This chapter examines the relationship between democratization and the economy. It first provides an historical overview of the emergence of capitalist democracy before discussing some general problems of the relationship between democracy and capitalism, highlighting the main areas in which the two systems condition each other. It then considers the role of business in democratizing countries, and more specifically the role of business actors in the transition to democracy. It also explores the intricacies of combining major political and economic reforms. Some key points are emphasized; for example, capitalism focuses on property rights while democracy focuses on personal rights. Furthermore, capitalism produces inequality, which can both stimulate and hamper democratization.
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This chapter examines the European Union’s (EU’s) policy on agriculture. The importance that the EU has given to the agricultural sector can be attributed in large part to food shortages at the end of the Second World War. Governments agreed that it was important to ensure adequate supplies of food at reasonable prices. To achieve this, it was necessary to provide an adequate income to farmers, while taking measures to increase their productivity. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was the first redistributive policy of the European Community, and for many years the only one. The chapter reviews the history of the CAP and explains the main drivers for reform, which include costs, EU enlargement, environmental pressures, and the growing powers of the European Parliament. Another key driver for change has stemmed from external pressure from world trade talks. The chapter concludes by reviewing the prospects for the next iteration of the CAP from 2021–27.
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Mark Bennister and Phil Larkin
This chapter focuses on the accountability of the government to Parliament. One way to conceptualize the place of the UK Parliament in the accountability process is as part of a ‘chain of delegation’, whereby democratic authority lies in the hands of the citizens. Due to lack of time and expertise to participate actively in the day-to-day process of running the country, however, these citizens delegate much of this responsibility to a subset of their number who become parliamentarians. Parliamentarians in turn delegate much of this role to a further subset of their number who become the government. The chapter first considers accountability in the Westminster model before discussing recent reforms of accountability mechanisms and how they have increased Parliament's capacity to scrutinize government. Examples of the strengthening of the accountability function include stronger select committees, the use of urgent questions, and Liaison Committee sessions with the prime minister.
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Augustus Richard Norton
This chapter assesses the critical issue of political reform in the Middle East. The Arab world has been slow to respond to the global processes of democratization. The chapter then highlights the political economy of states, the persistence of conflict, regime type, and the ambiguity over the relationship between democracy and Islam. This relationship is not necessarily a contradictory one. Islamic discourse is marked by participation and diversity rather than by rigidity and intolerance. Further, as the Arab Spring has illustrated, civil society is vibrant and growing in many states across the region. Meanwhile, responses from the West to political reform have been lukewarm, with stability and regional alliances privileged over democracy. The evidence from the region, even before the Arab uprisings, is that peoples want better and more representative government, even if they remain unclear as to what type of government that should be.
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12. The Modern State
Characteristics, Capabilities, and Consequences
Anna Persson
This chapter examines the concept of the modern state in a developing world context. More specifically, it considers the characteristics and capabilities that define the modern state and the extent to which the state can be regarded as an autonomous actor with the potential to influence development outcomes. After providing an overview of the role of the state as a potential driver of development, the chapter discusses statehood in the contemporary world and how the evolution of the modern state can be understood. It then asks how different patterns of state formation affect the ways that states further consolidate and develop. It also explains the distinction between the ‘weak’ state found in the majority of developing countries and the ‘strong’ state typically found in the industrialized parts of the world. Finally, it tackles the question of institutional reform from ‘the outside’ and its implications for development.
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20. Indonesia
Dynamics of Regime Change
Gyda Marås Sindre
This chapter examines the dynamics of regime change in Indonesia since 1998, with a particular focus on political mobilization against the backdrop of institutional reform. In the decade since the collapse of the ‘New Order’ — that is, the authoritarian military-based regime that governed Indonesia from 1966 to 1998 — Indonesia has become one of the few success stories in the post-1970s wave of democratization in the Global South. In addition to being considered the most stable and the freest democracy in South East Asia, Indonesia remains the region’s largest and fastest growing economy. The chapter first provides an overview of the legacies of authoritarianism in Indonesia before discussing the government’s radical reform agenda of democratization and decentralization after 1998. It then looks at political mobilization and participation that accompanied regime change in Indonesia and concludes with an assessment of the role of civil society in political mobilization.
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Ève Fouilleux and Matthieu Ansaloni
This chapter examines one of the first European policies, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). It does so by focusing on the policy’s objectives, instruments, actors, and debates. It looks at the way in which the CAP has evolved since the 1960s, and attempts to explain this evolution by asking and answering a number of important questions: why has the CAP been so problematic for European policy-makers? Why has it proven so resistant to change? And, given the constraints identified, how has reform come about? This chapter also looks at some of the challenges facing agricultural policy, as new debates emerge among citizens on the place and the functions performed by agriculture. The chapter grants particular attention to rural development, and environmental, transparency, and equity issues.
