they had to prepare an offensive operation to pre-empt an enemy attack. This precipitated the
war (Wohlforth, 1987).
Groupthink
It is now well established that group dynamics influence foreign policy decision making by reducing actors’

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rationality and modifying members’ behaviour. As early as the 1970s, Irving Janis focused on what he called
groupthink (1972). This dynamic occurs when the pressure to reach a consensus takes precedence over the
group's objectives. Group members become so obsessed with their own cohesion that they suppress their
differences. As a result, their capacity to analyse events and formulate moral judgments is substantially dimin-
ished. This is when irrational and dysfunctional decision making occurs, which can lead to fiascos (Kowert,
2002). The Bay of Pigs invasion (Schafer and Crichlow, 1996) and the Iranian hostage rescue mission (Janis,
1982) are often raised as examples highlighting this problem. However, groupthink can also help explain why
groups adopt terrorism as the best strategy to reach their political objectives (Tsintsadze-Maass and Maass,
2014) or the decision made by George W. Bush's administration to invade Iraq in 2003 (Badie, 2010). In gen-
eral, groups appear to advocate more extreme foreign policies than would be the case if an average was
determined after questioning participants individually (Hermann and Hermann, 1989). In this respect, bureau-
cratic politics, as presented above, is the antithesis of groupthink, as the former model highlights competition,
disagreement and pluralism among Cabinet members while the latter focuses on group cohesion.
Janis explains that this particular dynamic emerges from the following syndromes: the group's illusion of una-
nimity and invulnerability, the repression of divergent opinions, the systematic justification of past mistakes,
the conviction of moral superiority, and the tendency to stereotype actors who do not belong to the group.
Research has shown that these syndromes occur when there is a high level of stress, strong sociocultural
uniformity, a weak or dominant leader, a feeling of isolation, an overestimation of the group's capacities, a du-
bious decision-making method, a high concentration of sources of information, and low self-esteem. All these
elements contribute to the emergence of groupthink.
These findings led Janis and his successors to compile a series of prescriptions to reduce the risks of group-
think. These include structured presentations of the various possible interpretations of data, nominating a
devil's advocate whose role is to criticize the other members’ ideas, and urging the leader to abstain from
expressing his/her opinions at the outset of discussions (George and Stern, 2002).
Leadership Style
Another contribution to FPA, highlighting the limits of decision makers’ rationality, is leadership style analysis.
The systematic study of leadership traits goes back to the early 1970s. James Barber (1972), for instance,
came up with a typology of the character of American presidents by juxtaposing two affective dimensions:
the need to invest in work (active versus passive) and the pleasure derived from work (positive versus neg-
ative). Barber's argument was thus simple, including two variables, each documented in a dichotomous way.
His model generated four ideal types ranging from passive presidents who are nonetheless positive, such as
Ronald Reagan, to those who are quite active but only derive a sense of frustration and negativity, as in the
case of Richard Nixon. This typology led Barber to argue that active-positive presidents, such as Bill Clinton,
are generally the best at deploying an effective foreign policy.
Margaret Hermann (1980, 2005) followed suit by developing a more complex typology called leadership trait
analysis (LTA). Hermann studied the personalities of over a hundred leaders through statistical content analy-
sis of their speeches and written statements. Her typology combines seven classic personality traits, including
cognitive and affective ones, namely: (1) the level of cognitive complexity, (2) thirst for power, (3) mistrust
of others, (4) self-confidence, (5) nationalism, (6) sources of motivation, and (7) belief in one's capacity to
control events. Each trait is associated with a set of terms whose relative frequency in a recorded sample of
statements indicates how pronounced that trait is. The results are then compared to the average for political
leaders: a standard deviation above or below the average signifies that the trait is particularly strong or weak.
Based on these calculations, Hermann put leaders into different leadership style categories. The so-called
‘aggressive’ personality, for example, corresponds to low cognitive complexity, a thirst for power, a deep mis-
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trust of others, pronounced nationalism, and a belief in one's capacity to control events. Hermann's research
also shows that leaders with an aggressive personality are statistically more likely to engage in armed con-
flict. Hermann's work remains relevant today, revitalizing studies focusing on the analysis of single individuals
in all their complexity (Crichlow, 2005; Dyson and Preston, 2006; Dyson, 2009; Gallagher and Allen, 2014).
Role Theory
Kalevi Holsti introduced the concept of role in the 1970s (Holsti, 1970). A national role relates to a specific
position on the international stage (Harnisch, 2011). National role theory postulates that states follow a road
map in terms of their international behaviour (Goldstein and Keohane, 1993). Each position corresponds to a
limited repertoire of roles which only exist in interaction with a distinct otherness.
A national role can be defined as a set of shared expectations relating to how a state behaves as a function of
its position on the international stage. States define their role not purely based on rational choice maximiza-
tion, but also on their own cultural background (Cantir and Kaarbo, 2016). More precisely, roles are defined
as ‘social positions . . . that are constituted by ego and alter expectations concerning the purpose of an actor
in an organized group’ (Harnisch, 2011: 8). Hence, roles represent political elites’ shared conceptions of the
appropriate international behaviour of their state according to the expectations of their population and those
of international actors. This includes, for example, the role of reliable ally of the United States, good inter-
national citizen, independent actor, leader, and mediator. These roles prescribe specific behaviours to those
who endorse them, whose interactions then proceed according to fairly predictable scripts.
Thus, the concept of role makes it possible to establish a bridge between the specificity of actors and the
cultural structure in which they operate. Role conception results from the interaction between the ego, that
is, the perception shared by national elites regarding the posture to be favoured on the international scene,
and the alter, or the expectations of international actors, including allies (Brummer and Thies, 2015; Benes
and Harnisch, 2015; Cantir and Kaarbo, 2016). Roles also depend on how political leaders perceive the inter-
national environment. Marijke Breuning (1995) developed a typology of roles based on this perception of the
international system. Hence, the roles of ‘good neighbour’ and ‘activist’ can only be taken on by actors who
perceive the international system as being more organized than chaotic.

This section presents three major advances in foreign policy analysis and their contributions to ongoing de-
bates in the field. These advances address the dichotomous debates, namely the agent/structure and ratio-
nal/cognitive debates. The first advance is the two-level game model, which once again combines the inter-
national and domestic levels of analysis. In line with Peter Gourevitch's statement that ‘international relations
and domestic politics are […] so interrelated that they should be analyzed simultaneously, as wholes’ (Goure-
vitch, 1978: 911), Robert Putnam argues that it is pointless to find out which level of analysis best explains
international interactions, because all levels of analysis matter.
The second advance is neoclassical realism, which helps reconcile the agent of foreign policy and the struc-
ture of IR into a coherent framework. Neoclassical realism provides a constructive response to those who
argue that structural realism has failed to account for changes in IR, as seen in a previous section of this
chapter. Without abandoning the neorealist primacy of the international structure, which they define as the
primary independent variable, neoclassical realists reach out to classical realism by integrating ideas and do-
mestic political variables into their analyses of the international system.

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The third theoretical advance is Behavioural IR, which helps reconcile rational choice and cognitive analysis.
Rather than disregarding cognitivist criticisms of rational choice models, the tenants of Behavioural IR design
complex models that integrate both rational choice theory and cognitive theories. The Behavioural IR current
was developed in the 2000s and encompasses theories recognizing that: (1) decision makers do not always
make rational decisions; (2) leaders adopt cognitive shortcuts when making decisions because they cannot
process a large amount of information; (3) decision-making processes are biased; and (4) leaders have an
aversion to loss and therefore sometimes make risky decisions. Poliheuristic theory is one of the flagship
models of this theoretical approach. These theoretical advances, which have significantly contributed to the
regeneration of FPA, are explored in detail below.
The Two-Level Game Model

Robert Putnam's two-level game model (1988) has contributed to the analysis of strategic interactions in the
context of international negotiations. In Putnam's theory, each state is represented by a chief negotiator. To
reach an international agreement, the chief negotiator must negotiate at two levels simultaneously. On the
one hand, the negotiator must find common ground with their foreign counterparts at the international level.
On the other hand, the negotiator must make sure they have the support of the domestic political actors who
will ultimately ratify the agreement at the national level. Thus, the chief negotiator is caught in a stranglehold
and is under pressure from both sides.
Putnam's argument revolves around the concept of the ‘win-set', that is, the set of possibilities for international
agreement that would be acceptable to the political and social actors at the domestic level. The win-set can
be broad or narrow, depending on domestic preferences. Moreover, institutional constraints and the degree
of cohesion and mobilization among the social actors affects the scope of the win-set. When the win-sets of
the different negotiators overlap, the conclusion of an international agreement is then possible. The narrower
the win-set, the more leverage the chief negotiator has over foreign counterparts. When a chief negotiator's
hands are tied on the domestic front, it gives him/her some credibility in informing the international interlocu-
tors that it will be impossible to accept an agreement exceeding the limits set by the national actors. However,
the narrower the win-set, the higher the risk that the negotiations will fail. This was the case in the continued
conflict between the People's Republic of China and Japan over the Senkaku-Diaoyutai Islands. Nationalists
put so much pressure on negotiators that their respective win-sets failed to overlap, ruling out any possibility
of compromise (Chung, 2007). Identifying the win-set thus allows the negotiator to develop a strategy and cal-
ibrate the power relations at play in the negotiations to be conducted with both foreign and domestic actors.
Neoclassical Realism
Neoclassical realism was developed in the 1990s by authors such as Gideon Rose, Randall Schweller, and
Fareed Zakaria. This school builds on the neorealist assumption that the distribution of power in the interna-
tional system is key to understanding states’ behaviour, but also opens up the analysis to agents and their per-
ceptions. Moving away from Kenneth Waltz's structural neorealism, neoclassical realism joins classical realist
writers, such as Raymond Aron and Henry Kissinger, who integrated domestic variables into their analyses of
the international system. Indeed, because it integrates the primacy of the international structure (neorealism)
into the domestic considerations raised by classical realism, Gideon Rose coined the term ‘neoclassical real-
ism’ to refer to this emerging school of thought (Rose, 1998).
According to neoclassical realism, the impact of the international structure must be studied at the national
level through a series of intervening variables that ‘filter’ structural constraints through leaders’ perceptions,
state institutions, societal cohesion, the role of political elites, and access to material resources. These in-
tervening variables are of great importance because they have a direct impact on decision makers’ ability to

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make decisions. While neorealism claims that states with similar material resources will behave in a similar
way, neoclassical realists counter-argue that they may actually take different, or even opposite routes if they
are subject to different state structures and domestic constraints (Rose, 1998).
Neoclassical realism can explain, for instance, how and why US administrations intervene militarily abroad
(Dueck, 2009). The president has a certain perception of national interests. This perception is conditioned by
the position of the United States in the international system. When presidents conclude that military interven-
tions are necessary to respond to a threat, it is through the constraints of the state structure and domestic pol-
itics, taken as intermediate variables, that they define their strategies and seek public support. Due to internal
constraints, presidents sometimes underestimate the complexity of the problems and miscalibrate the means
of intervention. While critics argue that neoclassical realism merely attempts to compensate for the failure of
neorealism to explain changes in IR (Vasquez, 1997; Legro and Moravcsik, 1999), it has nonetheless made
a constructive contribution to the agent/structure debate in foreign policy analysis.
Poliheuristic Theory
This theory combines rational choice and cognitive theories. Developed in the 1990s by Alex Mintz, poli-
heuristic theory suggests that political decision makers use several cognitive shortcuts when making deci-
sions (Mintz, 1993; Geva and Mintz, 1997). This model is divided into two successive phases based on dis-
tinct cognitive processes. Decision makers first retain a limited number of options to facilitate their delibera-
tions. This first phase does not entail an objective analysis of all possible options, but rather a simplification
based on the decision maker's cognitive judgment. It involves the immediate elimination of options that are
politically unacceptable, that is, those not supported by most of the electorate or that are favourable to political
adversaries. Decision makers essentially exclude options that threaten their political survival. This first phase
is non-compensatory, that is, the weaknesses of an option in a given dimension cannot be compensated for
by its strengths in other dimensions. Hence, an option that is politically unfavourable will be eliminated even
if it could lead to major economic or military gains (Mintz, 2004).
Once the number of possible options has been reduced through cognitive shortcuts, decision makers enter
the second phase, which corresponds more to the logic of rational choice theory. The different dimensions are
examined simultaneously and the strengths of one can compensate for the weaknesses of another. These
comparisons clearly require more discussion and information than the first phase, but this exercise is made
possible by the fact that the number of options has already been reduced.
A growing number of case studies, laboratory experiments, statistical analyses, and formal modelling appear
to confirm the validity of this theory's empirical predictions and assumptions (Keller and Yang, 2016). Beyond
the American context, researchers have successfully applied it to different countries, including China (James
and Zhang, 2005), Pakistan (Sathasivam, 2003) and Syria (Astorino-Courtois and Trusty, 2000).
New Perspectives
In the last few years, innovative research has brought fresh perspectives to FPA. This section focuses on
two of these new perspectives. First, theoretical breakthroughs in social psychology and neuroscience have
brought emotions back to the forefront of analysis. Second, new research on social identity has established
connections between states’ national identity and foreign policy orientations.

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Emotions
Decision makers’ emotional life was long disregarded by researchers, partly for methodological reasons but
also because this factor was believed to only have a marginal impact on foreign policy. Recent studies, how-
ever, have shown the opposite to be true (Mercer, 2013; Hall, 2015; Brodersen, 2018). Emotions have the
ability to create or suppress changes in the beliefs of leaders facing difficult situations. For instance, the anx-
iety felt by decision makers in wartime makes strategic change very likely, while frustration generates resis-
tance to stubbornness (Dolan, 2016a). Research has also shown that positive emotions do not have the same
impact on decisions. In wartime, unexpected good news will create a feeling of joy in a decision maker's mind,
which will favour strategic change and riskier decisions. Good news that was expected, however, will provide
contentment but resistance to strategic change (Dolan, 2016b). Hence, emotions can help predict foreign pol-
icy outcomes. This has implications for all kinds of foreign policy decisions.
Western culture traditionally sets reason against emotions, as though they were two completely independent
thought processes. However, we now know that they are closely interwoven, as emotions directly affect cog-
nition and perception. Several studies in the field of neurology using magnetic resonance imaging have con-
firmed that during the decision-making process, the zones of the brain governing emotions are activated be-
fore cognitive reasoning has been consciously formulated. Furthermore, people who have suffered damage
to the part of the brain that controls emotions, even when their cognitive capacities remain intact, experience
difficulty making trivial decisions. Therefore, emotions appear to be an essential component of all forms of
decision making.
On the basis of these neurological studies, several specialists have argued that FPA should integrate emo-
tional dimensions to a greater extent (Mercer, 2010; Sasley, 2011). Some studies have focused on the affec-
tive attachment that leaders have to their nation (Herrmann, 2017). For instance, a particular form of national-
ism can provoke a cocktail of fear and pride that incites leaders to acquire nuclear weapons for their country
(Hymans, 2006). Brent Sasley (2010) argues that the different forms of nationalism shown by the Israeli prime
ministers have influenced their position in peace negotiations. While Yitzhak Shamir was particularly attached
to Israeli land, Yitzhak Rabin appeared to be more attached to the Israeli people. This variation could explain
their political differences during the Oslo Peace Process.
Social Identity Theory

Individuals’ search for appreciation and esteem leads them to have negative perceptions of groups to which
they do not belong. They also tend to blame these groups for their own misfortunes and discriminate against
them. This is what social identity theory has shown. Based on laboratory experiments, we now know that this
unfavourable bias is generated as soon as groups are created (Tajfel and Turner, 1986).
Several analysts use social identity theory to explain foreign policy behaviour. If most individuals are wary
of those outside their group, it is not surprising that hostility dominates interstate relations and that Hobbe-
sian anarchy is the rule, rather than the exception (Mercer, 1995). Social identity theory can help explain why
states that share a supranational identity appear less likely to engage in military combat with one another.
Sharing a common religion, for example, appears to have a very significant pacifying effect, although some
statistical evidence remains relatively weak (Gartzke and Gleditsch, 2006; Rousseau and Garcia-Retamero,
2007; Kupchan, 2010).
Social identity theory can also help explain Western countries’ policy of double standards in the face of vio-
lations of the international nuclear non-proliferation regime. Western countries generally express a degree of
confidence with regard to liberal democracies, minimizing the destabilizing impact of their nuclear weapons
programs. However, they firmly denounce the potential nuclear programs of autocracies, even before the ex-
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istence of such programs has been confirmed. In this case, membership in the group of liberal democracies
is the discriminating factor (Chafetz, 1995).
Moreover, social identity theory proposes that negative bias is more pronounced when group identity is strong.
This observation appears to be equally valid at the national level. Indeed, there is a statistically significant re-
lationship between populist nationalism and the severity of military conflict (Cederman et al., 2011). There also
appears to be a relationship between the sense of belonging with regard to European identity and opposition
to Turkey's accession to the EU. Even prior to the UK's 2016 referendum on its withdrawal from the EU, the
French elite was already more attached to the European project than was the British elite. This made France
a fiercer opponent of European expansion than Britain. French citizens felt more European, were more likely
to perceive Turkey as the other, and were more averse to its integration (Curley, 2009).
Foreign policy analysis was mainly developed by American scholars, and the United States remains the cen-
tre of attraction of FPA, with most research centres, scientific journals, databases, and annual conferences on
FPA being situated there (Larsen, 2009). Over the years, this academic concentration has generated some
confusion between foreign policy analysis and American foreign policy. Several American scholars have cre-
ated FPA models with American foreign policy in mind and only tested their hypotheses using the American
example.
Fortunately, many distinguished foreign policy scholars from other countries have also significantly con-
tributed to the discipline. Christopher Hill (UK) is one such scholar (Hill, 2003). In The Changing Politics of
Foreign Policy, Hill provides a cross-national and worldwide perspective on foreign policy that aims to be
comparative in nature. His work moves away from US-centric perspectives and notably includes the foreign
policy of Southern countries. Kalevi Holsti (Canada), Alex Mintz (Israel), and Thomas Risse (Germany), to
name but a few, have also made major contributions to the field. Holsti's (1970) role theory has profoundly
impacted FPA to the point where there is now a new generation of role theorists (Harnisch, 2011; Cantir and
Kaarbo, 2016). Mintz's poliheuristic theory provides a way to integrate rationality and cognition into a coherent
model. As for Thomas Risse (1995), his constructivist approach to security studies and cooperation among
democratic allies has strengthened our understanding of norm diffusion in foreign policy. These scholars have
influenced FPA far beyond their respective countries, helping to diversify the field.
Recent studies conducted by the Institute for the Theory & Practice of IR (the TRIP survey:
https://trip.wm.edu/home) in several countries reveal that there are now a greater number of courses on for-
eign policy than on international security, international political economy, or international development. For
instance, graduate courses in the discipline of IR in Australia and Canada now focus more on foreign policy
analysis than on IR theories. This not only suggests that the field is alive and well but that its popularity is def-
initely not limited to the United States, which can only help the field to broaden its scope. Moreover, a growing
number of American researchers are interested in foreign countries, and theoretical models developed in the
United States are spreading on a global scale. There is therefore every reason to believe that the US-centric
aspect of FPA will slowly wane, giving way to a truly international field of research.
Conclusion
Foreign policy scholars have long given up on the formulation of a large-range theory that would sparingly ex-
plain the most important foreign policies. Rather, they have switched their focus to developing medium-range

