n influential conventional wisdom holds that civil wars proliferated rapidly with the end ofthe Cold War and that the root cause of many or most of these has been ethnic and religiousantagonisms.
Decolonization left huge power vacuums in many previously colonial territories, leading to civil wars to determine who would gain power.
When we turn to "freedom to" metrics, however, one-party Singaporescores well below the U.S. on three of our core freedoms: "freedom ofexpression and belief," "associational and organizational rights" and"political pluralism and participation." I
Too much freedom of expression could damage a ruler if left unchecked, it can also lead to an inefficient system of policy implementation
With a population of almost six million,Singapore's incidents of robbery were only a seventh of Boston's,which has a population of only 650,000
could the idea of too much freedom lead people to cause more harm than good
while the U.S. comes in 13th
but the US is still the "greatest country in the world" right?
Metrics for life stretch from infant mortality through likelihood ofbeing murdered, raped or assaulted, to life expectancy. For everythousand babies born in Singapore, two die within their rst year oflife, compared with six in the U.S., 24 in the Philippines and 55 inZimbabwe. Americans' chances of violent death are 12 times those ofcitizens of Singapore. Life expectancy in Singapore is 83; it's 79 in theU.S., 69 in the Philippines and 58 in Zimbabwe
People that claim that the West is better always only look at the statistics that support them and never at those that oppose them
"know" thatWestern-style democracy is the best form of government.
This is what I mean that people have been brainwashed by the western world into thinking that their opinions are the only right opinions
it is appropriate to ask how each is performing by theseyardsticks.
the aspect of cultural relativism is ignored where it is expected that the measure of a country be by western standards that were set
African philosophy
Could he have been disliked because he countered western philosophies
that national spending on infra-structure, health, and education could not be increased in line withforeign aid flows
Meles was obviously not a capitalist, he seemed more keen on maintaining and providing for everyone rather than growing
When the great famine of 1984–5 struck, theTPLF took the strategic decision to make feeding the peasantry its prior-ity, even at the expense of losing ground to the enemy.
Communist/socialist ideology?
Marxism-Leninism
In the pursuit of eliminating poverty, Meles', did Meles completely avoid capitalism?
From the outset, what needed to be done was to conquer poverty.From his early days in the field through to his last years as an internationalstatesman, Meles was absolutely consistent in this aim.
There's too much partiality in this review I am still not sure what is its purpose
Having justcompleted my doctoral dissertation on famine survival strategies inSudan,
The author is talking too much about himself and meles, this seems like a story where meles is just being idolized
Meles had the quiet certitude of someone who had been tested – andseen his people tested
Seems like a biased review towards meles and the author's country
Here we can note that a fundamental rationale of theJewish ethnocracy?the spatial exclusion of PalestinianArabs?has been diffused into Jewish society and has le?gitimized patterns of intra-Jewish ethnicization. The mostnotable has been the segregation and tension betweenAshkenazis and Mizrahis, as indicated. The political, le?gal and cultural tools of ethnic segregation thatundergirded the Zionist project were also used to segre?gate Jewish elites from Jewish "minorities."18 To be sure,these mechanisms were relatively subtle, but the persist?ing gap between Ashkenazis and Mizrahis cannot be un?derstood without accounting for the political geography ofintra-Jewish relations. In the main, Mizrahis were spa?tially marginalized by the Israeli settlement project,whether in the isolated periphery or in poor and stigma?tized neighborhoods of Israel's main cities. This has lim?ited their potential economic, social and culturalmobilization
The jewish state was built based on a ethno focus, with all non jews being seen as "minorities", this has been utlized to ensure that non jews, espicailly palestinians , are deprived from any politcal or economic moblization. This results in the palestinian population staying in a social and cultural halt and decay.
nd belonging to Palestinians who re?mained as Israeli citizens was expro
Were those citizens still being mistreated at the time? did israeli's coerce them into abandoning their citizenship or was it a process of co-optation
ate, the Jewish settlementproject swung into full gear with a mission to de-Arabizethe country with a drive to control Palestinian Arab l
The jews completely annexed palestine and aimed to dominate every aspect of the palestenian territory
d against these Judaizing discourses, policies or prac?tices. If such dissent did emerge, the national Jewish elitesfound effective ways to marginalize, co-opt or gag most chal?lengers
was the jewish state an authoritarian regime or a democracy at the time?
