王志恒 Intro to Comparative Politics: Memo1 14307090015
On the Notion of Democracy in Dahl, Schmitter, and O’Donnell Of these three pieces of reading, Robert Dahl features how regimes get democratized towards what he called polyarchies. Schmitter and Karl provides solution as to what we should expect in a democracy. Guillermo O’Donnell offers a solution to consolidate democracy.
In the beginning of synthesis holds Robert Dahl’s notion of polyarchy. It is extrapolated from democracy in which all citizens, as political equals, shall have unimpaired opportunities to formulate, signify preferences, and, eventually, have them weighed equally in conduct of the government. From the above qualifications of democracy, Dahl listed 8 institutional guarantees. An inquiry into how these institutions can come to be diverges into two theoretical dimensions of democratization, namely public contestation and right to participate in elections and office, and the two dimensions would form 4 permutations. Dahl was to answer how would other permutations change into the “most democratic” one, polyarchy. Thus he works out the assumptions generally saying that the dynamic of this change comes from comparative cost of suppression vis-a-vis tolerance.
Schmitter and Karl criticize Dahl’s scheme to clarify democracy by having it descended into a “operable concept” such as polyarchy. Instead, they dissect 8 elements inherent in the concept of democracy (in contrast with the teleological categorization by Dahl) in order to reconstruct it as “a system of governance in which rulers are held accountable for their actions in the public realm by citizens, acting indirectly through the competition and cooperation of their elected representatives”. They then set about setting procedures vital to maintain democracy, notably adding two principles, non-overriding despotism and selfgovernance of polity, to Dahl’s 8. After that, they outline 11 aspects for comparison among democracies, and finally, disenchant exogenous myths adherent to democracy itself.
Guillermo O’Donnell inherited Schimitter and Karl's concern in their 11 aspects for comparison. What he focuses on would be what he identifies as horizontal accountability. He does better work than the other two papers by clarifying the three different currents of political thought with regards to accountability, one of which being democracy in its prude form. He argued that state agencies should be set out like “redundancy” in machinery, with overlapping authority horizontally reinforce and retain each other. It is particularly helpful, he emphasized, to tackle encroachment and corruption. All three volumes of literature have more or less made their point. Dahl does sterling work in “operationalize” democratic ideal so as to apply it in positive research. Schmitter and Karl clears the ground for any further extrapolation of democracy. O’Donnell bases his argument on relatively solid political philosophy, and proves its worth by making practical institution suggestions. If one takes liberty to think broader, however, of what the authors haven’t intended, one may raise problem to their arguments respectively.
What Dahl would dissatisfy one is that he doesn’t really want to identify any holder of state power. This would find him in an awkward position where a lot of criticism have been somewhat inaccurately made saying there is state or state power missing in him theory. The point is this very omission can cause distortion to him fine model of suppression/ tolerance equilibrium, and undermine the basis of his analysis. Schmitter and Karl tries to reconcile liberal democracy and social democracy, saying there are only “different democracies”. This statement, once accepted, is bound to hinder further positive research, especially democratization research. O’Donnell deliberates quite well how horizontal accountability may effect encroachment and corruption, but undervalues the danger of government conspiracy (Zhou, 2008) possibly generated by it.
All three pieces leave the following problems unsolved. First, how did citizens, championed by democratic theorists, come to be what we think they are? What to make of, for instance, Soviet citizens? Second, all authors have been silent on possible tension between bureaucratic professionalism and democratic values. Third, they all fail to give an account of democracy with respect to the world system.