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theories that explain a limited number of decisions, or even an aspect of the decision-making process, in well-
defined circumstances. It is an intermediary position between, on the one hand, the structural theories of IR
that cannot explain particularisms or changes in IR and, on the other hand, the complexity of the real world
that cannot be reported in an orderly and intelligible way.
A common observation regarding foreign policy is that foreign and domestic politics are no longer as divided
as they were said to be in the mid 20th century (Morgenthau, 1948). The dividing line between the two is more
porous today than it was when Rosenau wrote his first FPA articles. The increasing porosity of this boundary
stems from the current challenges facing states. Indeed, several issues that were once considered strictly
international now involve domestic politics. Conversely, other issues, traditionally perceived as national, now
have obvious international ramifications. Islamic terrorism perpetrated by transnational organizations such as
al-Qaeda or Daesh, and the radicalization of Western citizens who pledge allegiance to these organizations,
are a striking reminder of the porosity of international borders. It is perhaps by focusing on theoretical tinkering
such as combining rational and cognitive theories or integrating domestic variables into structural arguments
that contemporary FPA scholars will be able to successfully tackle the empirical puzzles of our time.
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• foreign policy analysis

• foreign policy
• theories
• international system
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n75

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Globalization
Contributors: Helen V. Milner

Chapter Title: "Globalization"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Globalization
Helen V. Milner
Introduction
The academic literature on globalization is enormous. As a major process affecting the globe for the past few
decades, globalization has been much studied. This essay touches briefly upon the major themes gleaned
from the literature in political science and especially international politics.
Definition
Globalization has a number of meanings, but it generally refers to the integration of separate nations, regions,
groups, or even individuals into a wider global system. It is characterized by increasing linkages and connec-
tions between peoples, organizations, and countries and by growing knowledge of these interactions. This
process is a general phenomenon that can include economic, political, social, or cultural integration. From
the British School perspective, Held defines globalization as ‘a historical process which transforms the spa-
tial organization of social relations and transactions, generating transcontinental or inter-regional networks of
interaction and the exercise of power’ (Held et al., 1999: 2). A standard definition for economists comes from
Dreher (2006: 1092) and Gygli et al. (2019: 546): globalization ‘describes the process of creating networks of
connections among actors at intra- or multi-continental distances, mediated through a variety of flows includ-
ing people, information and ideas, capital, and goods'. The deepening of interactions among states, among
non-state actors, and between non-state actors and states is usually seen as a main characteristic of global-
ization.
While globalization is a contested concept, most agree that some process is at work transforming global pol-
itics and society. However, questions of why, how, and with what effects this process is occurring are debat-
ed. Some link globalization with the spread of the ideology of neoliberalism and see it as a process of ho-
mogenization of all societies and economies around a neoliberal model (Buzan, 2005). Sometimes there is a
teleological element in that the emergence of one world or a single integrated global economy is supposed.
Others view it as a more neutral process of increasing interactions driven by technological change (Pascali,
2017). Some view it as the decline and demise of the nation-state and the rise of global governance through
international institutions (Keohane, 1984; Keohane and Nye, 1977). Other scholars of international relations
doubt that this process is occurring and/or having much impact on world politics; they see states as remain-
ing dominant and sovereign in world politics (Gilpin, 1975; Mearsheimer, 2001; Waltz, 1979). For some, the
roots of globalization are in technological changes, such as the lowering of the costs of communications and
transportation, which make the movement of people, ideas, goods, services, and capital faster and less cost-
ly. These changes are irreversible and often increase over time, even if governments try to stop them. On the
other hand, globalization has been viewed as cyclical; high levels of global integration have been associated
with two distinct periods in recent history, where the first one ended with a sharp reversal of globalization.
The process of globalization is still happening; it is not complete. Countries have different levels of integration
into the world system. Governance of some issue areas is more global than for others. Many barriers to the
flow of goods, services, capital, labor, and ideas around the world persist. The extent to which a truly global
system – whether economic, political, or social – exists is debated. Moreover, the groups and forces opposing
globalization still exist and may be gaining strength.
Some History about the Concept

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The concept of globalization has been used in many contexts and disciplines. In political science, the term
began to be widely used in the 1980s. Earlier research focusing on similar topics had theorized about ‘interde-
pendence’ and ‘internationalization', starting in the 1960s and 1970s, which then turned into a larger literature
on international regimes and institutions in the 1980s and 1990s (Keohane, 1984; Keohane and Nye, 1977;
Krasner, 1983). Earlier research also noted the growth of an ‘international society’ and cosmopolitanism (Bull,
1977; Bull and Watson, 1984; Little, 1998; Wight, 1977). Of course, there is also the long-standing literature
from a Marxist prospective about the expansion of capitalism and Gramscian hegemony (Cox, 1987, 1993;
Gill, 1993; Strange, 1986). These many different earlier strands of the literature feed into and color the diverse
current globalization debates.
Recent Data and History of Globalization since 1980s
Some History
There have been at least two waves of globalization in recent history: one from roughly 1870–1914 and the
current one beginning after the Second World War but accelerating after the 1980s (see Baldwin and Mar-
tin, 1999). On the surface, these two periods look similar: trade, capital, migrants, and ideas surged across
borders; however, the causes, processes, and consequences seem different (Baldwin, 2016; Baldwin and
Martin, 1999). In the mid to late 19th century, a global system emerged as the European powers, especially
the British, forged an open world economy using both military power and economic policy. The development
of colonies around the globe and the extension of European trade, capital, values, and political power under-
girded this period of globalization (Boswell and Chase-Dunn, 2000). In the late 19th century, the world econ-
omy attained levels of openness that had never been seen before (Findlay and O'Rourke, 2007). In some
areas, such as the movement of labor, such levels of integration have never been achieved since (Hatton and
Williamson, 2005). This open economy collapsed in the early 20th century with the two World Wars and the
Great Depression (Kindleberger, 1973). Some research argues that the forces associated with globalization
caused its destruction (James, 2001).
From 1914 to 1945, globalization was in retreat. Protectionism became the dominant trade policy for many
countries; trade and currency blocs formed regionally, often around one powerful country, and military conflict
was prevalent (Eichengreen, 2008; Simmons, 1994). Nationalism, isolationism, and regionalism marked this
30-year period. Globalization not only halted but declined. However, after 1945, the United States picked up
the mantle from the British and began to forge a world economy through the creation of international institu-
tions, an open economic policy, and an internationalist foreign policy (Gilpin, 1975, 1981; Maier, 1977; Ruggie,
1982; Strange, 1987). The global system, however, was divided into at least two blocs with the United States
on one side and the former Soviet Union on the other; hence, globalization was always limited in this Cold
War system (Gowa, 1989). It was only after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s and the opening of
China that globalization accelerated.
During the first wave of globalization, beginning around the 1870s, a truly global economy was created as
Europeans spread their influence around the world. Technological change, especially the decline in transport
and communication costs through the invention of steamships, railroads, and the telegraph, fueled the Indus-
trial Revolution in Europe and North America (Mokyr, 1994). But this Northern industrialization led to deindus-
trialization in the South, especially for China and India (Buzan and Lawson, 2013), as only a small number of
countries benefited from the decline in transport costs (Pascali, 2017). These changes enabled a boom in in-
ternational trade, which also benefited from the removal of many trade barriers with the shift from mercantilist
policies to freer trade. International financial markets became highly integrated as the British pound dominat-

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ed global markets. Migration was also prominent, as a result of the drop in transport costs. This asymmetric
structure of relations led to ‘differential’ growth in globalization where some parts of the world – mainly the
North – saw intense societal interactions and economic interdependence and others did not (Buzan and Law-
son, 2013). British hegemony and European dominance shaped this wave of globalization.
In the second wave, technological change, especially in the communications field, also helped propel global-
ization, but US dominance now shaped it. Transport costs declined greatly until about 1960, but then informa-
tion, communications, and transport (ITC) costs plunged (Baldwin, 2016). Led by the United States, domestic
policy changes began in the advanced industrial countries in the 1960s, as they opened up their markets to
trade and foreign investment. However, international governance also mattered. The creation of the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and then the development of the European Community (EC) start-
ed a process of trade liberalization among the developed countries in the 1950s. Tariff rates were slashed
after the formation of the GATT in 1947. The Treaty of Rome in 1958 created the world's largest customs
union. Further tariff and non-tariff barrier (NTB) reductions and the multinationalization of production fostered
north–south trade. The development of global value chains (GVCs) recently has been a distinguishing char-
acteristic of the second wave (Antràs and Chor, 2013).
Financial globalization also followed. Capital flows took longer to return to pre-First World War levels but seem
to have done so (Sachs and Warner, 1995). Domestic policy changes, again often led by the United States,
plus new global governance institutions fostered this new wave of globalization. The Bretton Woods monetary
system supported by the IMF and World Bank helped countries establish currency convertibility and a world
monetary system based on the dollar (Cohen, 1977; Eichengreen, 2008). While labor flows never became as
liberalized as those for capital and goods, largely because of immigration restrictions in the developed world,
there was some return to the greater mobility of labor (Peters, 2017). The extension of the EU to a new set of
countries and new issues also marked this integration movement. By the 1980s, most of the advanced indus-
trial world had joined the world economy.
After the 1980s, the rest of the world began opening their markets and borders and joining the world economy.
The end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and economic reform in China all added impe-
tus to the globalization process. Many developing countries joined the world economy and its international
institutions. Most countries now belong to the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank. Conventions on labor stan-
dards, human rights, environmental agreements, and other areas were widely adopted by countries around
the world (Simmons et al., 2006). By 2009, most of the world's countries had become part of a global sys-
tem. Shocks, such as the 1998 Asian financial crisis and the 2008 financial crisis that began in the United
States, spread across the globe rapidly. The second period of deep globalization had arrived. While many
claim that the United States has been the main country to benefit from globalization, it seems as if the ben-
efits have spread more broadly while the costs have been borne not just by developing countries (Baldwin,
2016; Strange, 1986). A salient issue now is whether the backlash against globalization, especially in the core
developed countries, is growing and once again will halt it.
Measuring globalization is not straightforward as different scholars stress different aspects of the process
(Dreher et al., 2010; Gygli et al., 2019). The most widely used composite index is the KOF Globalization Index
(elaborated by the Swiss federal institute of technology in 2002), which breaks down globalization into three
main dimensions: economic (including international trade and cross-border investment), social (including ex-
changes of information and the movement of people across international borders), and political globalization
(including the number of foreign embassies in a country and its involvement in international organizations).
The overall KOF score records a substantial rise in the liberalization of trade and investment as well as greater
social and political integration since the 1980s. The world saw the fastest growth of globalization in the 1990s.
There was also a tight relationship between economic and social globalization until approximately 2000 when
social globalization began to flatten out and then economic globalization started to decrease in 2007 following
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the financial crisis. Since 1990, after the end of the Cold War, political globalization has increased substan-
tially. However, all aspects of globalization have slowed or halted since 2010.
Developing countries (or the more than 140 countries we have data on for the entire period) were, according
to the KOF index, much less globalized than industrialized economies in 1980, but their integration into the
global system rose substantially until the 2008 financial crisis. After the financial crisis, their economic integra-
tion has been flat, but social and political globalization has continued to rise. The developing countries have
caught up with the developed ones in terms of trade these days. Financial liberalization in developing coun-
tries has not proceeded in a linear fashion. Developing countries started at a very low level, and liberalization
was susceptible to macroeconomic shocks and crises. Developing countries recently have become important
sources of capital outflows in their own right, especially from multinational corporations in East Asia. Gener-
ally, during the past 30 years, the developing countries have come to match the developed ones in terms of
their extent of globalization.
The Causes of Globalization

There is a long literature on the causes of globalization with numerous theories. This section explores five key
sources of pressure for globalization; there is much debate over whether these forces caused globalization or
were merely associated with it.
Technological Change
Some scholars see globalization as proceeding in a secular fashion driven inexorably by technological
change. In the mid and late 19th century, the development of railways, the steamship, telegraphs, and the
Suez and Panama canals massively reduced transport and communication costs (Clark and Feenstra, 2003:
295). These technologies spread through military competition, colonial conquest, and tensions in the interna-
tional system (Milner and Solstad, 2018; Sechser and Saunders, 2010), which helped facilitate a convergence
in prices and increases in international trade. Despite these advances, technological diffusion during the first
wave of globalization was not uniform. Pascali (2017) finds that only a small number of countries benefited
from the decline in shipping costs and trade integration. This exacerbated income divergence between rich
and poor countries.
The end of the Second World War, again, ushered in a period of rapid technological change and a reduction
in trade costs (Hummels, 2007). Major inventions such as electricity, the telephone, radio, television, automo-
biles, refrigerated shipping containers, and airplanes largely spread unrestricted, with the possible exception
of the communist bloc. These innovations transformed society and politics as well as intensifying interna-
tional economic linkages. From about 1980, the information and communication technology (ICT) revolution
dramatically changed the global economy. Richard Baldwin (2016) termed this ‘Globalization's Second Un-
bundling’ as ICT drove the multinationalization of production chains.
Those adopting a secular view of globalization view technology and the globalization pressures it creates as
an ‘irrepressible force’ because technologies ‘once learned’ are not easily forgotten (O'Rourke, 2008: 36). At
the same time, politics complicates this deterministic view. Countries still maintain the ability to block tech-
nological adoption through policies including import restrictions, subsidies, and regulatory standards. Interest
groups can lobby for and governments can adopt policies to slow down or alter technological change. Nev-
ertheless, many scholars see technological change and globalization as largely irreversible even if countries
can alter the pace of change.

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Hegemonic Leadership Or Power

In contrast to the secular view of globalization, other scholars stress the roles of politics, power, and states.
One of the most important theories considers the distribution of power in the international system. Hegemon-
ic Stability Theory (HST) posits that one world leader who possesses overwhelming political, economic, and
military resources is necessary for an open and stable global economy (Gilpin, 1975; Krasner, 1976). There
are two related but independent versions of HST. In the first, the world leader is a benign hegemon willing
to shoulder the costs of maintaining international peace and open markets in return for status and prestige
(Kindleberger, 1981). This benign version of HST argues that smaller states will cooperate in order to en-
joy the hegemon's provision of public goods – e.g., its management of the international financial system and
exchange rates, promotion of market access and free trade, and its role as the lender of last resort (Kindle-
berger, 1986, Lake, 1993). Without a hegemon to coordinate the world economy, countries are likely to fall
back on nationalism and economic protectionism. The hegemon can also build up international institutions to
reassure smaller countries and bind itself to maintain an open system (Keohane, 1984). The UK in the late
19th century and the United States after the Second World War are the main examples.
In the second version of HST, scholars question the altruistic intentions of the hegemon (Gilpin, 1975, 1981).
Here the global leader is out to maximize its own interests and uses its superior resources to coerce others
into following it. The hegemon benefits directly from growth generated from economic openness and pays
for sustaining the system as long as it maintains a relative advantage over competitors. British and Ameri-
can hegemony were thus more a coercive process by which each country imposed its will on others. In the
British case, imperialism combined with open markets and the dominant role of the pound helped it induce
others to open their markets and join the international trading and financial system. Even international law, as
developed in this period, served to enable globalization as the European powers used it to force open their
colonies. In the US case, its dominance after the Second World War helped it establish a system of interna-
tional governance that has maintained its hegemony for over 60 years.
In this more malign view, the UK and then the United States gained much from their exalted position at the
center of the global system; ironically, however, in both cases their decline seems part and parcel of their
leadership role. British domination ran into increasing difficulty, as other countries grew and became competi-
tors. Sustaining international openness carries costs to the hegemon as economic and technological benefits
diffuse throughout the system (Gilpin, 1975). Substantial debate exists as to whether the malign or benign
view of hegemony is more appropriate. This debate includes controversy over the extent to which the coun-
tries other than the hegemon have been hurt or helped by this globalization process. More recent research
has turned to concepts of hierarchy and unipolarity to theorize about power and globalization (Lake, 2009).
Rise of China
The rise of a new global power to challenge the hegemon may spell the end of one period of globalization and
perhaps presage the rise of a new period. One of the most contentious issues in globalization today is the
rise of China and its implications for the current global order (Brooks and Wohlforth, 2016). China's leaders
embarked on dramatic reforms of its domestic economy and international engagement in 1978. In the inter-
vening 40 years, more than 800 million people escaped poverty and economic growth has driven significant
military, technological, and foreign policy transformations. China is now the world's largest exporter of manu-
factured goods, has the largest banking sector, and has nine of the world's 20 largest technology companies.
From a realist perspective, China's rise seems to presage American decline (Allison, 2017; Gilpin, 1981;
Mearsheimer, 2001). Some scholars argue that with its rise the system maintained by the United States is
likely to fall apart and a new system led by the Chinese will arise. This change may occur through war or

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more peacefully with China replacing the United States, as the United States did to the UK in the post-Second
World War period. More constructivist accounts question this emphasis on material power (Allan et al., 2018;
Kupchan, 2014; Saull, 2012). Allan et al. (2018) focus on the distribution of identity in Western nations and
rising powers, such as the BRIC countries. They argue that China is unlikely to lead a counter-hegemonic
order because the rest of the world has yet to accept its authoritarian political ideology as legitimate.
Other scholars argue that the current liberal order is stable and may be modified but not overturned (Beckley,
2012; Brooks and Wohlforth, 2011). China has benefited much from the existing international order. At the
same time, Chinese leaders have long maintained that Western countries have the dominant say in existing
international organizations. In addition to working within the existing framework, China has set up alternative
institutions such as the BRICS New Development Bank in 2014, the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank
(AIIB), and an ambitious external development assistance program known as the One Belt, One Road Ini-
tiative. For some, China will accept the existing international order and follow global norms if it can play a
larger role in them (Chestnut and Johnston, 2009). The Chinese government currently seems to view eco-
nomic globalization as a valuable process to protect, but it is less clear whether social, political, or cultural
globalization are also favored. China's future role will matter greatly for whether globalization persists, or the
world economy fragments into closed, competing regional blocs as it did in the interwar period.
The Spread of New Norms and Ideas