The "frontier" became a central icon, and its settlementwas considered one of the highest achievements of any Zion?ist. The frontier kibbutzim (collective rural villages) provideda model, and the reviving Hebrew language was filled withpositive images such as aliyah lakarka (literally "ascent tothe land," i.e., settlem
The movement of Jews into israel was largely based on their religious beliefs which were supported directly by the US that had political goals rather than actually supporting the jewish cause
Madisonargued that struggles among the diverse factions that would befound in an extensive republic would lead to policies more orless representative of the needs and interests of the citizenry asa whole
Majoritarian pluralism seems like the most fair concept, but I don't think that it is the most equitable as it ignores minorities
A quite different theoretical tradition argues that U.S.policy making is dominated by individuals who havesubstantial economic resources
I agree with this as high income individuals have more means and influence to push for their desires where they can even buy votes
median-voter theorem as simplistic and empiricallyinapplicable or wrong
The median voter theorem is the most popular as it provides testable implications
Lincoln’s reference to government “of the people, by thepeople, for the people,
This is what it is supposed to be though it is not always the case in corrupt democracies
majoritarian electoral democracy
Majoritarian democracy does not take into account the minority votes
it has been run since then by a small circle of offi-cers and apparatchiks
The purpose of the small circle was for mubarrak to only give power to those he trusted, even though egypt was supposedly a democracy, mubarak did what he needed to maintain his power even if it was by immoral means
As democracy flour-ished in unexpected territory, political scientists forecast the downfall ofmany remaining autocrats.
The beginings of democracy are always hopeful and show equitable representation, as time goes by, the rulers in a democratic government do whatever they must to maintain their power, even if it leads to corruption
Mubarak had garnered internationaland domestic acclaim for allowing opposition candidates to participatein the upcoming contest for the presidency.
Mubarak allowed oppositional parties to gain just enough influence where they could be represented, but he wouldn't allow them to gain any significant power
state of emergency,
The problem with the state of emergency is that it can be used by rulers to completely eliminate opposition in a legitimate manner
In the last quarter of the twentieth century, democratically elected govern-ments replaced authoritarian regimes at an astounding rate.
What about the 3rd reverse democratisation movement in the middle east?
so as to give the politi-cal opposition a fair chance to defeat the government in the next elections.
governments in any nation mostly have more power and influence than opposing parties, making it almost impossible to offer a fair chance
fail to meet the substantive test
who has made the guidelines for this "test", if a country does not completely pass the test, are they considered a democracy, are there other methods of identifying democracies?
freedom of expression
I don't think any country has complete freedom of expression, there is always a limit
democ-racy requires not only free, fair, and competitive elections,
A lot of countries claiming to be democracies do not have genuine fair elections but have rigged election that are in favor of the ruling party
we are still far from consensus on what constitutes“democracy.” And we still struggle to classify ambiguous regimes.
Is the reason for this that countries who claim to be democracies are not actual democracies internally
deed when we examine the costs that arise as aconsequence of the institutional framework we see they are a result notonly of that framework, but also of the organizations that have developedin consequence of that framework. Conceptually, what must be clearlydifferentiated are the rules from the players. The purpose of the rules is todefine the way the game is played.
Does going against an institution result in punishment? Or is it just an unorthodox approach
As defined here, they thereforeare the framework within which human interaction takes place
are institutions just a man made construct that is meant to control people for the benefit of those who created institutions?
define and limit the set of choices of individuals
Does the creation of more institution also result in increased choices and less limits
the nature of institutions
I think in many cases, institutions are subtly run by nations to fulfill a nations desires
Yet neither current economic theory nor cliometric history showsmany signs of appreciating the role of institutions in economic perfor-mance
Are institutions state or non-state actors, can they be both?
Even the region’s oldest political par-ties, dating from the time of the nationalist movements, are typically lessthan half a century old
Is this reading thinking of party formation before or after african countries were decolonized and gain independance
only nine African countries had held competitive, multipartyelections in the period 1985–9.
Multiparty elections are not genuine in many african countries such as Egypt, they are corrupt and only ruled by one party
1990s
Wasn't the third wave of democracy in the 80s?
All but a handful of states inthe region now conduct regular parliamentary elections that allow oppos-ition parties to be represented in the national legislature
This can in some cases be not genuine ruling parties in democracies can very easily be corrupt and rig the elections
notably those in Latin America,
Were these democratizations genuine? Or were they more of a government for show
the poll tax would never have been introduced had itbeen more carefully, and more slowly,
both extremes in this issue would be innefficient, finding the balance is necessary
concentrating political power in the hands of a narrowmajority can promote unified, decisive leadership and hence co-herent policies and fast decision-making.
In the US, the major bipolarity in the governmental parties causes it to be very inefficient when passing laws or policies
On the other hand, theconventional wisdom maintains that the one-party majority gov-ernments typically produced by plurality elections are more de-cisive and hence more effective policy-makers
Lack of different parties in a government makes decision making much quicker
quality and the effectivenessof democratic governmen
Could a higher quality democratic government be less efficient because of the different parties therefore making it dificult to pass legistlative decision s
Does the difference between majoritarian and consen-sus democracy make a difference for the operation of democ-racy
Consensus democracy might be more equitable as it does not only ensure the majoraties rule
Six of the nine federal systems
Only 9 countries are federal? Is this referring to countries who are actually federal or just officially federal?
