Democracy in the United States

Riker, William H.; Boorstin, Daniel J.

doi:10.2307/1337250

Cited by 28 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…15 Authors' calculation. 16 Dahl 1971;Huntington 1991;Riker 1965. European states promote democracy globally in part because of the idea that full protections for human rights require democratic government: democracy increases liberty, freedom and security for citizens. Evidence shows that stable liberal democracies are much more likely than other types of governments to respect human rights, 17 although political transitions often include high levels of coercion and democratizing governments do not always respect human rights.…”

Section: Democracy Elections and Repressionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When Do Governments Resort to Election Violence?

Hafner-Burton

Hyde²,

Jablonski

2013

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

301

173

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When are governments most likely to use election violence, and what factors can mitigate government incentives to resort to violence? How do the dynamics of election violence differ in the pre-and post-election periods? Our central argument is that an incumbent's fear of losing power as the result of an election, as well as institutionalized constraints on the incumbent's decisionmaking powers, are pivotal in her decision to use election violence. While it may seem obvious to suggest that incumbents use election violence in an effort to fend off threats to their power, it is not obvious how to gauge these threats, and a central purpose of our research is to identify sources of information about the incumbent's popularity that can help predict the likelihood of election violence. The observable implications of our argument are tested using newly available cross-national evidence on elections, government use of pre-and post-election violence, and post-election protests from 1981 to 2004.2 When Do Governments Resort to Election Violence? 1 On paper, Azerbaijan is a multiparty democracy, and has held periodic multi-party presidential and parliamentary elections since the country regained independence in 1991. Despite the nominal existence of democratic institutions, tactics of electoral manipulation used by the government include overt election fraud, violence, and intimidation. Opposition supporters, opposition candidates, and journalists risk torture, arbitrary arrest, and political imprisonment-all strategies the government uses to "win" elections. 2 For example, in the run up to the 2005 parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan, facing the possibility that the "colour revolutions" of Georgia and Ukraine would spread, the government arrested journalists and attempted to prevent the opposition from campaigning.The police detained over a thousand activists before the election, and jailed hundreds without cause. 3 After the election, amid accusations of fraud, the government announced that the ruling party won an overwhelming majority, 4 Opposition supporters began to protest the results, assembling more than 7,000 people. Riot police and military forces disbursed the protesters using clubs and water cannons, and several opposition politicians were beaten. 5 In the end, despite international and domestic backlash, the incumbent remained in power. 6 Government-sponsored election violence-events in which incumbent leaders and ruling party agents employ or threaten violence against the political opposition or potential voters before, during, or after elections-is common. 4(including threats of violence such as harassment), we present and test a theory of when an incumbent government is likely to use election violence prior to or after an election. Our central argument is that an incumbent's fear of losing power as the result of an election, as well as institutionalized constraints on the incumbent's decision-making powers, are pivotal in her decision to use election violence. While it may seem obvious t...

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Section: Democracy Elections and Repressionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When Do Governments Resort to Election Violence?

Hafner-Burton

Hyde²,

Jablonski

2013

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

301

173

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“…The convergence coefficient suggests a way of interpreting the arguments of Duverger (1954) and Riker (1953) on the effects of proportional electoral methods on electoral outcomes: the strong centrifugal tendency pulling all parties away from the electoral mean towards their core constituency. This tendency will be particularly strong for small, or low valence, parties.…”

Section: The 2007 Russian Electionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do parties converge to the electoral mean in all political systems?

Gallego

Schofield²

2015

Journal of Theoretical Politics

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Many formal models suggest that parties or candidates should locate at the electoral mean. Yet, there is no consistent evidence of such convergence across political systems. Valence Theorem proves that when valence differences across parties are large, there is nonconvergence to the mean. Convergence to the mean depends on the value of the convergence coefficient, c. When c is high there is significant centrifugal tendency acting on the parties and when c is low there is a significant centripetal tendency acting on the parties. In this paper we apply the stochastic valence model of elections in various countries under different political regimes and use the convergence coefficient of these elections to classify political systems. Our results show that the convergence coefficient varies across elections in a country, across countries using the same political system and across political regimes. For countries using proportional representation, namely Israel, Turkey and Poland, the centrifugal tendency is very high and parties move away from the mean. In the majoritarian polities of the United States and the UK, parties are located at the mean, as the centrifugal tendency is very low. In anocracies, the autocrat imposes limitations on how far from the origin the opposition parties can move but the equilibrium is fragile.

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“…At this point we should mention some of the many other intellectuals who were involved in Game Theory at Princeton in the early 1950s: Richard The early 1950's saw the first textbook on game theory (McKinsey, 1952) (this was still a little complex for nonmathematicians), and the first popular editions appeared: McDonald (1950), Riker (1953) and Williams (1954).…”

Section: The Mathematical Revolution Of the 1950's And 1960'smentioning

confidence: 99%