1. FOUNDATIONS OF
COMPARATIVE
POLITICS
Chapter 2
States and democracy

2. Objectives
• The five major topics covered in this chapter
are:
• Why study states?
• The modern state and democracy
• The rise of democratic states
• Redistribution and welfare states
• Theories of state and society.

3. Introduction
With only a few special exceptions, the entire face of the world is
divided between states. Yet it is not self-evident that comparative
politics should focus on states as the main form of organized
politics.
After all, in the increasingly globalizing world there are many other
forms of organization that have a big impact on politics and on
daily existence in general. The European Union, Microsoft and al-
Qa’ida are more powerful than many states and affect the lives of
millions of people. If it is true that the European concept of the
state is in reject, then why should we try to understand the state
and its actions when newer political actors appear to be so
important?

4. • In theory, one of the defining characteristics of
democracy is a form of government in which the
great mass of citizens can participate in political
decision making and policy making.
• Democracy ‘A political system whose leaders are
elected in competitive multi-party and multi-candidate
processes’ (Freedom House).

5. • For this reason government is usually in the hands of
a comparatively small number of elected
representatives who are supposed to exercise their
power in the interests of the much larger number of
people they represent.
• Therefore modern democracy immediately raises all
sorts of questions about the ways in which the
elected representatives are to be held responsible
and accountable to citizens, and about the civil and
political rights and duties of citizens that elected
representatives should respect and preserve.

6. • Democracies do more than guarantee formal
civil and political rights, however. They also
accept responsibility, to a greater or lesser
extent, for the welfare of their citizens: for the
young and the old, the sick and the disabled
and the unemployed and the poor.

7. Why study states?
• It is a paradox that the power and importance of states
seems to be in decline at the very time that states have
captured almost every corner of the world’s surface and
when the number of states is at an all-time high.
Nonetheless, new technologies have made it possible to
locate the production of goods and services almost
anywhere on the globe.
• Transport and communications, and especially
information technology (IT) have created a ‘global
village’.

8. • Even wars are no longer restricted to conflicts
between neighboring states, but involve terrorist
groups and special forces all over the world. As a
result, the powers of states are increasingly limited
by growing international interdependencies and
interconnections
• The world, it is argued, is increasingly forming a
single system, a trend described as globalization.

9. • Globalization The growing interdependencies and
interconnectedness of the world that reduces the
autonomy of individual states and the importance of
boundaries between them.
• Part of the globalization process involves the
emergence of international organizations that
challenge the pre-eminence of states. The United
Nations and the European Union are perhaps the
most conspicuous, but they are not alone, for there
are other transnational organizations such as:
NAFTA, ASEAN, IMF, and NGOs.

10. • NGOs Non-profit, private and non-violent
organizations that are independent of
government but seek to influence or control
public policy without actually seeking
government office.

11. The modern state and democracy
• Mass political involvement transformed states into
‘mass democracies’ when the rights of opposition
were recognized and general suffrage granted.
• Stein Rokkan emphasized the fact that the internal
restructuring of the state converts subjects of the
state into citizens, collectively known as the ‘masses’
or ‘the people’ (see chapter 1). But how do we
distinguish between democratic and non-democratic
states in the first place? Usually, this question is
answered by referring to citizens’ rights, elections
and parliamentary accountability.

12. Citizens’ rights
• Discussions about political power and the rights
of citizens have always been at the centre of
debates about democracy.
• After all, Article 2 of the ‘Declaration of the
Rights of Man and of the Citizen’ published in
Paris (briefing 1.1) talks about the goal of all
political institutions being ‘the natural and
inalienable rights of man’.

13. • Human rights The innate, inalienable and
inviolable right of humans to free movement
and self-determination. Such rights cannot be
bestowed, granted, limited, bartered or sold
away. Inalienable rights can be only secured or
violated.

14. The most common rights include:
 Freedom of speech and the press
 Freedom of religion and conscience
 Freedom of assembly and association
 Right to equal protection of the law
 Right to due process of law and to fair trial
 Property rights to land, goods and money.