“has some activities onwhich it makes final decisions”
I think this can be completely counterproductive in a situation where a nation needs to pass a law quickly or make a legislative decision
To maintain ma-jority rule in the pure majoritarian model, the central govern-ment must control not only the central government apparatus butalso all noncentral, potentially competing, governments.
Central government could therefore focus more on maintaining their power and influence instead of actually acting for the benefit of the nation
“division of power” is normallyused as a synonym for federalism.174
Could this also make it harder to pass legislative policies as power is not centralized to one body, would it make taking action more inneficient?
federalism because it canbe considered the most typical and drastic method of dividingpower:
Can federelism result in contradictory legislative policies?
Pure two-party systems with, in Lowell’s words quoted above,“two parties, and two parties only,” are extremely rare.
can two party systems make it easier to pass legistaltive decisions?
a country with twoethnic groups comprising 90 and 10 percent of the population isless divided than one with two groups of 50 percent each.
The problem with democracy is that it would literally only benefit the majority parties and reject minority parties
all economically developed, industrialized, and urbanized
all of them were imperialist countries who had a huge advancement against other colonized countries
In the Freedom House surveys, countries are rated as free,partly free, or not free, and these ratings are based on two sets ofcriteria similar to those suggested by Dahl: political rights, such asthe right to participate in free and competitive elections, and civilliberties, such as freedom of speech and association.
This is a completely flawed system, because there are countries that claim that they offer political rights while in reality they don't. This rating system is only based on official state policies and not the reality where some states would claim to have political rights while not actually enforcing them
governmentby the people
flawed because it is actually by the majority of the people and does not take into account all parties
(1) the right to vote, (2) the right to be elected, (3) the rightof political leaders to compete for support and votes, (4) elec-tions that are free and fair, (5) freedom of association, (6) freedomof expression, (7) alternative sources of information, and (8) in-stitutions for making public policies depend on votes and otherexpressions of preference
Currently countries could supposedly have these characteristics while in reality not actually being democracies
there is a neutral arbiter who can resolve conflicts concerningthe division of power between the two levels of government—hence the need for judicial review,
Could be flawed as the neutral arbiter could be susceptible to corruption and bias
. Two-party versus multiparty systems.
could multiparty systems result in increased conflict internally?
The majoritarian model concentrates politi-cal power in the hands of a bare majority
Neglecting the needs of other people who are not a part of the majority
the majority of the people.
It can be argued that democracy is therefore flawed as the majority could be wrong or inefficient in their decisions
Defining democracy as “government by and for the people”11. As Clifford D. May (1987) points out, credit for this definition shouldprobably go to Daniel Webster instead of Lincoln. Webster gave an addressin 1830—thirty-three years before Lincoln’s Gettysburg address—in whichhe spoke of a “people’s government, made for the people, made by thepeople, and answerable to the people.”
"By and for the people", I feel like even in a democracy, the power only lies with the majority group and not all the "people""
“Israel has the authority of the sov-ereign in the territories – without the obli-gations.”
Israel has its sovereignty and the power to do whatever it wants, but the western world has little expectations from it and how it treats palestenians
alestinian citizens ofIsrael now enjoy civil rights inside the greenline
Their "civil rights" are completely diminished because of their ethnicity
justify thinkingabout the situ-ation as tempo-rary.
Israel's occupation had shown no signs of being temprary and their colonial aims are shamelessly shown
Israel as a non-democracy generally refers toall areas under Israeli control
When factoring in the west bank and gaza, its impossible to consider israel as a democracy. I dont think the people in gaza and the west bank have a say in anything
“Israel is not a state of all its citizens ...[but rather] the nation-state of the Jewishpeople and only them.”
Full on annexation + massive racial issue
bureaucracy is capable of attaining thehighest degree of efficiency
Problem with a bureaucracy is that the higher ups could be flawed in their decision making which would be therefore inefficient
Authority legitimized on traditional grounds isbased on “an established belief in the sanctity of immemorial traditions and the legit-imacy of those exercising authority under them”
"Legitimacy" is defined by those who have the most power in a state
which he felt were dominated by shortsighted, pettybureaucrats
Weber seems to have not supported capitalism
He hadlittle faith in the ability of the masses to create a “better” society.
What ideology does weber follow, i think its realism
not overthrow it.
Weber did not care about acquiriing power as much as he cared about changing the system