Globalization may be due to the spread of new ideas across the globe. The dominance of beliefs in capitalism
and neoliberalism after the end of the Cold War, for instance, may have enabled globalization. Constructivists
note that many core ideas which support globalization, such as democracy, capitalism, neoliberalism, human
rights, or even the idea of a ‘developed’ country, are social constructions for standardizing state behavior (Ab-
delal et al., 2015; Simmons et al., 2006). For example, the Copenhagen criteria for new members of the EU –
being democratic, market-based, and protecting human rights – set the boundaries for acceptable and unac-
ceptable behavior of states. States have internalized and made these practices legitimate, such behavior then
becomes prescribed as the modern way to develop and govern a country. These values establish a hierarchy
of states and push all states to act similarly, thereby generating the forces for globalization (Towns, 2012).
Scholars disagree on precisely how norms are diffused throughout the system: either directly through co-
ercion, manipulation, socialization, and persuasion or indirectly through taboo, stigmatization, competition,
learning, and mimicry (Adler-Nissen, 2014; Keck and Sikkink, 1998; Tannenwald, 2007). Moreover, the spe-
cific actor diffusing the norm is also contested. Some authors stress the role of international organizations
in setting norms and principles and superseding national standards organizations (Mattli and Büthe, 2003).
Others argue that domestic institutions shape how international norms are formed and diffused throughout
the system (Brooks and Kurtz, 2012). Still some stress the historical contingency of how norms are diffused
(Bach and Newman, 2010). Finally, transnational and domestic rights advocacy groups and other so-called
norm entrepreneurs (Keck and Sikkink, 1998) and ‘antipreneurs’ (those resisting change to traditional norms)
(Bloomfield, 2016) are highlighted as central players. Despite seeing many differences in the process, schol-
ars in this perspective tend to view the spread of a new set of underlying norms and values as responsible for
globalization and its persistence. Hence the return of mercantilist ideas may presage the retreat from global-
ization (Drezner and McNamara, 2013).
Democratization
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Another supposed cause of globalization is the spread of democracy. Scholars have consistently found a
strong relationship between democracy and economic globalization (Milner and Mukherjee, 2009). Democra-
cies tend to trade more with other democracies (Bliss and Russett, 1998), have less protectionism with one
another than with authoritarian regimes (Mansfield et al., 2000), and lower trade barriers overall (Chaudoin et
al., 2015; Milner and Kubota, 2005). Democratization has also been used to explain the puzzle of why many
developing counties after the 1980s decided to liberalize their economies (Milner and Kubota, 2005). Others
question whether democracies remove trade barriers or simply alter the types of trade protectionism used
(Kono, 2006). Apart from trade, democratization was also considered a leading factor in financial liberaliza-
tion. There is a strong tendency for democracies to be more open to capital accounts (Milner and Mukherjee,
2009). Pandya (2014), drawing upon 30 years of data on FDI, finds that democracies put fewer restrictions on
FDI than do autocracies. Others find a more conditional relationship between financial openness and democ-
racy (Steinberg et al., 2018).
Other aspects of democratic political systems hold significant consequences for the degree of economic glob-
alization. Which groups democratic governments respond to and what their preferences are for globaliza-
tion is important. Some scholars argue that in the developed democracies, leaders have responded more to
wealthy voters and corporations than to the middle class (Bartels, 2016; Gilens, 2012). They and others ar-
gue, for instance, that the push for economic globalization through trade agreements has come from and ben-
efited mostly these groups (Manger, 2009). If publics are becoming more opposed to globalization in these
countries and more willing to vote against it, then we may see retreats from globalization as these domes-
tic forces of opposition gain influence (Autor et al., 2016b; Ballard-Rosa et al., 2019; Colantone and Stanig,
2018; Rodrik, 2018). Democracy may act as a force for or against globalization depending on which groups
have political influence and what their preferences are.
Unintentional and Differentiated

Another reason given for the rise of globalization is the unexpected and unintentional choices of states and
other actors. Countries operating independently may have simply converged on similar paths toward glob-
al openness more by accident than design. For example, Katzenstein and Seybert (2018) argue that actors
in the international system operate within situations with large amounts of risk and uncertainty. While risk is
calculable, actors need agility to deal with uncertainty and often respond with much innovation and improvi-
sation. Globalization is not necessarily desired by states, but instead is the result of a set of uncoordinated
choices states and actors have made.
Looking at other developing countries also confounds the conventional explanations of globalization. The vast
majority of developing countries may have opened their borders and markets to globalization, but the speed,
sequencing, and paths have been remarkably different. Historical legacies of industrial and development poli-
cies (Brooks and Kurtz, 2012), policy feedback (Farrell and Newman, 2010), and the structure of domestic
political coalitions (Thelen, 2014) help explain the different causes and paths of globalization. For these schol-
ars, how states respond to globalization's challenges will also be different. Some, for example, point to the
perceived uncoordinated and differentiated responses to the 2008 financial crisis (Copelovitch et al., 2016).
In sum, no single factor may have been the major cause of the recent wave of globalization; instead, uncoor-
dinated policy choices and changes by many states may have set off this wave.
Some Consequences of Globalization

As there are many theories about the causes of globalization, many also exist about its consequences. This

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section below looks at seven of them briefly. The literature features debates about whether these outcomes
have been caused by globalization or are just coincident with it.
Distributional Effects: Winners and Losers Domestically

There are the economic costs and benefits from globalization, and they are not distributed equally among
individuals or countries. Economists generally agree that economic globalization produces aggregate welfare
benefits for nations, but simultaneously creates domestic winners and losers. The distributive politics behind
globalization are varied and complex. There are three main competing frameworks. First, the Ricardo-Viner
(RV), or so-called specific factor, model focuses on employment sectors. In the RV framework, workers’ in-
comes are tied to their sectors’ involvement in international trade and investment (Hiscox, 2001). Those in
the export sector should see their incomes rise, whereas job losses and wage declines are concentrated in
sectors competing with imports. An alternative theory known as the Stopler-Samuelson theorem posits that
high-skilled labor gains in advanced countries because that is the abundant factor, whereas middle- and low-
skilled workers suffer displacement from the surge of imports from countries with lower levels of skilled labor
(Hiscox and Hainmueller, 2006).
More recent theories dominated by ‘new, new trade theory’ (NNTT) find much more varied effects (Jensen
et al., 2015; Johns and Wellhausen, 2016; Kim, 2017; Melitz, 2003). These models focus on individual firms
by taking into account their productivity and involvement in in global value chains. Workers at the most pro-
ductive so-called ‘superstar’ firms benefit from globalization. Conversely, workers at less productive firms are
prone to lower wages and layoffs as these firms lack the ability to compete internationally.
In the past, economists adopting a Stopler-Samuelson framework assumed that workers displaced by glob-
alization would rather easily and quickly find new jobs. Recent empirical work challenges these assumptions
and finds that job losses from import competition are often associated with years of unemployment and re-
duced wages (Autor et al., 2014). Far from costless job switching, displaced workers are met with search
frictions, retraining and migration costs, and generational challenges (McLaren, 2017). Rodrik (2011) has also
argued that the costs of redistributing after globalization to compensate its losers may outweigh the overall
benefits it brings.
Moreover, economists generally assumed that the gains from economic globalization would fuel economic
growth and enlarge government budgets in order to compensate the losers. In return for citizens’ support for
globalization, governments would offer social welfare programs including unemployment insurance and ac-
tive labor market programs, as Karl Polanyi (1957) long ago noted. John Ruggie (1982) famously termed this
‘embedded liberalism', where governments in industrialized countries expanded social welfare in return for
citizen support for open markets and borders. There is much debate about to what degree and why govern-
ments in industrialized countries have been unwilling or unable to compensate the losers from globalization.
This problem is exacerbated in developing countries where governments are more constrained in implement-
ing social welfare programs than industrialized countries (Rudra and Tobin, 2017: 294). Developing countries
are reluctant to raise taxes to fund large social programs fearing they will discourage foreign investors. The
relationship between globalization and government expenditure is complex, however. Domestic political insti-
tutions, such as left-oriented political parties and strong labor unions, along with mass ideology, all seem to
have an impact on determining social policies to counter globalization's adverse effects (Garrett, 1998).
Inequality
There is vigorous debate about globalization's effects on inequality. Poverty rates have fallen dramatically
since the 1990s as globalization has accelerated. The World Bank (2018: 1) estimates that 1.1 billion people
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have escaped extreme poverty in the past 25 years. Currently, about 735 million people – or 10% of the
world's population – live on less than $1.90 a day, compared with 37% in 1990 (ibid.). While absolute poverty
worldwide may have declined, within-country inequality has not (Bourguignon, 2015; Milanovic, 2016). Some
countries with the largest decreases in absolute poverty, such as China, India, and Brazil, have also seen ris-
ing inequalities in parallel with economic globalization. Alvaredo et al. (2018: 105) show that ‘the global top 1
percent has captured twice as much total growth than the global bottom 50 percent between 1980 and 2016'.
On balance, globalization has had both direct and indirect effects on within-country inequalities (Bourguignon,
2015). In terms of direct effects, several scholars have found a correlation between globalization and income
inequality. Import competition from China following its WTO accession in 2001 has been correlated with re-
duced worker earnings in the United States (Autor et al., 2016a). Apart from trade, global financial crises have
also been found to exacerbate income divides (Dabla-Norris et al., 2015).
In both advanced and developing economies, scholars have found a bias toward high-skill labor. Helpman et
al. (2010) posit that the most productive firms in an economy want to hire high-skilled workers; thus, high-
skilled workers have an advantage in the labor market and can command high wages, exacerbating wage
inequalities. However, scholars vociferously disagree whether globalization or technological change and dein-
dustrialization is responsible. These effects may be worsened in developing countries where the loss of man-
ufacturing jobs has largely preceded industrialization (Rodrik, 2016). Yet it is difficult to disentangle technolo-
gy from globalization. As such, globalization may alter wage inequalities indirectly.
Global Convergence: Politics, Economics, and Culture

Some scholars have claimed that globalization is leading to convergence among countries across the globe
in economic, political, and cultural terms. Globalization has also been linked to a convergence of national
policies including standards and certifications (Prakash and Potoski, 2006), environmental policies (Holzinger
et al., 2008), labor rights (Greenhill et al., 2009), legal styles (Kelemen and Sibbitt, 2004), gender equality
(Krook and True, 2012), and even protest behavior (Della Porta and Tarrow, 2012).
There is also an enormous debate as to whether globalization has a homogenizing effect on culture and
values. An early literature found a strong relationship between globalization and culture – the so-called Mc-
Donaldization of culture (Ritzer, 1998). In contrast, others argue that globalization has accentuated cultural
differences between countries, possibly leading to a ‘clash of civilizations’ (Huntington, 1996) because glob-
alization spreads both extremism and McDonald's (Barber, 1995). A third set of arguments notes that cultural
diffusion from globalization is not uniform and often forms a hybrid when melded with the local culture (Kraidy,
2005).
At the individual level, some see globalization as leading to a convergence of individual values involving self-
expression and assertiveness (Deutsch and Welzel, 2016) or acceptance of ‘outside’ information and out-
siders (Beck and Grande, 2007). Others see globalization leading to divergent ideas, a revival of interest in
indigenous languages and customs, and nativist and nationalistic tendencies (Lubbers and Coenders, 2017).
An extensive literature notes that globalization may lead to economic convergence among countries. Econ-
omists note how globalization can help create international knowledge spillovers, technology diffusion, and
economies of scale (Grossman and Helpman, 2015). Growth has often been fastest in the developing coun-
tries and poverty reduction has been concentrated there. Economic convergence then, it is believed, results
from faster growth and rapidly declining poverty in the developing world. At the same time, the World Bank
(2018: 15) acknowledges that poverty alleviation has slowed recently.

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While globalization may have improved aggregate welfare, there are several reasons for why it might have
negative effects and not lead to convergence. The link between financial globalization and economic growth is
not straightforward. Economists note that open capital markets can induce economic volatility, reduce trade,
and increase prices for the poorest (Lang and Tavares, 2018: 6). Also, within-country inequality – caused, in
part, by globalization – can drag down economic growth rates. In addition to these explanations, structural
factors such as geography, skill endowments, and institutions can complicate globalization's effects (Rudra
and Tobin, 2017: 290).
Undermining Democracy: Propelling Populism?

The rising inequality and immigration associated with globalization along with many governments’ inability or
unwillingness to compensate globalization's losers have led some scholars to wonder whether globalization
might be undermining democracy and leading to a surge in support for populist parties and candidates (Autor
et al., 2016b; Colantone and Stanig, 2018; Rodrik, 2018). Research on trade's effects on voting outcomes has
found a strong association between regions facing import competition from low-wage countries and support
for populist voting. Scholars have pointed out that globalization produces strong demands by citizens for re-
distribution and compensation for job loss risk from globalization (Cusack et al., 2006; Margalit, 2013; Walter,
2010). Some scholars have found that when these demands have gone unmet, workers have voted for more
extreme parties and candidates in both the United States and Europe (Autor et al., 2016b; Colantone and
Stanig, 2018). Other researchers have argued that globalization is not the cause of populism and stressed
that cultural backlash against new values has engendered nativism and a xenophobic backlash that has fos-
tered nationalistic and anti-democratic sentiments (Norris and Inglehart, 2019).
Reducing Conflict
Globalization can affect international and domestic conflict. Both interstate and civil wars have been on the
decline as the world globalized. Increased trade and foreign investment (Bussmann, 2010; Lee and Mitchell,
2012) as well as trade agreements (Mansfield and Pevehouse, 2000) have been associated with lower levels
of international conflict. One prominent example of this argument is the ‘capitalist’ or ‘commercial peace’
(Gartzke and Zhang, 2015; Schultz, 2015).
Political scientists have long assumed that international conflict disrupts trade and investment flows (Gowa
and Mansfield, 1993). As such, globalization increases the costs of war. While it was historically assumed that
increasing the costs of war would keep the peace between countries (Russett and Oneal, 2001), the costs
of war and the onset of conflict appear to be conditional on a number of other factors (Gartzke and Zhang,
2015). Economic openness can have salutary effects, some claim, even indirectly. Kinne (2012) finds that
countries that are most central for global trade initiate far fewer conflicts than less central states. Even third-
party trade can help prevent states initiating hostilities with other states (Kleinberg et al., 2012). In addition to
international conflict, globalization can affect civil unrest (Jha, 2013).
An alternative view argues that globalization can lead to more conflict between states as increased interde-
pendence offers more opportunities for trade and investment disputes. The United States and China have
deep-seated disagreements over trade and investment protections, trade deficits, technology transfer and in-
tellectual property rights, Chinese outward investment and national security concerns, state-owned enterpris-
es and industrial policy, and currency manipulation. These disputes have occurred against the backdrop of
larger concerns about hegemony and leadership in the world's economy. Some fear that this creates an ex-
plosive atmosphere that may lead to military confrontation (Allison, 2017). Others believe that the economic

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interdependence will mitigate the risks of war and conflict (Christensen, 2015).
Undermining National Sovereignty

Globalization may undermine countries’ sovereignty. The rise of supranational organizations accompanying
the last wave of globalization is thought to threaten countries’ autonomy. When joining an international institu-
tion and following its rules, states give up some freedom of choice in exchange for coordinating policies with
other countries, hopefully to achieve a better outcome overall. As states are bound more tightly into webs
of economic, political, and social ties with other states, globalization naturally erodes some level of national
autonomy.
The rise of international organizations has stimulated these controversies. Joining these institutions often
means adjusting policies and coordinating with other states (Keohane, 1984). However, others note that these
institutions rarely constrain states; states often act in contradiction to their commitments and they build in flexi-
bility to the terms of their international commitments so they can respond to significant changes (Grieco, 1988;
Krasner, 1983). Countries, for example, have signed many international trade agreements, limiting their trade
and investment policies and opening their economies. Governments, however, create flexibility when binding
themselves to international commitments. They want to balance domestic pressures and international oblig-
ations (Rosendorff, 2015), using ‘escape clauses’ (Mansfield and Milner, 2012) and ‘binding overhang’ (Pelc,
2009) in trade agreements as well as secrecy in international investment arbitration (Hafner-Burton et al.,
2016). This provides states with the flexibility in implementing the agreement, leaving them less constrained.
Debates rage over the legitimacy of international institutions with publics wondering whether unelected inter-
national organizations should hold key economic decision-making power.
Spreading Crises
Globalization may also spawn financial crises and accelerate their diffusion throughout the world. Using up-
dated data by Laeven and Valencia (2018), there has been 151 banking crises from 1970–2017. The number
of banking crises has grown from three in the 1970s, to 40 in the 1980s, to a peak of 74 in the 1990s. The
Latin American debt crises in the early 1980s, the Mexican peso crisis in the early 1990s, as well as the East
Asian Financial Crisis in 1997, typify how crises spread and suggest a connection with growing globalization
(Laeven and Valencia, 2018: 8). However, the world saw only seven crises in the early 2000s until the onset
of the global financial crisis.
Some scholars argue that the liberalization of capital flows has led to excessive bank lending, credit booms
and busts, enlargement of shadow banking systems, and the magnification of other distortions that might lead
to crises (Reinhart and Rogoff, 2009). In a globalized world economy, banks can become larger than what
governments in many smaller states can credibly rescue in times of crisis (Bordo and James, 2014). Some
authors argue that some global banks are so large that they are out of reach of domestic regulators (Strange,
1986), leading to risky behavior and pro-capital ideas in the global system (Blyth, 2013). Others argue that the
relationship between foreign capital and crisis is conditional on a number of factors about financial markets
(Copelovitch and Singer, 2017), suggesting no clear relationship between financial globalization and crises.
Developing countries are often especially prone to crises because in the world economy they are more reliant
on foreign capital and vulnerable to sudden stoppages of credit. Trade openness may also cause fiscal crises
for these states (Bastiaens and Rudra, 2018), but other authors have found the opposite effect, suggesting
that trade may have less clear effects on the incidence of crises (Rose, 2005). Other scholars point to the role

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of structural adjustment programs by international institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank in foster-
ing crises in the developing world (Dreher and Gassebner, 2012). In sum, evidence exists that globalization,
especially through financial markets and some international institutions, may make countries more prone to
crises.
Globalization and the Future

The future of globalization is uncertain. Many of the forces helping propel it have changed. US hegemony
is much weaker, a rising China could undermine or extend it. Given the long-term effects associated with
globalization, democracy and democratization may not support it. More generally, some of its possible conse-
quences, like rising inequality and crises, may be generating reactions against it. Technological change also
may have ambiguous effects in the future as automation and artificial intelligence advance.
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• global governance
• international trade
• General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

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http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n76

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International Political Economy
Contributors: Stéphane Paquin

Chapter Title: "International Political Economy"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
International Political Economy

Stéphane Paquin
Most specialists date international political economy's (IPE) birth to the year 1970 when British scholar Susan
Strange published an article entitled ‘International Economics and International Relations: A Case of Mutual
Neglect’ (Strange, 1970). In this article, Strange criticized the fact that, in most universities, courses in inter-
national relations were inadequate to understand the changes occurring in international economics and vice
versa.
The field of IPE emerged in the 1970s in the UK and the United States and subsequently in other parts of
the world. Why then? In the 1960s and 1970s, several international factors contributed to the growth of IPE
as a field of research. The decline of the United States, at least in relative terms, combined with the emer-
gence of new economic giants such as Germany and Japan, sparked a series of debates on the decline of
US power or hegemony. The post-war period was further marked by a wave of independencies among for-
mer European colonies. Starting in the 1970s, newly independent countries called for a different international
economic order. These actors gradually became members of various international organizations, which made
it more difficult, not only for the United States but also for the other Western countries, to exercise leadership
on the international scene and to adopt norms that would achieve consensus in international organizations.
Other factors helped launch IPE. The first oil shock in 1973, the problems of economic growth and stagflation
in the 1970s and the debt crisis of Latin American countries, such as Mexico, Brazil and Argentina during the
1970s and 1980s, caused great anxiety over international economic stability. Added to that was the economic
interdependence and internationalization of major corporations from the Western world. With the collapse of
the Soviet Union and the accelerated development of new information technologies, IPE reached a tipping
point in the 1990s. The multiplication of studies on globalization permitted IPE to become enduringly institu-
tionalized in political science departments. Hence, the debates about economic interdependence, globaliza-
tion and the decline of US power marked the birth of IPE as a field of inquiry.
Despite its relatively young age, IPE has since grown dramatically. It is now an academic discipline with a
coherent set of concepts, theories, research programs and reference works. It has its founding authors, and
many professors describe themselves as specialists in this discipline. In the United States alone, more than
30% of university professors, in the broad field of international relations, list IPE as their first or second field of
research, making it the second most popular field in international relations after security issues. The situation
is similar in Canada with 26% and in the UK with 24% (Maliniak et al., 2012: 28–9).
What is IPE?
Although the definition of IPE is still the subject of debate, researchers generally agree that IPE is concerned
with international politics and international economics, that is to say, beyond state borders. One of the most
cited definitions of IPE comes from one of its founding fathers, the late Robert Gilpin. For him, IPE is ‘the
reciprocal and dynamic interaction in international relations of the pursuit of wealth and the pursuit of power’
(Gilpin, 1975: 43). In 2000, Jeffry Frieden and David Lake defined IPE more simply as ‘the study of the inter-
play of economics and politics in the world arena’ (Frieden and Lake, 2000: 1). In the Routledge Encyclopedia
of International Political Economy, R. J. Barry Jones offers a similar definition of IPE. According to Jones, IPE
‘addresses the complex interrelationship between political and economic activity at the level of international
relations (IR)’ (Jones, 2001: 813–14).
While these definitions are the most agreed upon, other definitions exist as well. In his major work published
in 1987, The Political Economy of International Relations, Gilpin himself presented IPE as the study of in-
teractions between states and markets (Gilpin, 1987: 8). Joseph Grieco and John Ikenberry also chose this
formulation (Grieco and Ikenberry, 2003). Likewise, the founding mother of IPE, Susan Strange, titled her