15. Protecting these rights is the first aim of democratic
political systems.
Apart from anything else, they have a special
political importance for both ordinary citizens
and political leaders. If human rights are
protected, citizens and leaders can engage in
peaceful political conflict without fear of reprisals
so that free competition for political power
should result, on election day, in government by
those winning most popular support.

16. Elections and parliamentary
accountability
The development of mass democracies began in a
few countries in the nineteenth century.
The basic idea at the time was not that citizens should
be directly involved in politics, but should rely on
being represented by elected political leaders.
The main political task of citizens was to elect
representatives (see chapter 11) who would govern
on their behalf (representative democracy).

17. Elections and parliamentary
accountability con…
• Only after long struggles between factions and
competing elites was it recognized that
democracies must function with the consent of
their citizens, and later still with their active
participation (participatory democracy).
• Representative democracy That form of
democracy in which citizens elect leaders who
govern in their name.

18. • Participatory democracy is Democracy in
which citizens actively and directly participate
in government.

19. Democracy and the rise of democratic
states
• The crucial importance of free political
competition and a real chance of taking over
the powers of government are found in the
definition of democracy applied by Freedom
House. This independent institute, which
monitors political developments in the world
(see fact file 2.1), defines democracies as:

20. Redistribution and the welfare state
• As states move slowly towards political freedom
and democracy, so they will be confronted, as
Rokkan points out, with growing citizen demands
and a need to strengthen national identification
by redistributive policies.
This helps to turn subjects of the state into citizens
of the state by giving every citizen a stake in
public services and hence a sense of common
national purpose and identity. It also turns states
into welfare states to a greater or lesser extent.

21. • GDP The value of all final goods and services
produced within a state in a given year. In order
to compare the wealth of states the measure
used is normally GDP per capita.

22. Theories of state and society
• As we saw in chapter 1, modern political theories
about the state fall into two very broad
categories:
normative theories about what the state ought to
do and empirical theories about how the state
actually operates and why it operates that way.
We shall discuss empirical theories now. As the
relationship between democracy and state
spending shows, the nature and functioning of
the state is closely related to the society it
governs.

23. Theories of state and society
Broadly speaking, there are four major
approaches to the relationship between ‘state’
and ‘society’:
• State supremacy
• State dependency
• Interdependency
• Separation and autonomy.

24. State supremacy
Some theories presume the supremacy or dominance
of the state over society.
According to these theories, the state does not so
much reflect the characteristics of broader society
but is independent of them and above them.
This idea is found in legal theories that stress the
formal sovereignty of the state.
Aristotle, for example, saw the state as a political
community ‘which is the highest of all, and which
embraces all the rest

25. Such theories are summarised under the label
‘Etatism’.
Etatism A very strong emphasis on state power
and an accompanying reduction of social and
individual rights

26. State dependency
Some theories see the state not as a supreme agency
that dominates society, but, quite the opposite, as
dependent on society, especially in its economic
relations.
• Disputes about this view of the state and its
relationship with social and economic forces have a
long and complicated tradition in political analysis.
Marxists argue about whether and to what extent the
state can be independent of economic forces and
the interests of the capitalist class.

27. Interdependency
• A third set of theories stresses the interdependence of state
and society, or the relationships of exchange between
them.
In these approaches the modern state has become ever more
and ever deeper involved in social and economic
regulation.
At the same time, as society has become increasingly complex
and differentiated it requires more state co-ordination,
regulation and arbitration.
These developments are different sides of the same coin, and
it is not possible to say that one causes the other or that
one dominates the other. They are mutually
interdependent.

28. Separation and autonomy
Finally, some theories show state and society as
distinct and autonomous areas, each with its own
rules and development, and each with its own
imperatives and ‘logic’. Deep social forces produce
social groups, interests and organizations that
neither can nor should be controlled or regulated by
the state.
Equally, the state cannot and should not be captured
by any particular interests or class (as the Marxists
claim) because the state is a battlefield occupied by
many conflicting groups and interests.