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textbook, published in 1988, States and Markets: An Introduction to International Political Economy (Strange,
1988b). However, in her book Retreat of the State, Strange declares her regret over the choice of this title
(Strange, 1996: 3). She would have preferred ‘Authority and Markets' as, according to her, the state is no
longer the main source of authority in the international system.
Jeffry Frieden and Lisa Martin believe that the emphasis placed on economic dimensions most distinguishes
this field of research from other fields looking at international issues. According to these authors, the field
of IPE includes ‘all work for which international economic factors are an important cause or consequence’
(Frieden and Martin, 2002: 118). In contrast, Stephen Krasner, one of the most important realist theorists of
IPE in the United States, maintains that IPE ‘is concerned with the political determinants of international eco-
nomic relations’ (Krasner, 2008: 108).
According to Ronen Palan, those who consider IPE a sub-discipline of international relations (the orthodox)
would prefer to call their discipline ‘international political economy', while those with a more multidisciplinary
conception of IPE (the heterodox) would prefer the term ‘global political economy', in order to show that global
political economy does not focus solely on the politics of international economic relations (Palan, 2000). But
this distinction is not rigorously respected. For example, the flagship journal of the heterodox school is entitled
Review of International Political Economy. Certain authors with heterodox leanings also use the term ‘new
international political economy’ to distinguish it from the orthodox approach.
Approaches to IPE
To describe a global and cross-area perspective of IPE debates that has been neglected in political science
because of the domination of the US and Eurocentric approaches, we can adopt Immanuel Wallerstein's con-
cepts of core, semi-periphery and periphery. Based on the research of a team of professors working on the
project Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) who conducted several studies on international
relations and IPE around the world, and on the introductory textbooks, we can conclude that the core of the
theoretical production in IPE indisputably consists of the US orthodox school. Even critics of orthodox IPE
concede it is the school that has produced the principal debates and theories and has dominated the disci-
pline since the 1970s (Paquin, 2016; Cohen, 2014).
The semi-periphery is constituted of the neo-Gramscian and the British school, which are part of a larger het-
erodox approach. The periphery is constituted of the Green and the feminist IPE. They are heterodox in their
epistemological conception of IPE. These last theories or approaches tend to be ignored in the major text-
books and in the training of young scholars, especially in the United States. In many cases, these theories
are labelled ‘critical theories'.
The orthodox school, which is massively concentrated in the United States, derives largely from political sci-
ence departments. Its level of analysis nowadays lies mostly at that of medium-range theories. Its research
agenda focuses on subjects such as cooperation, international institutions, power relations, globalization and
especially US hegemony. Its objective is to understand how the world works without passing normative judg-
ments. The orthodox school is not very open to disciplines other than economics, political science and inter-
national law. It also bears a dual allegiance to positivism and quantitative methods. This school has a bias for
rationalism and positivism; it resides on the two pillars of traditional hard science. The orthodox school values
the scientific method based on the natural science model and causal theories.
With the passing of time, it has adopted a scientific culture closer to that of neoclassical economists. The style
is reductionist and demonstration is nowadays often quantitative. The majority of its authors favour method-
ological individualism and rational choice theory. The school's orthodoxies have a predominantly materialist
and neo-utilitarian vision of the world. Constructivism and reflective ideas-based analyses are largely absent
from the analysis. The orthodox school is becoming more and more focused on quantitative methods and
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increasingly on formal modelling (Paquin, 2008, 2013a, 2013b, 2016; Cohen, 2007, 2008, 2014).
The orthodox school is divided into many theoretical approaches: realist, liberal (the predominant perspective
in IPE) and domestic politics, also sometimes referred to as ‘open economy politics’ (Paquin, 2016). The con-
structivist approach, apart from a few exceptions, remains marginal in IPE. According to Abdelal et al., who
published a collective work in 2010 in which they sought to introduce constructivism in IPE, constructivism
is progressing everywhere ‘except in the mainstream of international political economy, which has remained
resistant to this trend. As used to be the case elsewhere, the view of the world that still informs much political
economy scholarship is materialist and rationalist’ (Abdelal et al., 2010: 3).
The semi-periphery is formed from the works of the heterodox school: the neo-Gramscian school and the
British school. The Green and the feminist IPE make up the periphery. All of these approaches, with the ex-
ception of some of the (liberal) green theories, can be labelled ‘heterodox'. Heterodox approaches are charac-
terized by their critical orientation with regards to IPE and to the works of the orthodox school. The heterodox
school does not accept the world as it is (Cox, 1981; Strange, 1984). Compared to the orthodox school, the
heterodox school is more explicitly normative and focuses on questions of justice, ethics, morality and equity
in IPE. Robert Cox once wrote: ‘The point is not just to explain the world but to change it’ (Cox, 2008). The
heterodox school does not believe in the idea of adopting the scientific culture of the hard sciences mod-
el (Paquin, 2013a, 2013b, 2016). That approach is deemed inadequate for understanding the real world in
which we live: the world of the social sciences. The heterodox school is predominantly post-positivist. It tends
to reject quantitative methods and formal modelling. It is also very critical of rational choice theory and will-
ingly develops holistic approaches. It is much more open to the role of ideas, identity and values. Its works
are closer to the tradition of research in interpretive historical sociology, quite the opposite of reductionism.
It is also explicitly interdisciplinary. The heterodox school concentrates on very big questions such as: who
has power in the global economy?; what is hegemony?; and how does international finance work? To answer
these much bigger questions, researchers must consider a much wider range of factors. Positivist epistemolo-
gy is thus largely useless, as the parameters are changing and all relevant factors must be analysed (Paquin,
2013a, 2013b, 2016; Cohen, 2007, 2008, 2014).
A warning is necessary: it is true that these debates and this opposition between the scientific culture of the
orthodox school and the heterodox school give a good overview of what the IPE discipline is today, but they
do not do justice to the great diversity of the work since its foundation. As an example, Robert Gilpin or Peter
Katzenstein (1998), of the US orthodox school, never abandoned their historical analyses. In addition, the dif-
ferences appeared only gradually and they are now at their peak. They are especially visible among the new
generation of orthodox authors.
The orthodox and heterodox schools are ideal types, that is, they exaggerate certain traits in the thinking of
several authors and link ideas that make it possible to give meaning to the reality. This typology forms and
structures ideas in a more logical and homogeneous way than the reality. In other words, orthodox authors are
orthodox to varying degrees, just as heterodox authors propound varying degrees of heterodoxy. Therefore,
instead of seeing this divergence between orthodox and heterodox in terms of two totally opposed schools, it
is preferable to imagine it as a continuum on which the orthodox approach is on one end and the heterodox
on the other. In the end, however, the division with regard to IPE theories is very real and is based on different
scientific cultures that are largely incompatible and irreconcilable.

The main themes that have structured the core researches in IPE since the 1970s are globalization and in-
terdependence and hegemonic stability theory, in which the United States has the leading role and regime
theory and international institutions (for the debates about globalization see Helen V. Milner, Chapter 73, this
Handbook). International finance, environmental issues and gender are also very important topics.
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Hegemonic Stability Theory

Since the 1970s, the principal analytical debate in IPE, with globalization, was centred on hegemonic stability
theory. For many scholars, the declinists, the US leadership was in decline in the early 1970s because, on
15 August 1971, US President Richard Nixon suspended the monetary system established by the Bretton
Woods Agreement in July 1944 during the Second World War. With this action, the US head of state planted
a seed of doubt: had the world's most powerful country begun its decline, just like the British Empire before
the First World War? If so, would history repeat itself? Would the decline of the United States plunge the world
into a maelstrom of instability marked by a new economic crisis like that of 1929 and a global conflict like the
Second World War?
A contrario, to remain stable, does the international system require a ‘stabilizer’ – that is to say, a hegemony
that has enough power to ensure the system operates smoothly? These debates gave rise to hegemonic sta-
bility theory, one of the founding theories of IPE. The answers to these questions, and to many others, would
structure the evolution of the debates in IPE from the time of its foundation in the early 1970s until today.
Historical economist Charles Kindleberger (1973) was the first to formulate the terms of the debate in his
book The World in Depression, 1929–1939. He ascribed the depression that followed the 1929 crash to the
US government's hesitations to assume the leadership of the world after the First World War, when it seemed
evident that the British Empire was in decline and no longer able to fulfil this role. Kindleberger believed that
to work properly, the world economy needs one stabilizer – and only one. In the context of the inter-war years,
it could only be the United States.
According to Kindleberger's theory, the benevolent leader is a powerful state that assumes responsibility for
the common or public goods on the international stage. In his opinion, to avoid prolonging of the crisis of
1929, the United States should have shown leadership to keep markets open for distress goods, set itself up
as a long-term or counter-cyclical capital lender, adopted a more stable exchange rate system, coordinated
macroeconomic policies and served as a last resort lender in order to provide the international financial sys-
tem with the necessary liquidities.
Kindleberger contended that the problem with world public goods is that the responsibility for them lies es-
sentially in the hands of the country that plays the role of world leader. As all countries can profit from public
goods without assuming the costs, the multiplication of free riders overwhelms the benevolent leader, which
is no longer able to keep up this responsibility. Thus, for Kindleberger, the problem for the United States in
the 1980s was not too much power but not enough – not an excess of dominance but, instead, too many free
riders.
In IPE, this debate was initiated by Stephen Krasner in a 1976 article. For Keohane, even though Krasner was
not the first to discuss the subject, his article was the one to most clearly set the terms of the debate that has
engaged IPE researchers since the 1970s. In this article that appeared in the journal World Politics, Krasner
maintained that an open economy on the international level is more likely to come about ‘during periods when
a hegemonic state is in its ascendency’ (Krasner, 1976: 323).
This article is highly critical of the approach developed by Joseph Nye and Robert Keohane about interde-
pendence in world politics. Krasner wrote:
The basic conventional assumptions have been undermined by assertions that the state is trapped
by a transnational society created not by sovereigns, but by nonstate actors. Interdependence is not
seen as a reflection of state policies and state choices (the perspective of balance-of-power-theory),
but as the result of elements beyond the control of any state or a system created by states. This
perspective is at best profoundly misleading. (Krasner, 1976: 317)
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While this approach may explain the developments within an international economic structure, as Krasner ar-
gued, it cannot explain how the structure was actually created. In his article, Krasner aimed to show that the
structure of international trade is in fact determined by the interests and power of states acting to maximize
their own national interests. In summary, it is not because free trade is theoretically good for all players – even
the less productive, as Ricardo maintains – but that it is perceived as such by each state taken individually.
The distribution of power between states is the key factor. His article's most important conclusion is that a
hegemonic power distribution is conducive to an open trade system. Krasner called this the ‘state-power’ ar-
gument (Krasner, 1976).
A second author who has contributed significantly to the realist version of hegemonic stability theory is Pro-
fessor Robert Gilpin of Princeton. In 1981, Gilpin published War and Change in World Politics. One objective
of this book was to adapt Kindleberger's thesis to the realist IPE perspective. However, Gilpin's greater am-
bition was to explain the growth and decline of hegemonic power and to explain change in IPE (Gilpin, 1981:
10–11). Gilpin devised the theory of hegemonic power cycles.
Gilpin's general thesis is implicitly rationalist and utilitarian. He argues that an international system is built
because social actors (states) enter into relationships and create structures while at the same time pushing
for their own self-interests. The system's structure reflects the distribution of power within the international
system. As power and interests are not static factors, the system transforms and forces actors to re-examine
their strategies. The system is in equilibrium when no player can hope to gain from a change in the system.
When a state believes it can gain, that is, when the benefits of the change outweigh the costs, the system can
change.
The central point of Gilpin's book is that when equilibrium is achieved, it probably will not last, as the costs of
maintaining the system outweigh the benefits. If the dominant power(s) cannot restore equilibrium, the new
system will reflect the new distribution of power. Gilpin's thesis is in keeping with Kindleberger's idea, espe-
cially regarding the necessity for the hegemonic power to assume responsibility for the international public
goods. Furthermore, the hegemonic power must add order and security to its responsibilities (Gilpin, 1981:
10–11). Unlike Kindleberger, Gilpin does not think of the hegemonic power as a benevolent leader whose role
is to stabilize and be responsible for the international system. For him, the hegemonic power acts on the in-
ternational stage in its own national interest.
In 1987, Robert Gilpin published his major synthesis The Political Economy of International Relations, the
most widely used reference work in IPE courses in US universities during the years following its publication.
In it, Gilpin argued that US hegemony in the international system had been in decline since the 1970s, and
that this was affecting the liberal order formed after 1945. Gilpin saw two reasons for this decline: first, the
exporting of US technologies to other countries in the world, which accelerated the reconstruction of Western
Europe and Japan; and second, the dramatic rise in the costs of containing the USSR. In this context, the US
government was no longer able to impose its supremacy or retain its competitive advantages in the world.
In this increasingly difficult economic context, which began with the Vietnam War and continued into the Rea-
gan administration, Americans were more and more reluctant to bear the cost of the international public good,
as a number of countries profited from the system put in place by the United States after 1945, increasing
their own wealth and power by free-riding on the back of the United States. Consequently, the United States,
guided by their national interest, no longer acted as Kindleberger's benevolent leader but as a ‘predatory
hegemon'. For Gilpin, this meant that the United States was less disposed to subordinate its own interests
to those of its allies, and that in its international actions, it tended to exploit its hegemonic status to reap ad-
vantages in keeping with its national interests, which it defined increasingly narrowly (Gilpin, 1987: 345). This
situation prompted a new era of neomercantilism.

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This transformation had critical consequences for the international system. It signalled first, the return of pro-
tectionism and mercantilist policies on the part of the declining hegemonic power and, second, the return of
regionalism and aggressive bilateralism (Gilpin, 1987: 363). This type of behaviour garnered sanctions from
the other members of GATT, risking further deterioration of the situation. These transformations posed a se-
rious threat for the international trade system and for the survival of the liberal order. The exacerbation of
rivalries complicated post-hegemonic cooperation. In the new edition of his book in 2001, Gilpin uses the
same type of analysis but targets China as the new potential rival of the United States. For Gilpin and realist
theorists, these changes are not good news, especially due to the fear of a hegemonic transition war.
One recent contribution to the debate comes from Graham Allison with his book Destined for War (Allison,
2017). According to Allison, when a rising power like China threatens to take the place of the hegemonic pow-
er like the United States, it can lead to a very dangerous situation similar to the one described by the Greek
historian Thucydides in his history of the Peloponnesian War. The rise of Athens and the fear it instilled in
Sparta created a situation where a war was seen as inevitable. This situation is known as being ‘Thucydides's
trap'. According to Allison, over the past 500 years, there are 16 precedents of a rising power threatening
a hegemonic power. In 75% of those cases, the final outcome was war. The goal of Allison's book is not to
predict the future but to prevent a war between two superpowers. Since wars did not occur in 25% of these
cases, it is possible to avoid a war between China and the United States, but, according to Allison, that will
require a statecraft capable of dealing with a rising power.
Liberal Institutionalism
The other major debate that has been dominating IPE debates since the 1980s is about the role of interna-
tional institutions and cooperation. Its main objective is, to paraphrase the title of a book by Kenneth Oye, to
explain ‘cooperation under anarchy’ in the context of the decline of US hegemony (Oye, 1986).
Initially, liberal institutionalists accepted realist theorists’ idea that cooperation is sometimes difficult due to
the anarchic nature of the international system. They maintained, however, that institutions can facilitate in-
ternational cooperation. Therefore, Keohane asked the following question: ‘how can cooperation take place
in world politics in the absence of hegemony?’ (1984: 14).
Contrary to some realist theorists’ predictions, the role of international institutions did not diminish with the
decline of US hegemony that began in the 1970s, according to the orthodox school of IPE. Rather, these in-
stitutions tended to become more important in international affairs. Realism and neorealism were confronted
with an ‘ocean of anomalies’ in terms of international cooperation (Keohane and Martin, 2003: 75). This para-
dox needed to be explained.
Liberal institutionalists believe that international cooperation became increasingly important after the Second
World War. It became more institutionalized and extensive, as the following organizations demonstrate: the
UN, the GATT (and later the WTO), the World Bank, the IMF and, on a regional basis, the EU, in addition to
many international regimes. For Robert Keohane, potential collective gains explain the considerable increase
in the number and reach of institutions of multilateral cooperation (Keohane, 1999: 36).
According to Robert Keohane and Lisa Martin, institutions are ‘persistent and connected sets of rules (formal
and informal) that prescribe behavioural roles, constrain activity, and shape expectations’ (Keohane and Mar-
tin, 2003: 78). Institutions establish, to varying degrees, the rules of the game. These international institutions
may take several forms: an international or formal non-governmental organization, an international regime or
informal agreements. It is the degree of institutionalization that differentiates institutions.

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The multiplication of international institutions indicates a growing institutionalization of world politics, which
seems to be to everyone's advantage, even that of the superpowers. Keohane believes that superpowers,
because they seek to influence events throughout the world, need rules that are generally accepted by other
states. Even an uncontested superpower like the United States could not achieve its objectives by exercising
its influence only through bilateral relations: a policy of persuasion carried out on such a scale would have too
high a cost (Keohane, 1999: 37).
According to Robert Keohane and Lisa Martin (2003: 81), liberal institutionalism is a criticism of, and an
amendment to, realism. Initially, liberal institutionalism adopted practically all the basic assumptions of neo-
realists, except that it treated information as a variable. Liberal institutionalists did this less out of conviction
than as a research strategy. As Keohane and Martin write (1995: 43), ‘this decision was admittedly taken
more for analytical convenience and rhetorical effect than out of deep conviction. It was a tactical decision,
later reversed, rather than part of institutional theory's hard core'.
States are thus utilitarian and rationalistic and exist in an environment where international agreements cannot
be hierarchically enforced. Therefore, institutionalists anticipate that states will cooperate only if they have
enough interests in common. The crucial difference between neorealism and liberal institutionalism is the role
of information. Neorealists believe that information about the intentions of states is important but of poor qual-
ity. States must therefore assume the worst and act accordingly. They may cooperate, but this cooperation is
not durable and takes place on an ad hoc basis. Neorealists doubt that it is possible for states to systematical-
ly improve the quality of information coming from the international environment. Thus, the lack of information
and the impossibility for states to fundamentally change the international system force them to opt for a de-
fensive strategy.
For their part, liberal institutionalists consider information a fundamental variable for explaining interstate co-
operation. Information, they say, may be influenced by human actions. While a lack of information may limit
cooperation in an anarchic system, nothing prevents states from acting to improve the quality of the informa-
tion available in order to promote cooperation. Liberal institutional theories, therefore, pertain to the role of
international institutions in the production and propagation of information. These institutions may perform this
role in many ways. They may help make the behaviour of states understandable by providing information on
the intentions of other states, by establishing standards or by providing reliable causal theories on the rela-
tionship between an action and a result. In all cases, they reduce both the costs of the exchange and the
uncertainty. They are at once an independent variable and a dependent variable, because they change as
a result of human actions and transform the processes and expectations, which may profoundly impact the
behaviour of states (Keohane and Martin, 1995: 46).
The landmark work that structured the neo-neo debate is After Hegemony, by Robert Keohane, published in
1984. In this book, Keohane aims to demonstrate that states can cooperate even when the hegemonic power,
after playing an important part in setting up cooperation institutions, has begun a period of relative decline.
According to Keohane, repeated attempts at cooperation in the 1970s suggest that the hegemon's decline
does not necessarily mean the death of cooperation (Keohane, 1984: 9). International institutions are crucial
in IPE because they make communication easier, thereby reducing uncertainty caused by the lack of infor-
mation.
Neorealist authors who are critical of liberal institutionalism suggest that if there was no hegemonic power, no
country would follow up on or enforce international agreements and, consequently, none would apply sanc-
tions against free riders. For institutional neoliberals, the question presents itself only when two actors are
involved in a single-round situation. In the contemporary international system, however, international coop-
eration between states takes place on many issues and over a long period. Consequently, as the probability
that the actors will meet again is sufficiently high, the issue of the next interaction will be important to them.

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Therefore, it is in their interest to play the cooperation game (Axelrod, 1984).
The political market failure approach in IPE has been applied to other issues related to international trade, fi-
nance and the environment (Stein, 1990). A state might, for example, hesitate to conclude a free-trade agree-
ment, though economic theory says that all countries signing the agreement will win, even those at a disad-
vantage in all sectors of production. The best strategy for each state is to apply an optimal tariff, but if all
countries behave the same way, they are all at a disadvantage. If one country does not impose a tariff while
others do, this country will probably be in an unfavourable situation. These political market failures could be
diminished, even eliminated, by the creation of international institutions such as the World Trade Organization.
This institution can determine the norms of what is acceptable behaviour for a state, establish and enforce
the rules of the game, conduct studies and follow-up on important issues and provide a dispute resolution
process.
Neo-Gramscian Hegemony
The neo-Gramscian approach, originally theorized by Robert Cox, is a perspective in IPE that focuses on
change in historical processes, social structures and social dynamics in order to understand world order and
IPE. Fundamentally non-determinist, this approach concentrates on the historical conditions for the emer-
gence of a particular social order within a country and its effects on world order. Contrary to the problem-solv-
ing theories that Cox identifies with orthodox theorists, the neo-Gramscian approach has an explicit norma-
tive aim. The neo-Gramscian school also has an affiliation with the Marxist and neo-Marxist approaches. The
neo-Gramscians’ greatest contribution to the debates in IPE is their concept of hegemony, which they see as
a form of structural power based not just on military strength and possession of the means of production, but
also on ideas and civil society. Hegemony becomes an intersubjective process.
Inspired by the analyses of Antonio Gramsci, Cox built his theory on the idea of hegemonic control in capitalist
societies in order to explain how the dominant ideas about the social order help to maintain that order. In his
works, Cox transposes Gramsci's ideas and concepts regarding domestic politics (hegemony, historic bloc,
organic intellectuals, etc.) in order to construct and explain his own conception of world order. The neo-Gram-
scian approach in IPE projects Gramsci's ideas onto the international scene (Cox, 1996: 124). For Cox, hege-
mony at the international level:
[…] is an order within a world economy with a dominant mode of production which penetrates into all
countries and links into other subordinate modes of production. It is also a complex of international
social relationships which connect the social classes of the different countries. World hegemony can
be described as a social structure, an economic structure, and a political structure; and it cannot be
simply one of these things but must be all three. World hegemony, furthermore, is expressed in uni-
versal norms, institutions and mechanisms which lay down general rules of behaviour for states and
for those forces of civil society that act across national boundaries, rules which support the dominant
mode of production. (Cox, 1996: 137)
For Cox, since 1945, a hegemonic order has been built in response to the capacity of the United States –
the dominant power – to define the norms of the desired order in universal terms that are compatible with the
interests of other states. This form of political domination is not experienced as such by those who are under
it. The dominant power instead manages to have others adhere to this order, sometimes at the cost of certain
sacrifices. Once implemented, neo-Gramscian hegemony moves from a relational to a structural power rela-
tionship.
International institutions are the product of hegemony. The characteristics of international institutions that
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strengthen the hegemon's power are: ‘(1) the institutions embody the rules which facilitate the expansion of
hegemonic world orders; (2) they are themselves the product of the hegemonic world order; (3) they ide-
ologically legitimate the norms of the world order; (4) they co-opt the elites from peripheral countries; and
(5) they absorb counterhegemonic ideas’ (Cox, 1996: 138). International organizations such as the UN, the
World Bank, the IMF, GATT and, nowadays, the WTO are mechanisms through which the universal norms of
the hegemonic power are expressed and diffused. For Cox, international organizations have contributed to
the particular structure of the international order by strengthening the dominant forms of state. International
organizations become organs for spreading the interests of the dominant power.
The British School: Structural Power

The institutionalization of IPE in the UK owes a great deal to Susan Strange, and her desire to build IPE on
multidisciplinary foundations became a distinctive trademark of the British school. The British school's lack of
a coherent research paradigm has led to a great diversity of works from globalization to the relations between
markets and the states to international finance. Causal theories are often absent and formal modelling non-
existent. The main strength of these works is that they target problems, underscore injustices and show up
areas of absence of governance, order or authority. While the orthodox approach aspires to scientific ‘objec-
tivity', the heterodox approach is more openly normative in the tradition of pragmatism and moral philosophy.
The heterodox school adopts a less formal methodology that is closer to interpretive historical sociology. This
method is more compatible with the larger ambitions of heterodox researchers. The orthodox school is more
intensive while the heterodox school is more extensive.
In 1994, with the publication of the first issue of the Review of International Political Economy (RIPE), the bias
for a multidisciplinary approach became the norm. The inaugural editorial stated:
RIPE's raison d'être is to bring together these exciting new attempts to understand contemporary
social change by facilitating dialogue and debate across existing academic divides. This will be our
contribution to nurturing a new IPE. The implications of this are that, in traditional terms, the journal
will inevitably be ‘multidisciplinary’ in scope and ‘interdisciplinary’ in spirit. (RIPE, 1994: 2)
One important contribution of the British school is Susan Strange's theory of structural power. In the second
half of the 1980s, Susan Strange joined the debate on the decline of US hegemony with a thesis that was
a direct response to the ‘declinist school', whether represented by Robert Gilpin, Stephen Krasner or Robert
Keohane. For Strange, hegemonic stability theory is vague and ambiguous, as the existence of a hegemonic
power only partially explains why one order prevails at certain times, but not at others.
She also disagreed with the observation that the United States had lost power and that this decline of US
power explained the disorder within the international system. For Strange, this idea that had dominated the
debates in the United States since the 1970s was largely a myth. The theory of the decline of hegemonic sta-
bility served simply to excuse the refusal of the United States to assume its role as the leading world power,
a position which, according to Strange, it still held in the 1980s. In contradiction to declinist theories, she pro-
posed a new theory of power in IPE, that of ‘structural power’ (Strange, 1987, 1988a).
Strange's theory aimed to demonstrate that the US empire was not in decline, but, on the contrary, that it
held the power necessary to exercise leadership at the world scale, not only for its own interest, but also for
the international system as a whole. To prove her argument, Strange explained how US power was deployed
without overt coercion and why, despite an increasingly persistent impression of the erosion of US power, the
United States was still the dominant power in the world economy. The result is a theory of structural power,
not just of relational power as is common among realists and liberals.
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Strange found absurd the notion that US power was in decline, because in the world as we know it, structural
power is also shaped by the economy, finance, knowledge and communication and the size of an army. The
United States forms a ‘non-territorial empire’ organized around large transnational firms. The US trade bal-
ance deficit should not be understood as a sign of the decline of the Empire as the subsidiaries of US firms
abroad repatriate their profits through financial circuits, which allows them to pay their shareholders and to
minimize, or even cancel, the effects of the trade deficit on the US economy.
According to Strange, in the competition between the USSR and the United States, the Soviet empire de-
veloped according to a classical political, territorial and military logic, while that of the United States is fun-
damentally a deterritorialized power that goes beyond the military framework to have an economic, financial
and social dimension. Contrary to the USSR, which reached the level of superpower based essentially on its
military strength and its relational power, the United States attained superpower status by building a structur-
al power and, contrary to the USSR, the United States did not fail miserably on the economic, financial and
social levels. The USSR lost the battle due to its territorial millstone and because it could no longer keep up
with the deterritorialized and penetrating power of US influence. Strange's thesis is not incompatible with the
one Joseph Nye would develop on soft power in 1990 (Nye, 1991).
Strange also argued that declinists’ fundamental error is that they adopt an exclusively relational conception
of power. They establish a relationship between resources and outcomes that is too direct. Outcomes cannot
be predicted based only on knowing that the United States holds such and such resources compared to an-
other state. Furthermore, according to Strange, two types of power can be exercised in IPE, structural power
and relational power. In the competitive game, it is increasingly structural power that prevails. Relational pow-
er is a Weberian concept and manifests as the ability of an actor to have its will prevail, even against resis-
tance. Strange gave the example of the German army in 1940, who obtained Sweden's consent to cross their
‘neutral’ country (Strange, 1988: 24–25). Instead, declared Strange: ‘Structural power, on the other hand, is
the power to shape and determine the structures of the global political economy within which other states,
their political institutions, their economic enterprises and (not least) their scientists and other professional
people have to operate’ (Strange, 1988: 24–25). For Strange, the four dimensions of structural power are: se-
curity, knowledge, production and finance. For Strange, the four structures have the same ontological status.
No structure has precedence over the others. In the 1980s, according to Strange, the United States incon-
testably held the highest structural power.
The Periphery: Green and Feminist IPE

This last section is about two peripheral heterodox theoretical approaches in IPE: Green and Feminist IPE.
These are not emerging theories – some articles date from the 1980s – and though they are very important,
they nevertheless remain peripheral, as the majority of IPE specialists address them only rarely, or never.
These perspectives are generally absent from introductory textbooks, syllabuses and reading lists for general
examinations (Paquin, 2016).
Green IPE
Environmental issues are increasingly influencing IPE theories. The acceleration of globalization is having a
considerable effect on the environment. The importance of the environmental issue, in particular the issue of
biodiversity, climate change and the decarbonization of economies, inevitably lead to the integration of envi-
ronmental issues in IPE debates.

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A great many Green IPE theories are compatible with the debates of the liberal orthodox school. For the
orthodox, the environmental issue has become a new topic that can be analysed using analytical tools and
existing theoretical frameworks. Another school also exists in Green IPE theory and it shares many points
in common with heterodox approaches. This approach may be qualified as critical as it is ‘problem-posing’
rather than ‘problem-solving', to use Robert Cox's terms. They are essentially multidisciplinary and, above all,
are very obviously normative in their orientation. Critical Green IPE theorists aim to promote environmental
justice and seek to theorize the ecological injustices of the industrialization and globalization eras.
To begin, Green theorists criticize realists for having only marginally integrated environmental issues in their
reflection. Their silence or their relegation of environmental issues to the realm of ‘low politics’ is seen by the
Green theorists as a form of implicit support for the unbridled exploitation of the planet. Then again, critical
Green theorists are also sceptical of rationalist analyses based on liberal regime theory. Analysing environ-
mental problems in terms of international regimes draws our attention away from the real driver of environ-
mental degradation, the capitalist and industrialization dynamic. Green theorists criticize the ‘rational’ overex-
ploitation of the Earth. Liberals, as a framework for action, accept capitalism and are favourable to free trade
and more generally to the world as it is. Critical Green theorists in IPE are sceptical of the economic planning
so dear to mercantilists, and they are opposed to trade liberalization projects as proposed by liberals (Bern-
stein, 2001).
Critical Green IPE authors are more clearly in the category of pessimists. For them, environmental degrada-
tion caused by human activity has a long history. The problem has reached such a level that some authors
question not only the secondary effect of economic growth, but also economic development itself. A key in-
fluence in this debate has been the Club of Rome report published in the 1970s and entitled ‘The Limits to
Growth'. While liberals contend that environmental problems are the consequence of a political market failure
that can be solved by enforcing a carbon tax or by establishing international regulatory institutions, for ex-
ample, critical Green theorists tend to see environmental problems in apocalyptic terms of biblical proportion.
The industrial era lifestyle is the problem.
More radical approaches promote zero growth – a position that goes further than the proposal to make de-
velopment sustainable, which was advocated by the Brundtland Report. Many critical Green theorists criti-
cize the sustainable development approach because the report assumes that sustainable development can
be achieved through the acceleration of economic growth. Critical Green economists reject the position of
neoclassical economists who believe that by putting a price on pollution, we will change the behaviour of ac-
tors and thereby reduce pollution (Schlosberg, 2007). Better environmental standards cannot be arrived at by
achieving greener growth, but by changing the system.
Feminist IPE
Feminist approaches, for their part, are definitely positioned on the fringes of IPE. Their affinity with heterodox
approaches and their rejection of positivism fosters this marginalization. In IPE, none of the paradigms of the
orthodox approach have been significantly influenced by feminist works, and, despite signs of sympathy, the
neo-Gramscian and the British school do not use gender as a category of analysis.
Feminism entered the debates in international relations and in IPE theories almost simultaneously towards
the late 1980s and the early 1990s (Tickner, 1991, 2011, 2013). The main goal of feminist theories is to make
gender visible in the real world (Paul and Amawi, 2013: 294). Feminist theorists analyse IPE through a gender
lens, but IPE feminists want not simply ‘an IPE with women in it, but the creation of a fully gendered IPE’ (Paul
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and Amawi, 2013: 294). Peterson (2013: 309) further asserts that gender ‘is constitutive of contemporary in-
ternational political economy itself'. To promote research on women in world politics, a specialized journal was
created, the International Feminist Journal of Politics.
Feminists in IPE are concerned with the subordination of women in world politics. Feminist works deal notably
with the gendered division of labour. This division arose in 17th-century Europe with the new division of labour
produced by the creation of remunerative work, essentially male, in the public sphere versus unremunerated
work, essentially female, in the private sphere. Men became ‘breadwinners’ while women became ‘house-
wives'. With the acceleration of industrialization, women who entered the labour market found themselves
disproportionately in underpaid jobs in the textile, services or subsistence farming sectors. The history of cap-
italism is also the history of the marginalization and subordination of women (Tickner, 2011).
Starting from this idea of marginalization, IPE feminists have focused on a variety of topics rarely studied by
their male colleagues, topics such as unequal access to jobs; economic and social inequalities in developing
countries; the implications of trade liberalization on the condition of poor women; development issues where
women are more present than men; maternal mortality in the world; unequal access to education; genital
mutilation; inequities in family law; life expectancy and poverty rates among women; the condition of women
refugees; human rights violations that afflict women such as rape in wartime and sex trafficking (Peterson and
Runyan, 2010; Enloe, 2004).
These works have shed light on the fact that, globally, women earn lower wages than men and occupy a dis-
proportionate place among the poor and vulnerable people in all societies. Even when women do get better
jobs, they tend to earn lower wages than men. Women are also clearly marginalized at the executive, legisla-
tive and judicial power levels in all countries, even in Scandinavian countries, which have the best record of
reducing the gender gap.
Conclusion
As we have seen in this article, the debates in IPE are broadly determined by two very different and largely
incompatible scientific cultures: on one side the orthodox school and, on the other, the heterodox school. The
latest generation of orthodox researchers in IPE claim they are developing more rigorous theoretical frame-
works that better satisfy the demanding principles of positivism and empiricism. This approach, they believe,
facilitates the generalization and accumulation of knowledge. The orthodox school considers heterodox ap-
proaches too eclectic, or even eccentric, to be valuable. It condemns them as unscientific and relegates them
to the semi-periphery or periphery of the debates in IPE.
The positivist approach, mobilizing quantitative methods at will, finds its strengths chiefly in the construction of
the research methodology. Overall, what makes this school attractive is the fact that the methodology is at the
forefront, that it is clearly stated. This makes it much easier for a student to emulate an orthodox researcher
in IPE than to emulate Robert Cox or Susan Strange. In heterodox IPE, there is no precise guide about how
to conduct research and about what constitutes acceptable research. The demarcation line between ideology
and scientific research is not always very clear. Few heterodox researchers are concerned about the falsifi-
cation criterion, as advocated by Popper, which is crucial in orthodox IPE.
That said, the quantitative turn and the recent obsession with formal modelling has led orthodox IPE to be-
come increasingly abstract and has reduced the complexity of the world to its simplest expression. The great-
est problem with contemporary works in orthodox IPE is that the perverse quest for rationality and the overuse
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of statistical methods to explain how the world functions disconnects these works from the real world. The
sophistication of theoretical models separates them from this reality rather than bringing them closer. In addi-
tion, positivists are fundamentally incapable of considering non-observable realities such as ideology, identity
or the social construction of social life.
For Benjamin Cohen, the major difficulty with the works of the mainstream approach in orthodox IPE lies in
the deficit of imagination among researchers, and more particularly in their inability to envisage or even to
consider radical systemic changes. Since the 1990s, the new generation of IPE researchers have completely
forgotten or ignored key issues. They are no longer asking themselves the big questions about world politics.
Consequently, according to Cohen, the latest IPE researchers are deadly dull and are failing to see the fun-
damental and important issues for the real world. Orthodox IPE is incapable of explaining change, contrary
to heterodox works. Even if heterodox works do not have the methodological rigour and the standards of the
orthodox school, they did, for example, anticipate the financial crisis of 2008.
Robert Keohane now also shares this point of view. On the subject of the recent evolution of IPE, he writes:
‘[…] I view it with a gnawing sense of dissatisfaction’ (Keohane, 2009: 38). For Keohane, what is most lacking
in contemporary orthodox IPE is an interpretation and an understanding of change. He continues: ‘Substan-
tively, what is missing for me in contemporary IPE is the synthetic interpretation of change’ (Keohane, 2009:
40).
Heterodox approaches are multidisciplinary, normative and very critical of orthodoxy. It is difficult to pass glob-
al judgment on the works of the heterodox school as these works are so varied and unequal in quality. While
some authors approach genius, others are mediocre. Some problems arise from the fact that, in many cases,
the methodology is not explained or the works do not take into consideration the existing research in the field.
The analyses of Robert Cox or of critical authors in Green IPE are hermetic for students, not to mention for
practitioners. These works are fashioned to be on the fringes of mainstream debates due to their very critical
approach and their eclecticism.
Is there a place for compromise and perhaps even synthesis? In IPE, the two schools complement one an-
other on the objects of study, and the multidisciplinary approach of the heterodox school would allow import-
ing new ideas and new debates in the United States. Nevertheless, the heterodox could develop sounder
methodological approaches.
However, as we have seen, since the 1970s, the orthodox and heterodox approaches have steadily grown
apart. For many years now, there has been minimal dialogue between the two schools. There is a US hege-
mony over the discipline and the majority of American researchers are convinced of the superiority of their
approach. The progression of constructivism in international relations may permit an opening and some form
of reconciliation between the schools in IPE. These rapprochements are, for the time being, rare. Yet they are
desirable, because, as Susan Strange suggested, in IPE, Catholic complexity is often preferable to Protestant
parsimony.
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, Boulder: Westview Press, 2010.
RIPE. Editorial: Forum for Heterodox International Political Economy, Review of International Political Econo-
my 1(1), 1994: 1–12.
Schlosberg, David. Defining Environmental Justice: Theories, Movements, and Nature, Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2007.
Stein, Arthur A. Why Nations Cooperate: Circumstance and Choice in International Relations, Ithaca: Cornell
Strange, Susan. International Economics and International Relations: A Case of Mutual Neglect, International
Affairs 46(2), 1970: 304–315.
Strange, Susan (ed.), Paths to International Political Economy, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1984.
Strange, Susan. States and Markets: An Introduction to International Political Economy, London: Pinter Pub-
lishers, 1988.
Strange, Susan. The Persistent Myth of Lost Hegemony, International Organization 41(4), 1987: 551–574.
Strange, Susan. Review of Production, Power, and World Order: Social Forces in the Making of History, In-
ternational Affairs 64(2), 1988: 269–270.
Strange, Susan. The Future of the American Empire, Journal of International Affairs 42(1), 1988a: 1–17.
Strange, Susan. States and Markets: An Introduction to International Political Economy, London: Pinter Pub-
lishers, 1988b.
Strange, Susan. The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy, Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1996.
Tickner, J. Ann. Gender in World Politics, in John Baylis, Steven Smith and Patricia Owens, eds. The Global-
ization of World Politics,
5th edition,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 262–278.
Tickner, J. Ann. On the Fringes of the World Economy: A Feminist Perspective, in Craig N. Murphy and Roger
Tooze, eds. The New International Political Economy, Lynne Rienner Publishers reproduced in Darel E. Paul
and Abla Amawi (2013), The Theoretical Evolution of International Political Economy. A Reader, Oxford: Ox-
ford University Press, 1991, pp. 297–308.
Tickner, J. Ann. Ann Tickner on Feminist Philosophy of Science. Engaging the Mainstream and (still) Re-
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theory-talk-54.html Accessed January 10, 2020.
• international political economy

• United States
• political economy
• theories
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n77
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International Political Theory
Contributors: Richard Ned Lebow

Chapter Title: "International Political Theory"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
International Political Theory

Richard Ned Lebow
Introduction
International political theory is a new name for an old practice. Thucydides, often considered the father of
international relations theory, drew heavily on contemporary understandings of human nature and framed his
account of the Peloponnesian War as a tragedy. Ever since, political theorists – think Hobbes, Machiavelli,
Rousseau, and Kant – have addressed international relations. So too have international relations theorists
turned to political theory for frameworks, concepts, and inspiration. So why has international political theory
emerged as a new field in international relations? What is its research program? What contributions has it
made to our understanding of the theory and practice of international relations?
The boundaries of international political theory (IPT) are rather arbitrary, as it occupies a space between po-
litical theory and international relations but is part of both. For a piece of this length, I have opted for a more,
rather than less, restrictive definition. I exclude research on political theorists, even if they are important for in-
ternational relations, unless it specifically addresses their thoughts on international relations or how they have
been used by those who write about or practice international relations. All international relations paradigms
are in one way or another derivative of political philosophers or theorists in other fields. Marxism, for example,
applies the thought of Marx, Engels, and their successors to international relations. Marxist analyses of inter-
national relations do not qualify as IPT unless they engage in some novel reading of Marx or other thinkers in
this tradition in the process.
The ‘canon’ is an unfortunately restrictive concept, traditionally used to exclude rather than include thinkers.
One of the striking and positive developments of IPT, even before the end of the Cold War, has been the turn
to thinkers who were previously regarded as marginal to politics or otherwise ignored. Carl Schmitt example
is probably the most significant, but others, like Sophocles, Confucius, Lao Zi, and Friedrich Nietzsche, have
been brought into the fold and are now increasingly central to international theory. International political the-
orists have revisited more recent thinkers like John Dewey, Norman Angel, David Mitrany, Reinhold Niebuhr,
Leo Strauss, and Frantz Fanon, who have not traditionally been read by international relations theorists, or at
least have not been read by them for many decades. Finally, there is now renewed interest in 20th-century
international relations theorists, among them E. H. Carr, Arnold Wolfers, Hans Morgenthau, John Herz, and
Karl Deutsch. Much of this work qualifies as IPT because those who write about them are interested in their
engagement with political theory.
Perhaps the most fundamental divide in IPT is between those who engage questions of ‘ought’ and those
more interested in ‘is'. The former are concerned with how individual, state, and non-state actors should be-
have and the conditions appropriate to dialogue and policymaking. Their research often focuses on rules –
their appropriateness and their ethical and political consequences. Scholars who pose what might be called
‘is’ questions are concerned with how political actors actually behave and the rules that appear to govern their
behavior. They have turned to political theory for frameworks appropriate for studying this question and for
interrogating existing ones.
The ‘ought’ and ‘is’ orientations are relatively distinct but have much in common. Scholars drawn to IPT are
disillusioned with the positivist tradition in international relations, and social science more generally. Most are
disenchanted with US foreign policy, the so-called neo-liberal consensus, and globalization. They regard re-
alism and liberalism as largely US paradigms that have been used by scholars and policymakers to justify US
claims to hegemony and special privileges.
Many who pose ‘is’ questions are concerned with ethics, albeit in a different sense than those who ask ‘ought’
questions. Ethical frameworks were once the norm in social theory but no longer are in those branches of

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social science where neo-positivist approaches have become dominant. One of the reasons why many con-
temporary international relations scholars are drawn to earlier thinkers in their field is their concern for ethics
and the close connections between it and their theories. It is not coincidental that most of the paradigms that
have come to the fore in international relations since the end of the Cold War have normative agendas and
recognize the importance of ethics for foreign policy. I am thinking of constructivism, critical theory, feminism,
post-colonialism, and many variants of poststructuralism. Each paradigm has foundational thinkers, who in
turn are part of a larger intellectual tradition. Constructivism looks to those responsible for the linguistic turn:
German historicists, Nietzsche, and Max Weber.1 Critical theory is the product of the Frankfurt School, but its
founders in turn were influenced by Marx and Freud.
Some who pose ‘is’ questions, the author included, offer an empirical justification for ethics. They contend
that foreign policies that conform to shared understandings of ethics are more likely to succeed. This is a core
belief of classical realism. Other international relations recognize that ethical questions and dilemmas arise –
and properly so – when we reject the twin positivist conceits that facts can be separated from values and that
truth claims can be evaluated objectively. Either recognition reinforces interest ethics.
There is considerable diversity within the ‘is’ and ‘ought’ approaches, and here I limit myself to focusing on
the latter. I defend this choice on the grounds that although both became prominent at roughly the same time
they did so for different reasons and have different origins. The interest in ‘ought’ questions in international
relations is very much connected with critical theory, especially the writings of Habermas, but also in post-
structuralism and its French progenitors and interpreters. It also has US roots, notably in the liberal theory
of John Rawls, his successors, and critics like Michael Walzer and Michael Sandel. For some decades, the
‘ought’ question was dominated by the differing approaches of cosmopolitanism and communitarianism.
The ‘is’ approach has always been dominant in international relations, where it also became something of a
rhetorical tool. Hans Morgenthau distinguished his version of realism from what he called ‘idealism'. The lat-
ter, he pilloried, was responsible in part for appeasement and attributed to international lawyers who engaged
in a dream world, not the world that was.2 E. H. Carr made similar claims, depicting interwar ‘idealists’ as a
group of pacifists, moralists, and legalists who focused their attention on reforming, rather than analyzing, the
harsh realities of international politics.3 This binary was a false one because many of the so-called idealists
were among the earliest opponents of Hitler's expansionism, and Morgenthau and Carr smuggle a fair degree
of idealism into their accounts of international relations.4 From its beginning, international relations was pen-
etrated by analytical questions and normative concerns.
I begin with an account of the emergence of renewed interest in political theory, which more or less coincided
with the end of the Cold War. I suggest that scholars developed a new interest in political theory for diverse
reasons and, when enough did so, sought further legitimization for their efforts under the umbrella of a rec-
ognized sub-field. I note some of the key issues that engaged these scholars and encouraged them to offer
novel readings of a range of thinkers. The initial goal, I contend, was to challenge the intellectual foundations
of realism and liberalism. By offering different readings of these texts, they could reinterpret these paradigms
in ways that they believed would make them more suitable to the study of international relations. With realism,
this led to the development of classical realism. Like other variants, it emphasized the role of power, but it
offered a more nuanced take on its sources and value. It sought to bridge realism and constructivism by re-
jecting the idea of objective understandings of such things as power, national interest, and balance of power,
in favor of subjective ones.
Practitioners of IPT sought to enrich existing paradigms and develop new ones through engagement with po-
litical theorists, but also with a wider range of writings that were not generally considered political theory texts.
I may be the biggest offender here, having offered readings of Homer, Virgil, Mozart, and his librettist, Lorenzo
Da Ponte, which I maintain are relevant to international relations theory.5 Expanding the range of texts that

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can be read as political theory, and mining them for insights, also has the effect of expanding the scope of
what we think of as international relations. This in turn widens the range of texts we might think relevant.
The most fundamental assumption of IPT is that political theory and international relations are mutually re-
inforcing enterprises. This was a widely accepted proposition until the behavioral revolution and, with it, the
rise to dominance in the United States of positivist social science. Political theory was looked down upon as
a soft, humanist activity, not germane to serious social science. In some universities, political theorists were
no longer hired and their positions given to so-called ‘formal theorists'. In Europe, this tension was never as
acute, but separation between political theory and international relations was nevertheless just as real be-
cause of the creation of separate international relations departments. Dialogue between the theory and inter-
national relations has increased but it still has a long way to go.
Theoretical Renewal
Thomas Kuhn offered his Structure of Scientific Revolutions as a guide only to intellectual development in
the physical sciences.6 Paradigms, he argued, remained dominant as long as they generated interesting re-
search questions that could be researched and answered within their set of assumptions. When too many
anomalies arise, they begin to lose traction, but hang on until an alternative paradigm emerges that can ac-
count for these anomalies and what the older paradigm was able to explain. Social science does not work this
way, and international relations even less so. International relations theory is responsive to what is happening
in the world. Neorealism collapsed like a pack of cards not because of a decade of compelling critiques but
because of the end of the Cold War. Neorealism was incapable of explaining the peaceful end of that conflict
and appeared irrelevant to the kinds of identity-driven conflicts that then emerged.
The end of the Cold War and neorealism's loss of legitimacy opened space for new approaches to internation-
al relations. Constructivism, critical theory, poststructuralism, philosophical realism, feminism, and post-colo-
nialism all flourished. A decade later, the Anglo–American invasion of Iraq further encouraged a rethinking of
the foundations on which realism rested. It and globalization also prompted a challenge of liberalism, which
claimed validation by the end of the Cold War and breakup of the Soviet Union. An early but ongoing goal of
international political theory has been to revisit and reread the proclaimed foundational texts for these para-
digms, with the goal of showing how they have been misread and misused.
Realism claims to represent a tradition that extends back from Hobbes through to Thucydides. International
political theorists have offered readings of these thinkers that show how they have been seriously distorted
by modern-day realists. Thucydides was an early focus; Daniel Garst accuses neorealists of having a narrow
definition of power and of projecting it unfairly onto Thucydides. Drawing on the work of James Boyd White,
Garst further maintains that debates over Mytilene, the Melian Dialogue, and the Sicilian expedition reveal
how Athenians have destroyed the rhetorical culture through which their interests as an imperial power were
intelligently formulated and expressed. Their exercise of power has left the realm of the political and taken
the form of violence, coercion, and limitless expansion. For Garst, this process also illustrates the power of
agency and that foreign policy is rarely, if ever, a mechanical response to a balance of power.7
Lebow offers a hermeneutic reading in which he contends that Thucydides used a sophist mode of presen-
tation. First-person authorial statements are often deliberately contradicted by the narratives that follow and
set up tensions that encourage readers to seek their resolution at deeper levels of understanding. This is true
with Thucydides’ often cited claim in Book I that ‘the rise to power of Athens and the fear it inspired in Spar-
ta was the truest cause of war'. Thucydides’ narrative indicates that the Spartan war party had little fear of
Athenian military power. By way of contrast, Spartiates who favored peace did so because they had a more
accurate appreciation of Athenian military power. Thucydides’ account suggests that Spartiates went to war
to preserve their standing in Greece, which was threatened by the political, economic, and cultural changes

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spearheaded by Athens. Spartan identity, not power, was the fundamental concern for both sides in prewar
debate.8
The Melian Dialogue is routinely cited by realists in support of their claim that Thucydides reasoned as they
do about the dominant role of power in international affairs. As Lebow argues, when read in the context that is
against Herodotus’ account of the Persians telling the Athenians that resistance is futile, it conveys a different
message. The Athenian refusal to offer any justification for the behavior behind naked power is intended as a
pathology, as is their language. They have taken themselves outside of the Greek community and are behav-
ing just as the Persians did before them. Lebow argues that Thucydides can with good reason be claimed as
a constructivist.9
The other foundational pillar of realism is Thomas Hobbes. Michael Williams argues that his writings constitute
a challenge to rational-choice theories, the structural realism of Kenneth Waltz, and the rationalist approach
of the English School.10 Indeed, the skeptical foundations of his political vision places him closer to contem-
porary post-positivist positions, though here, too, his views raise difficult and important questions for such a
stance. Williams contends that Hobbes’ theory of international relations does not invoke or focus on anarchy
in any conventional sense, but foregrounds issues of knowledge, ideology, and legitimacy in the construction
of political orders, both domestically and internationally. In a subsequent book, Williams extends his argument
to Rousseau and Hans Morgenthau.11 He maintains that these thinkers were not concerned with issues of
rationality and anarchy, as commonly assumed, but rather sought to foster political practices for leaders that
would buttress order. Far from advocating a crude Realpolitik, realism's most famous classical proponents
actually stressed the need for a restrained exercise of power and a politics with ethics at its core.
Williams’ Realist Tradition and the Limits of International Relations and Lebow's Tragic Vision of Politics make
the case for what Lebow calls ‘classical realism'.12 It recognizes the central role of power in politics of all
kinds, but also the limitations of power and the ways in which it can readily be made self-defeating. Classi-
cal realism stresses sensitivity to ethical dilemmas and practical implications and the need to base influence,
whenever possible, on shared interests and persuasion.
Classical realism has become a paradigm in its own right. Scholars increasingly use it as a framework to study
international relations. Others seek to develop it further through the investigation of other thinkers. Casper
Sylvest has explored the contributions to classical realism made by John H. Herz. Beneath his realist posture,
Sylvest argues, is a liberal ideology focused on achieving order, progress, and justice in international politics.
By combining liberal ideals with a realist understanding of politics, Herz made a compelling case for how in-
ternational politics could be mitigated and changed. His positive vision was, in turn, based on what today we
would call a constructivist rendering of the security dilemma.13
Seán Molloy's article on E. H. Carr's The Twenty Years’ Crisis and Conditions of Peace shows how Carr was
influenced by US pragmatist philosopher William James. This perspective highlights the evolution and cen-
trality of ethical concerns in Carr's writing and places him very much within the tradition of classical realism.14
Efforts are currently underway to explore the links and tensions between classical realism and other para-
digms. Hartmut Behr and Michael C. Williams contend that we can learn much about the central questions
and assumptions of international relations theory by examining the shared concerns, especially those having
to do with the political and social crises of modernity.15
Liberalism came in for its share of re-examination. Beate Jahn argues that liberal international relations theory
only looks at the positive side of the liberal tradition: free markets, sovereignty, limited government, human
rights, and the rule of law.16 But liberalism also provided the rationale for imperialism, military intervention-
ism, and, more recently, the European project and a relatively undemocratic framing of it. Jahn's analysis of
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John Locke focuses on his empirical claims, which she describes as ‘thin'. Contemporary defenders of the
liberalism, she contends, are duplicitous in their use of evidence. Favorable historical conjunctures, such as
the end of the Cold War, are interpreted as historical proofs of liberal claims, while adverse historical conjunc-
tures, instead of undermining liberal claims and principles, are simply interpreted as the result of lower levels
of historical development.
Liberals look to Immanuel Kant as their other founding father. Seán Molloy argues that their readings of him
are as misleading as they are self-serving. Kant's Idea for a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Intent and
Toward Perpetual Peace cannot be understood without reference to Kant's wider philosophical projects and,
in particular, the role that belief in God plays within his critical philosophy and inquiries into anthropology, poli-
tics, and theology.17 Kant was committed to finding a new basis for metaphysics in the sacrifice of knowledge
to make room for faith. Kant regarded evil (the senses and their demands for gratification) and reason (with its
ability to understand the need for moral commitment) as co-equal attributes of human nature. He envisaged
three possible futures: destructive war, precarious peace, and a perpetual peace based on a moral transfor-
mation of humanity that includes their belief in a deity. Molloy analyzes the causes of these futures, bringing
Kant into and enriching the contemporary debate in international relations theory.
Molloy's reading constitutes a serious challenge to the Kantian foundations of liberalism, the Democratic
Peace, and cosmopolitanism. His critique of the Democratic Peace is particularly compelling as he shows
the absurdity of using Kant – as proponents and opponents often do – to generate empirically verifiable hy-
potheses. Kant intends his work to be read outside of history and to offer more an ‘ought’ than an ‘is'. Kant
is relevant to these paradigms and projects but not in the manner in which they have for the most part been
used.
Epistemelogical Challenges
Epistemology is often justified with respect to canonical texts. King, Keohane, and Verba's Designing Social
Inquiry appeals to Karl Popper – to a text that he subsequently repudiated.18 Max Weber has been even
more central to the development of modern social science. He is generally considered a prominent represen-
tative of the realist paradigm; he focused attention on the drives for power and domination, emphasized the
importance of the state, and was a major influence on Hans Morgenthau, the most prominent postwar realist
theorist. In the 1930s and early postwar decades, Weber was incorrectly represented as a structural func-
tionalist by Talcott Parsons and as a positivist by Edward A. Shils and C. Wright Mills. Their translations and
readings of his work wash out the tensions in his writings and continue to resonate among so-called main-
stream US social scientists. In Max Weber and International Relations, Ned Lebow, Patrick Jackson, Stefano
Guzzini, Jens Steffek, John Hobson, and David Lebow present a different and, they insist, more accurate ver-
sion of Weber to present-day social scientists.19
Ned Lebow elaborates Weber's approach to knowledge in the context of controversies between historicists
and positivists and historicists and neo-Kantians. He argues that Weber sought to build on these traditions
while finessing their drawbacks and limitations. The result is a definition of knowledge as causal inference
about singular events that insists on the individual as its unit of analysis, uses rationality as an ideal type, and
employs counterfactual thought experiments to evaluate putative causes. For many reasons, this approach is
no ‘silver bullet', but it represents an imaginative and fruitful attempt to chart a more rewarding path toward
knowledge in what Weber, following Dilthey, called the ‘cultural sciences'.
Lebow contends that Weber's approach has unresolved tensions. The most important is the contradiction be-
tween his recognition of the subjective nature of the values and interests that motivate research and his insis-
tence on the objective means by which it might be conducted. Facts and values are not so easily reconciled,
and Weber came to understand that they influence, if not determine, the questions we ask, the methods we
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choose to research them, what we consider relevant evidence, and the inferences we draw from it. Weber
acknowledges that research questions are subjective, and answers too, because they depend on contextual
configurations. All knowledge is ultimately cultural and local in nature. Lebow concludes by exploring some of
the lessons of Weber's project and its problems for contemporary international relations theory.
Patrick Thaddeus Jackson confronts Weber's conception of the ‘ideal type’ – a term, he contends, that is not
well understood in the contemporary social sciences. All too frequently it is operationally defined – or at least
‘used’ – as an excuse not to expose one's conceptual equipment to any form of empirical evaluation, whether
this means descriptive accuracy, explanatory utility, or something else. Simply call a dubious notion an ‘ideal
type’ and one can deflect all manner of criticisms by suggesting that one is only making a ‘first cut’ at some
phenomenon – a ‘first cut’ that will eventually be replaced by a better depiction.
Jackson laments this misuse of the ideal type because, for Weber, it was closely connected with an entire
strategy of scholarly analysis that bears little resemblance to the neo-positivist hypothesis proving so domi-
nant in much of contemporary social science. Ideal-typification is one part of a procedure that devalued gen-
eral laws in favor of case-specific configurational explanation, eschewed universal notions of causality in favor
of singular causal analysis, and preferred value clarification over the effort to rationally legislate courses of
action.
Ideal-typification is the heart of Weber's methodology, and misunderstanding it as a form of ‘approximation’

underpins a whole series of misreadings of Weber. There is something quite epistemically radical going on
in Weber's rejection of the idea that theoretical concepts capture the determinate essence of their objects of
analysis and in his embrace of a form of cultural relativity that links ideal types firmly to the value commitments
of the scholars and scholarly communities developing and deploying them. Politics – the arena of decision,
compromise, and creative action – is thus freed to be a realm in which reason can advise, but not dictate,
and scholars can clarify social and political dilemmas, but not resolve them by academic fiat. To minimize this
dimension of Weber's methodology is to ignore the criticism that this founding figure of the modern social sci-
ences leveled against his contemporaries – and would level once more against much of our current academic
practice.
Stefano Guzzini addresses the question of power. He argues that Weber's power analysis is at the crossroads
of two different analytical domains. First, there is the domain of political theory; it is concerned with the nature
of the ‘polity’ in which questions of the organization of (organized) violence and of the common good, as well
as questions of freedom, are paramount. It is where Macht and Herrschaft relate to ‘government’ or ‘gover-
nance’ and political order, as well as personal ‘autonomy'. Second, there is the domain of explanatory theory,
in which the purpose of power analysis is understanding behavior and the outcomes of social action. Hence,
instead of relating to a theory identifying the nature of the polity, it is embedded in a theory of action and
subsequently a social theory of domination. Power does not refer to government or authority but to terms like
‘agency’ and ‘influence', if not ‘cause'.
Weber is both a scientific protagonist for the defense of this divide and an attempt at a synthesis. Weber's
synthesis mobilizes a praxeological tradition, where politics is the ‘art of the possible’ in which collective vio-
lence is not antithetical but fundamental to politics, and where power is furthermore connected to the idea of
state sovereignty and the discourse of the reason of state, including his famous ethics of responsibility. The
chapter connects Weber's political ontology of existential struggle with his sociology of Herrschaft, and with
his political praxeology, by embedding it into his analysis of world politics and history.
Jens Steffek explores Max Weber's theory of modernization with a view to the study of international relations
in general, and public international organizations (IOs) in particular. Most Weber scholars agree that at the
core of his extensive and multifaceted writings is a theory of modernization, conceived as an answer to the
question of why industrial modernity developed in the Occident and not in other parts of the world. Weber's
account of modernity is focused on a process of rationalization that can be observed in changes of individ-

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ual behavior and societal institutions. At the structural level, rationalization is characterized by the advance of
formal law, bureaucratic forms of organization, and the increasing resort to scientific and technical expertise.
In the field of international relations, constructivist scholars have referred to some central aspects of Weber's
modernization theory in their study of international organizations. They have applied Weber's account of bu-
reaucracy to international organizations, along with the conceptually related notion of a ‘rational-legal’ form of
authority and legitimacy, typical of the modern age. However, it seems fair to say that in international relations,
the reception of Weber's modernization theory has taken place in a rather piecemeal fashion. Scholars have
singled out some elements from his sociology of authority, not always conscious of the overarching modern-
ization-theoretical context in which they stand.
Steffek makes the case for a more comprehensive approach. He argues that the emergence of international
organizations as an organizational form needs to be seen in the context of the expansion and profession-
alization of public administration that has taken place in the Occident since the 19th century. The universal
spread of this organizational form, in particular its extensive use of formal law, eliminated arbitrariness from
authoritative decisions and made them more predictable – a precondition for the emergence of industrial so-
cieties and capitalism. In his discussion of the relation between organizational form and rationalizing purpose,
Steffek concentrates on the notion of Willkür (arbitrariness, despotism) in Weber's academic and political writ-
ings. The term, he contends, is crucial for us to understand the gestalt shift of government in the process of
modernization. In fact, Weber chiefly used it when contrasting ancient with modern forms of government. It
is the elimination of the despotic element in decision making that makes the rationalization of government
possible. As predominantly bureaucratic organizations, international organizations are destined to follow the
same rationale. Their purpose is to transform the contingencies of international power politics into rule-bound
decision making. His discussion ends on a cautious note. Max Weber presented the rationalizing features of
bureaucratic modernity as a historical matter of fact. Steffek would qualify this account of modernity to the ex-
tent that a bureaucratic rationalization of government was always a promise and idealization, not necessarily
an unambiguous historical reality.
John Hobson argues that Weber's work on historical sociology and international relations was founded on a
consistent West-centric base. This base comprises what he calls ‘Eurocentric institutionalism', which he dif-
ferentiates from scientific racism. Weber's historical sociology is thoroughly Eurocentric, first because it em-
phasizes the unique or exceptional rationalization process as enabling the rise of European modernity, and
second because he insisted that modernity was destined to materialize in Europe and not in the East, owing
to the latter's irrational institutions and culture. Hobson goes on to argue that this Eurocentrism underpins the
three different approaches that can be found in Weber's writings on international relations.
Hobson argues that Weber's early writings on international relations were marked by a certain realism. How-
ever, in his lesser-known wartime writings, Weber became critical of realist international relations and moved
toward something that is reminiscent (or preemptive) of the Eurocentric rationalist wing of the English School
(as in Martin Wight and Hedley Bull). Here, the emphasis is on how Germany should play the key role in
securing the reproduction of European international society, not least by maintaining the sovereign integrity
of the smaller nations. Weber echoed the imperialist argument that Bull and Wight subscribed to, when he
argued that Germany's ‘responsible’ role could be secured only through the implementation of imperialism
in the non-Western world. Finally, the chapter closes by considering the connections between Weber's argu-
ment for the need to maintain the integrity of European international society with that proposed by the Pacifist
Eugenicists, which insisted that Europe must be shored up so that it does not fall victim to the predations
of the incoming ‘Yellow Peril'. Hobson insists that though there are some overlaps in evidence, Weber's ap-
proach is nevertheless thoroughly Eurocentric rather than scientifically racist in nature.
David Lebow and Ned Lebow explore the consequences of Weber's writings for key theorists of a succeeding
generation. If Kant's shadow extended over the long 19th century, Weber's provided a penumbra for the 20th.
Social scientists in multiple disciplines were influenced by his thought. Lebow and Lebow examine four such
thinkers: Carl Schmitt, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, and Hans Morgenthau. They offer a novel take

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on their respective projects by comparing their responses to Weber and the ways in which he shaped their
thought.
Lebow and Lebow suggest that much of what makes Weber so interesting is the deep tension in his thinking
between moral subjectivity and scientific rationality. It runs through his thought, and indeed his life. Weber
wrote his epistemological essays before the catastrophe of 1914 and died not long after the Weimar Republic
was founded. The Weimar and Nazi eras exposed and heightened tensions of all kinds. What to Weber and
his contemporaries may have appeared at most lacunae, we now see as sharp tensions, if not contradictions.
His successors felt compelled to address, and resolve as far as possible, these tensions and contradictions,
as they posed stark and compelling dilemmas for them. None of them succeeded, because the intellectual
tools they inherited were inadequate to the task of addressing the dark modernity that had emerged.
Rather than resolving Weberian tensions, Schmitt, Adorno and Horkheimer, and Morgenthau accentuated
them. Schmitt transformed them into absolute oppositions and warrants for excluding ethics from politics and
Adorno and Horkheimer into dialectical contradictions. Only Morgenthau managed to preserve Weber's tragic
legacy, although he failed in his attempt to make it a source of political restraint. Morgenthau's robust notion
of politically engaged scholarship is nevertheless more authentically Weberian than its alternatives. However,
Morgenthau couched his arguments at least in part in the language of science, ironically encouraging a mis-
reading of his works that undercut his political and epistemological objectives.
There is much to learn from Weber and his successors. Their writings represent novel and imaginative re-
sponses to modernity and its political and ethical problems. Their successes and failures in grappling with
these problems help us to put them into sharper focus. They also indicate the truth of Weber's firmly held
belief that all knowledge is contextual. The writings of Weber and his successors, whether addressing bu-
reaucracy, the state, capitalism, or international relations, are inspired and limited in equal amounts by con-
temporary developments. For the same reasons, they often led themselves to readings opposed to those
they intended. There is little reason to suppose that we can do any better. Nevertheless, we might learn some
important lessons about the limits and possibilities of scholarship and develop more intellectual sophistication
and humility in the process.
Expanding Horizons
Scholars have turned to a range of texts to broaden the subject matter of international relations theory. Ted
Hopf draws on Max Weber, Henry James, John Dewey, Pierre Bourdieu, and neuroscience to explore the role
of habit in international relations.20 The logic of habit, described by Weber as one of the four logics of politics,
has nevertheless largely been ignored. Hopf argues that it precludes rationality, agency, and uncertainty, and
accordingly offers a different interpretation of cooperation, security dilemmas, enduring rivalries, and security
communities in international politics. The logic of habit, Hopf contends, also fills a gap in mainstream con-
structivism's theorization of intersubjective structures, returning the taken-for-granted lifeworld to the center
of attention.
Felix Berenskoetter invokes Aristotle and Heidegger to insert friendship into the reading of international rela-
tions.21 He suggests that it has previously been ignored because of the common Hobbesian assumption of
survival and the state as an autonomy-seeking entity. Drawing on Heidegger's notion of anxiety, he develops
an alternative conceptualization and shows that the paradigm most sympathetic to this assumption, construc-
tivism, has failed to account for the friend as the ‘significant other’ capable of controlling anxiety. In their desire
for moral authenticity with the desire for belonging/recognition, individuals seek intimate relations. States do
something similar, in large part to meet the needs of policymaker and citizens.
Seán Molloy turns to David Hume to offer a new understanding of the balance of power and to show the

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striking parallels in how it was conceived by Hume and Morgenthau.22 Traditional realist thought envisages
the balance of power as a mechanism to deter and thus constrain aggressor states. Hume and Morgenthau
appreciated its potential in this regard but also envisaged it as a mechanism of self-restraint. Hume described
Britain as motivated by extreme hostility toward France, an emotion that prompted its leaders to exaggerate
the threat France posed and what was necessary to oppose it. It led to policies that threatened to bankrupt the
country and made war with France more rather than less likely. Morgenthau made similar arguments about
the United States and its Manichean struggle with the Soviet Union. Inspired by Hume, he advocated the
balance of power to undercut the role of passions in the Cold War, to encourage US leaders to identify their
interests and think about which ones were worth defending by force. Most fundamentally, it was intended to
provide a logical framework for thinking about national security that would lower perceptions of threat, limit
the needless waste of resources, restrict military intervention and the entangling of Third-World alliances, and
reduce the risk of war.
Duncan Bell has explored the 19th-century roots of the state, imperialism, and international relations theory.
In an article on J. A. Froude, he distinguishes two distinctive modes of justifying imperialism. The ‘liberal civ-
ilizational’ model, articulated most prominently by John Stuart Mill, justified empire primarily in terms of the
benefits that it allegedly provided for subject populations. An alternative ‘republican’ model focused instead
on the benefits expected to accrue to the metropole: glory, honor, and, above all, power. Froude helped to
develop the ‘republican’ model and offered it as a response to pressing contemporary problems, based on his
reading of the fate of the Roman republic.23
Bell's subsequent book, The Idea of Greater Britain, focuses on the closing decades of the 19th century.
British thinkers grappled with the prospect of democracy, intensified global economic and strategic competi-
tion, and how best to organize the empire.24 Many found an answer in the idea of Greater Britain, a union
of the UK and its settler colonies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and southern Africa. Bell analyzes this
neglected movement and a series of proposals that ranged from minimalist – closer relations between Britain
and the empire – to maximalist visions of a globe-spanning nation-state. The 19th-century debate anticipat-
ed the current one over globalization and offers a useful comparison. Bell's book also breaks down barriers
between domestic and international politics and also shows how the development of international relations
theory – then, as now – is very much a response to perceived problems of the age but also constructed with
intellectual materials on hand.
In a more recent piece, Bell explores recent work on realist political theory and international politics.25 He
argues that this scholarship represents two different fields: international relations and political philosophy. Bell
makes the case for greater engagement between them, and provides a useful overview of liberal and radi-
cal approaches in both fields, but he also suggests how hard labels are to apply to a literature that runs the
gamut from efforts to rewrite the canon of 20th-century political and international relations to contributions to
global-justice debates.
Nicholas Rengger has made numerous contributions to the development of IPT. He brings together some
of his key articles and chapters in a recent book organized around a sensibility he calls the anti-Pelagian
imagination.26 Pelagianism is the belief that original sin did not taint human nature and that mortal will is still
capable of choosing good or evil without special divine aid. This theological theory is named after the British
monk Pelagius (c. 354–420/40), although he denied, at least at some point in his life, many of the doctrines
associated with his name. Rengger describes the origins and character of this imagination and puts his writ-
ings in this tradition into context with other political theorists and international relations scholars. They include
Immanuel Kant, Leo Strauss, William Connolly, and Jean Bethke Elshtain. He concludes with an epilogue that
offers two different ways of reading and developing this imagination and offering reasons for supposing one
is preferable.

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Classical realism inspired a broader examination of tragedy, which is, of course, a literary construction. It is
central to Thucydides and Morgenthau's analysis of foreign policy and responsible for their pessimism about
the ability of political units to endure. It also undergirds their belief that the greatest threat to political order
is the hubris of powerful actors. In recent years, the relevance of tragedy as a political narrative has been
more widely explored.27 Different understandings of tragedy have been elaborated in an effort to make it
more useful to the study of international relations.28 Modern understandings from Shakespeare, Goethe, and
20th-century authors have been contrasted with ancient Greek ones.29 The sharpest debate is about whether
greater sensitivity has the potential to reduce the frequency of tragedy in international relations or represents
another form of hubris that will make it more likely.30
The most important ‘new face’ in IPT is Carl Schmitt, the former Nazi jurist who was discredited and has been
long ignored.31 Some critical cosmopolitan theorists and poststructuralists have used Schmitt to distance
themselves from and to critique liberalism and US foreign policy.32 David Chandler argues – with reason –
that these theorists tend to offer a highly idealized understanding of Schmitt and use his work descriptively
rather than analytically.33 Richard Devetak and Chris Brown maintain that Schmitt's ambition to quarantine
the political from the ethical to establish the autonomy of the political is a dangerous ambition and an impos-
sible task in any case.34 Critics of Schmitt contend that his revival tells us more about the crisis of critical
theorizing than about the relevance of Schmitt's thought in today's world.
The 20th Century

International relations theory is a 20th-century phenomenon, and IPT has been especially interested in the
writings of its early and influential proponents. Some contributors to IPT were students, colleagues, and
friends of some of these figures and have personal entrée into their thought. The last century also witnessed
the development of sound and visual recordings, which enrich the publications, letters, and other material
available in archives. Some scholars have supplemented these sources with imaginary dialogues with these
thinkers.35
There is a growing corpus of writings on E. H. Carr, John Herz, and Karl W. Deutsch.36 There are books and
articles about them individually and collectively. The latter often use these figures to address the problem of
refugee scholars but also to examine how professional life in another culture shaped their intellectual lives
and the emergence of international relations as a discipline.37
There have also been efforts to revisit paradigms from a post-Cold War perspective. One of the most influen-
tial efforts of this kind has been Duncan S. Bell's Political Thought and International Relations.38 It contains
12 essays by international relations scholars that are motivated by the goal of making realism more relevant
to international relations. Contributors view realism as a diverse and complex mode of political and ethical
theorizing, not a value-neutral enterprise or an unreflective defense of national interests. They analyze a va-
riety of historical and philosophical themes, probing the potential and pathologies of realist thought. Chapters
offer critical interpretations of key figures in the canon of 20th-century realism, including Hans Morgenthau,
E. H. Carr, and Reinhold Niebuhr. Other contributors seek to widen the scope of realism by exploring the writ-
ings of Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, and Leo Strauss. All engage with more general issues of political
theory, among them the meaning and value of pessimism, the relationship between power and ethics, the role
of normative political theory, and how we conceive of political ‘reality'.
No 20th-century international relations theorist has received as much attention as Hans J. Morgenthau. Early

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works traced the evolution of his thinking about international relations and law and debated the relative im-
portance and continuity of his German and American experiences. Christoph Frei argued for the primacy of
Morgenthau's European experiences and the continuity of his writings. He reads his American books on in-
ternational politics as extensions of his European investigations into international law.39 Jan Willem Honig
emphasized the debt that Morgenthau, and American Realism more generally, owe to German totalitarian
ideologies.40 Martti Koskenniemi also stressed Morgenthau's intellectual debt to Carl Schmitt, and he finds
striking similarities in their objections to international law and the ‘decadence’ of 20th-century liberalism.41
Andreas Söllner saw a sharp break between the German and American Morgenthau; the Weimar liberal be-
came a postwar conservative.42 Niels Amstrup adopts a middle position; he finds the genesis of some of
Morgenthau's postwar concepts in his prewar writings.43 Richard Ned Lebow made the strongest case for
the evolution of his views once in the United States – from realist conservative to transformative liberal.44
As with IPT more generally, the end of the Cold War and the invasion of Iraq a decade later provided in-
centives to revisit Morgenthau. Many within the international relations theory community wanted to recapture
realism from the travesty of neorealism, and a good way to do this is to return to earlier theorists who had pio-
neered the paradigm. Morgenthau was the obvious choice. He was the dominant realist from the mid century
until the rise of neorealism, and he was also the most engaged with political theory.
As noted, Ned Lebow turned to Morgenthau to recapture and foreground the wisdom of classical realism.
Michael Williams edited an influential book on Morgenthau with essays by Anthony F. Lang, Jr, Chris Brown,
William E. Scheuerman, Oliver Jütersonke, Nicholas Rengger, Richard Little, Michael Cox, Campbell Craig,
Ned Lebow, and Michael Williams.45 Contributors revisit Morgenthau's key writings but also his relationship
to Aristotle, Carl Schmitt, international law, the Cold War, and the idea of a world state.
Bill Scheuerman subsequently published an intellectual biography of Morgenthau that depicts him as uncom-
fortable with conventional notions of realism.46 He was a powerful critic of the existing state system and
defended supranational institutions, on the grounds that it was necessary to cope with the twin threats of nu-
clear destruction and environmental disaster. Scheuermann discusses Morgenthau's engagement with major
European political and legal thinkers and how it helped him develop a morally demanding political ethics. Be-
lieving that the irrationalities of US foreign policy were rooted partly in domestic factors, he sympathized with
demands for radical political and social change, most notably for civil rights. Scheuerman intended his book
in part as a corrective to realist accounts that ignore or discount Morgenthau's normative aspirations.
Grand Theory
The heyday of grand theories in the social sciences was the late 18th to the early 20th centuries. For scientific
and normative reasons, they became an increasingly disreputable enterprise. Theories were generally blind
to the extent to which their concepts and premises were the products of specific historical and cultural cir-
cumstances. They devalued agency and were hostile to individual expression and development by actors.
Poststructuralism is even more hostile to grand theory. Jean-François Lyotard defines the postmodern ‘as in-
credulity toward metanarratives’ and the idea of progress they encode.47 Quentin Skinner notes with irony
that some of the authorities most opposed to theory (for example, Wittgenstein, Foucault, Derrida) are them-
selves authors of such theories.48 Other prominent critics, like Althusser, Habermas, and Rawls, returned
quite self-consciously to the project of grand theory in the 1960s and 1970s.49
The rise of IPT has promoted a renewed interest in grand theory in international relations. In part, this is be-
cause it encourages engagement with thinkers of the past responsible for grand theories. It also encourages
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us to think about how much of politics is culturally determined and to recognize that our moment in history as
one of many. This kind of relativism prompts us to look for the distinguishing features of our epoch, and that
can only be done by comparing it to others. We are ineluctably drawn into the realm of grand theory.
Of two relatively recent grand theories of international relations, mine is the most closely connected to IPT.50
A Cultural Theory of International Relations is the second volume of a trilogy that began with the previously
described Tragic Vision of Politics.51 It draws on Plato and Aristotle's understandings of human motives and
identity formation to formulate the first constructivist theory of international relations. Both philosophers stress
the power of the spirit (thumos), which gives rise to the universal to develop a constructivist theory of interna-
tional relations’ need for self-esteem. I demonstrate how it influences political behavior at every level of social
aggregation. I develop ideal-type worlds associated with appetite, spirit, reason, and fear. The last becomes
increasingly important when reason no longer constrains appetite and spirit. Each of these motives generates
a different logic concerning cooperation, conflict, and risk-taking. Appetite and spirit rest on different principles
of justice, and reason rests on a combination of them. I document the utility of my theory in historical case
studies ranging from classical Greece to the war in Iraq and use those cases to develop a novel explanation
for the rise of the state, the causes of war, and reformulate and extend prospect theory. My theory also estab-
lishes a framework for understanding transformations of regional and international systems.
The final volume of the trilogy, The Rise and Fall of Political Orders, offers a general theory about why social
and political orders form, how they sustain themselves, and why and how they decline.52 Here, too, I draw
heavily on the ancient Greeks, most notably Aristotle, but also on more recent political thinkers like Hume,
Nietzsche, Weber, and Durkheim. I distinguish top-down from bottom-up orders, explore the ways in which
they interact, and the tensions between them. I identify long- and short-term threats to political order having
to do with shifts in the relative appeal of principles of justice and lack of self-restraint by elites, respectively. I
use my theory to explore the consequences of late modernity for democracy in the United States and author-
itarianism in China. The book forges new links between classics and political science and also political theory
and political science, through its use of canonical texts in both fields and the explicit connections it makes
between normative goals and empirical research.
Conclusion
My overview of IPT has been limited, largely to research in the ‘is’ tradition. Even so, it reveals a remarkable
diversity, a growing number of interesting research programs, and considerable cross-fertilization among
them, as well as thoughtful bridging between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ projects. The ‘ought’ is of defining importance
even for those interested in ‘is’ questions. Political theory has always been about ‘ought’ questions, and quite
self-consciously so. It was the false belief of positivists that ‘is’ questions could be posed and answered in the
absence of ‘ought’ ones, which led to the side-lining of political theory in the postwar era. Political theory is
making a comeback and IPT is a growing voice in the field of international relations. IPT scholars recognize
that ‘is’ questions cannot and should not be posed in isolation from ‘ought’ ones. IPT might be said to serve
other research programs in social science as a useful model about why this is necessary, how it is done, and
how it leads a more ethical and fruitful form of inquiry.
Notes
1 The founding constructivist works in international relations reveal serious engagement with political theory:
Nicholas G. Onuf, World of Our Making (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1989); Friedrich
V. Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical and Legal Reasoning in Interna-
tional Relations and Domestic Affairs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

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2 Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations (New York: Knopf, 1948).
3 E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–1939 (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), p. 8.
4 Peter Wilson, ‘The Myth of the “First Great Debate”', Review of International Studies 24 (1998), pp. 1–16;
Lucian Ashworth, ‘Where are the Idealists in Interwar International Relations?', Review of International Stud-
ies 32, no. 2 (2006), pp. 291–308; Brian C. Schmidt (ed.), International Relations and the First Great Debate
(London: Routledge University Press, 2012); Richard Ned Lebow, The Tragic Vision of Politics: Ethics, Inter-
ests and Orders (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), ch. 4; Seán Molloy, ‘Pragmatism, Realism
and the Ethics of Crisis and Transformation in International Relations', International Theory 6, no. 3 (2014),
pp. 454–489.
5 Richard Ned Lebow, A Cultural Theory of International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2008), chs. 2–3; Richard Ned Lebow, The Politics and Ethics of Identity: In Search of Ourselves (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2012), chs. 3–4.
6 Thomas S. Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962).
7 James Boyd White, When Words Lose Their Meaning: Constitutions and Reconstitutions of Language,
Character, and Community (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984); Daniel Garst, ‘Thucydides and Ne-
orealism', International Studies Quarterly 33, no. 1 (1989), pp. 469–497.
8 Richard Ned Lebow, ‘Thucydides the Constructivist', American Political Science Review 95 (September
2001), pp. 547–60; Richard Ned Lebow, Tragic Vision of Politics: Ethics, Interests and Orders, chs. 3–4.
9 Ibid.
10 Michael C. Williams, ‘Hobbes and International Relations: A Reconsideration', International Organization

50, no. 2 (1996), pp. 213–236.
11 Michael C. Williams, The Realist Tradition and the Limits of International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2005).
12 Williams, The Realist Tradition; Richard Ned Lebow, Tragic Vision of Politics: Ethics, Interests and Orders;
Richard Ned Lebow, ‘Classical Realism', in Tim Dunne, Milja Kurki, and Steve Smith (eds), International Re-
lations Theories; Richard Ned Lebow, Discipline and Diversity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp.
34–56.
13 Casper Sylvest, ‘John H. Herz and the Resurrection of Classical Realism', International Relations 22, no.
4 (2008), pp. 441–455.
14 Molloy, ‘Pragmatism, Realism and the Ethics of Crisis and Transformation in International Relations', pp.
454–489.
15 Hartmut Behr and Michael C. Williams, ‘Interlocating Classical Realism and Critical Theory: Negotiating
“Divides” in International Relations Theory', Journal of International Political Theory 13, no. 1 (2017), pp.
3–17.
16 Beate Jahn, Liberal Internationalism: Theory, History, Practice (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).
17 Seán Molloy, Kant's International Relations (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017).
18 Gary King, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry (Princeton: Princeton Uni-
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versity Press, 1994); Mark I. Lichbach and Richard Ned Lebow (eds), Theory and Evidence in Comparative
Politics and International Relations (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), for a critique.
19 Richard Ned Lebow (ed.), Max Weber and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2017).
20 Ted Hopf, ‘The Logic of Habit in International Relations', European Journal of International Relations 16,
no. 4 (2010), pp. 539–561.
21 Felix Berenskoetter, ‘Friends, There Are No Friends? An Intimate Reframing of the International', Millenni-
um 35, no. 2 (2007), pp. 647–676.
22 Seán Molloy, ‘“Cautious politics”: Morgenthau and Hume's Critiques of the Balance of Power', International
Politics 50, no. 6 (2013), pp. 768–783.
23 Duncan S. Bell, ‘Republican Imperialism: J.A. Froude and the Virtue of Empire', History of Political Thought
30, no. 1 (2009), pp. 166–191.
24 Duncan S. Bell, The Idea of Greater Britain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011).
25 Duncan S. Bell, ‘Political Realism and International Relations', Philosophy Compass 12, no. 2 (2017),
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/phc3.v12.2/issuetoc (accessed 12 September 2019).
26 Nicholas Rengger, The Anti-Pelagian Imagination in Political Theory and International Relations: Dealing
in Darkness (London: Routledge, 2017).
27 Mervyn Frost, ‘Tragedy, Ethics, and International Relations', in Toni Erskine and Richard Ned Lebow (eds),
Tragedy and International Relations (London: Palgrave, 2012), pp. 21–43; James Mayall, ‘Tragedy, Progress,
and International Order', in Erskine and Lebow, Tragedy and International Relations, pp. 44–52; Nicholas
Rengger, ‘Tragedy or Scepticism? Defending the Anti-Pelagian Mind in World Politics', in Erskine and Lebow,
Tragedy and International Relations, pp. 53–62; Richard Ned Lebow, ‘Tragedy, Politics, and Political Science',
in Erskine and Lebow, Tragedy and International Relations, pp. 63–71; Alister Wedderburn, ‘Tragedy, Geneal-
ogy and Theories of International Relations', European Journal of International Relations 24, no. 1 (2018), pp.
177–197.
28 Catherine Lu, ‘Tragedies and International Relations', in Erskine and Lebow, Tragedy and International
Relations, pp. 158–171; Toni Erskine and Richard Ned Lebow, ‘Learning from Tragedy and International Re-
lations', in Erskine and Lebow, Tragedy and International Relations, pp. 185–217.
29 Tracy B. Strong, ‘Nietzsche and Questions of Tragedy, Tyranny and International Relations', in Erskine
and Lebow, Tragedy and International Relations, pp. 144–157; Benjamin A. Schupmann, ‘A Pessimism of
Strength? Tragedy and Political Virtue', in Erskine and Lebow, Tragedy and International Relations, pp.
129–143; Robbie Shilliam, ‘The Drama Viewed from Elsewhere', in Erskine and Lebow, Tragedy and Interna-
tional Relations, pp. 172–184; Wedderburn, ‘Tragedy, Genealogy and Theories of International Relations', pp.
177–197.
30 Ned Lebow, ‘Tragedy, Politics, and Political Science', pp. 63–71; Chris Brown, ‘Tragedy, “Tragic Choices”
and Contemporary International Political Theory', in Erskine and Lebow, Tragedy and International Relations,
pp. 75–185; Peter J. Euben, ‘The Tragedy of Tragedy', in Erskine and Lebow, Tragedy and International
Relations, pp. 85–96; Richard Beardsworth, ‘Tragedy, World Politics and Ethical Community', in Erskine
and Lebow, Tragedy and International Relations, pp. 97–111; Kamila Stullerova, ‘Tragic Vision and Vigilant
Realism: Progressivism Without an Ideal', in Erskine and Lebow, Tragedy and International Relations, pp.
112–126.
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31 Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996) and The Nomos
of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum, trans. G. L. Ulmen (New York: Telos
Press, 2006). For thoughtful analysis, see William E. Scheuerman, Carl Schmitt and the End of Law (Lanham,
MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999); Martti Koskenniemi, ‘International Law as Political Theology: How to Read
Nomos der Erde?', Constellations 11, no. 4 (2004), pp. 492–511.
32 Most notably, Chantal Mouffe (ed.), The Challenge of Carl Schmitt (London: Verso, 1999). On this phe-
nomenon, see William Rasch, Sovereignty and its Discontents: On the Primacy of Conflict and the Structure
of the Political (London: Birkbeck Law Press, 2004); John P. McCormack, ‘The Second Wave of Carl Schmitt',
Political Theory 26, no. 6 (1998), pp. 830–854.
33 David Chandler, ‘The Revival of Carl Schmitt in International Relations: The Last Refuge of Critical Theo-
rists?', Millennium 37, no.1 (2008), pp. 27–48.
34 Richard Devetak, ‘Between Kant and Pufendorf: Humanitarian Intervention, Statist Anti-Cosmopolitanism
and Critical International Theory', Review of International Studies 33 (2007), ‘Special Issue: Critical Interna-
tional Relations Theory after 25 Years,’ pp. 151–74; Chris Brown, ‘From Humanized War to Humanitarian In-
tervention: Carl Schmitt's Critique of the Just War Tradition', in Louiza Odysseos and Fabio Petito (eds), The
International Political Thought of Carl Schmitt: Terror, Liberal War and the Crisis of Global Order (London:
Routledge, 2007), pp. 56–69.
35 Richard Ned Lebow, Peer Schouten, and Hidemi Suganami (eds), Dialogues with Great Thinkers of the
Past (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).
36 Michael Cox (ed.), E. H. Carr: A Critical Appraisal (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000); Special Issue on
John H. Herz, International Relations 22, no. 4 (2008), with articles by Jana Puglierin, Thomas Karis, Frank
Schale, Peter M. R. Stirk, Casper Sylvest, Kennedy Graham, Richard Ned Lebow, Nicholas J. Wheeler, and
Ken Booth; Jan Ruzicka, Special Issue: Karl Deutsch: A Transformative Social Scientist, International Re-
lations 28, no. 3 (2014), with articles by Ondrej Ditrych, Peter J. Katzenstein, Richard Ned Lebow, Andrei
Markovits, Jan Ruzicka, Kamila Stullerova, and Petr Drulák and Radka Druláková.
37 Richard Ned Lebow, ‘German Jews and American Realism', Constellations 18, no. 4 (2011), pp. 545–566;
Felix Rösch (ed.), Émigré Scholars and the Genesis of International Relations: A European Discipline in
America?, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
38 Duncan S. Bell (ed.), Political Thought and International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
39 Christoph Frei, Hans J. Morgenthau: An Intellectual Biography (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press, [1994] 2001), chs. 5–8.
40 Jan Willem Honig, ‘Totalitarianism and Realism: Hans Morgenthau's German Years', in Benjamin Frankel
(ed.), Roots of Realism (Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1996), pp. 283–313.
41 Martti Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp.
459–465.
42 Andreas Söllner, ‘Hans J. Morgenthau: ein deutscher Konservativer in Amerika?', in Rainer Erb and
Michael Schmidt (eds), Antisemitismus und jüdische Geschichte: Studien zu Ehren von Herbert A. Strauss
(Berlin: Wissenschaftlicher Autorenverlag, 1987), pp. 243–266.
43 Niels Amstrup, ‘The “Early” Morgenthau: A Comment on the Intellectual Origins of Realism', Cooperation
and Conflict 13 (1978), pp. 163–175.

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44 Richard Ned Lebow, Tragic Vision of Politics: Ethics, Interests and Orders, ch. 5.
45 Michael Williams (ed.), Realism Reconsidered: The Legacy of Hans J. Morgenthau in International Rela-
tions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
46 William E. Scheuerman, Morgenthau (London: Polity, 2009).
47 Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. Geoff Bennington and
Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), Introduction, p. xxiv.
48 Quentin Skinner, ‘Introduction: The Return of Grand Theory', in Quentin Skinner, The Return of Grand
Theory in the Human Sciences (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 1–20.
49 Louis Althusser, For Marx, trans. Ben Brewster (London: Verso, 2005 [1965]); Jürgen Habermas, The The-
ory of Communicative Action, 2 vols, trans. T. McCarthy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984–1987); John Rawls, A
Theory of Justice, rev. ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999).
50 The other is Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1999). Wendt is best classified as a structural liberal.
51 Richard Ned Lebow, Cultural Theory of International Relations, chs. 2–3.
52 Richard Ned Lebow, The Rise and Fall of Political Orders (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).
• international political theory

• international relations theory
• critical theory
• political theorists
• realism
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529714333.n78

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Multilateralism
Contributors: David M. Malone & Rohinton P. Medhora

Chapter Title: "Multilateralism"
Pub. Date: 2020
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781526459558
Online ISBN: 9781529714333
SAGE SAGE Reference
Multilateralism
David M. Malone Rohinton P. Medhora
Introduction
Multilateralism, defined as the process of organizing relations between groups of three or more states, oper-
ates under three ge

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Dirk Berg-Schlosser - Bertrand Badie - France Leonardo Morlino - The SAGE Handbook of Political Science (2020, SAGE Publications LTD) PDF

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The SAGE Handbook of Political Science

Contributors: Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Leonardo Morlino & Bertrand Badie

Political Science from a Global Perspective

The Global Organisation of Political Science

The SAGE Handbook of Political Science

The SAGE Handbook of Political Science

Challenges and Innovations in the 21st Century

The SAGE Handbook of Political Science

Piketty, Thomas (2013), Le Capital au XXIe Siècle, Paris: Editions du Seuil.

The SAGE Handbook of Political Science

Contributors: Siddharth Mallavarapu

Comparative Political Theory

The SAGE Handbook of Political Science

Contextualizing CPT: Competing Rationales

The SAGE Handbook of Political Science

Argument 1: ‘Genuine Universalism'

The SAGE Handbook of Political Science

Argument 2: ‘Principled Value-Conflicts'

Argument 3: Embracing ‘Cosmopolitan Political Thought'

Argument 4: The Democratic Impulse in CPT

Argument 5: Evolving a Shared CPT Grammar

Argument 6: Reconfiguring Political Theory

The SAGE Handbook of Political Science

Contending with a Canon

[m]isrecognition of ‘political’ Islam as an atavistic throwback or as a reactive social phenomenon

The SAGE Handbook of Political Science

However, Chimni throws an important caveat here when he claims

The SAGE Handbook of Political Science

Coming to Terms with Otherness

The SAGE Handbook of Political Science

Referring to these maps as ‘imaginary maps', Spivak argues that

In Lieu of a Conclusion: Contending with the ‘Ghost in the Machine'

The SAGE Handbook of Political Science

The SAGE Handbook of Political Science

The SAGE Handbook of Political Science

Said, Edward W. (1981). Covering Islam (

• comparative political theory

The SAGE Handbook of Political Science

Contributors: Jun Ayukawa

Introduction: What is Constructivism?

Social Constructivism: The Birth of Constructivism and Its Development

Constructivism in the Study of Social Problems

The SAGE Handbook of Political Science

The SAGE Handbook of Political Science

Constructivism in Europe with a Focus on Scandinavian Countries

Construction of Crime Statistics

The SAGE Handbook of Political Science

The Interest in Constructivism in China

Ethnicity, Gender and Identity

though such crimes are banned by international treaties.

The SAGE Handbook of Political Science

The SAGE Handbook of Political Science

Contributors: Gianfranco Poggi

Emile Durkhein's Sociological Insight Into Political Phenomena

by threatening or exercising violence on the subjects.

A significant essay by Hans-Peter Mueller (2009) characterizes as follows Durkheim's position,

The SAGE Handbook of Political Science

As Durkheim himself stated,

The SAGE Handbook of Political Science