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Tony Addison
This chapter examines development policy objectives and their explicit focus on poverty reduction. It first considers different definitions of development policy objectives before discussing the roles that the market mechanism and the state should play in allocating society’s productive resources. In particular, it looks at the economic role of the state as one of the central issues dividing opinion on development strategy and explains how rising inequality led to a backlash against economic liberalization. The chapter proceeds by exploring the relationship between economic growth and poverty reduction, along with the political difficulties that arise from economic reform. It also analyses the importance of transforming the structure of economies and the new global development landscape, including changes in development finance.
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Ann-Christina L. Knudsen
This chapter examines the common agricultural policy (CAP) in the context of political rather than economic terms. It first provides an overview of the development of the European agricultural welfare state, explaining why and how agriculture was able to claim and uphold a special position in Europe. It then considers CAP's achievements and unintended consequences and cites financial pressure as a strong incentive for CAP reform in the early 1990s, as was the pernicious international impact of the policy. It shows how concerns about the environment and food safety, and about the possible impact of European Union enlargement into Central and Eastern Europe, maintained the momentum for reform. Given the broad political commitment to supporting farm incomes, and sustaining a viable countryside in the EU, however, the chapter suggests that CAP is likely to endure in some form or other.
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19. Policy-Making in a Time of Crisis
Trends and Challenges
Mark A. Pollack, Helen Wallace, and Alasdair R. Young
This chapter examines trends and challenges in European Union policy-making during times of crisis. It first considers the main trends in EU policy-making that emerge from policy case studies, including experimentation with new modes of policy-making, often in conjunction with more established modes, leading to hybridization; renegotiation of the role of the member states (and their domestic institutions) in the EU policy process; and erosion of traditional boundaries between internal and external policies. The chapter proceeds by discussing the issue of national governance as well as the interaction between European and global governance. Finally, it explores how the EU has responded to the challenges of coping with enlargement from fifteen to twenty-eight member states, digesting the reforms adopted following the implementation of the Treaty of Lisbon, and responding to the economic dislocation associated with the global financial crisis.
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Ève Fouilleux and Viviane Gravey
This chapter examines one of the first European policies, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). It does so by focusing on the policy’s objectives, instruments, actors, and debates. It looks at the way in which the CAP has evolved since the 1960s, and attempts to explain this evolution by asking and answering a number of important questions: why has the CAP been so problematic for European policy-makers? Why has it proven so resistant to change? Given the constraints identified, how has reform come about? This chapter also looks at some of the challenges facing agricultural policy, as new debates emerge among citizens on the place and the functions performed by agriculture. The chapter grants particular attention to the way the CAP tackles issues such as rural development, relations between agriculture, food and the environment, transparency, and social equity.
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Margaret Arnott and Richard Kelly
This chapter discusses the role of smaller parties in the law-making process. General elections in the UK are conducted with an electoral system which militates against the representation of smaller political parties, particularly those having no strong support at the regional level. However, events at Westminster over the last decade have increased the prominence of smaller parties in the operation of parliamentary business. The chapter first considers the role of small parties in the UK Parliament, committees and legislation, as well as their participation in backbench debates before examining how the political and electoral context of Parliament, especially in the twenty-first century, has affected the representation of smaller parties and the ways in which reforms to parliamentary procedure since the 1980s have enhanced the role of the second opposition party. It suggests that Parliament today offers more opportunities for smaller political parties to influence debate and policy, but this remains quite limited.
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Marc Geddes and Jessica Mulley
This chapter examines the way the UK Parliament is administered and organized in terms of the support offered by the institution to Members of Parliament (MPs) and peers to fulfil their parliamentary, political, and policy functions. The House of Commons employs roughly 2,500 and the House of Lords around 500 members of staff, in addition to staff in the bicameral Parliamentary Digital Service. These staff provide invaluable and impartial support to Parliament. This chapter considers the political and non-political sources of support provided to MPs and peers in carrying out their role and how the resources available to parliamentarians have increased over the past two decades through a range of parliamentary reforms. It also discusses key issues and debates arising from the support given to MPs and peers, including the issue over whether staff exist to serve the institution of Parliament or to support parliamentarians.
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Clive Church and David Phinnemore
This chapter explores how the EU ended a long period of constitutional change by agreeing the Treaty of Lisbon and used it to face new challenges of financial crisis, Brexit, and Covid-19—the latter events leading to thoughts that further treaty change might be needed. The process started with the 2002–03 Convention on the Future of Europe leadin to the Constitutional Treaty of 2004 and in October 2007 produced the Treaty of Lisbon which eventually entered into force on 1 December 2009. Its implementation was complicated by the eurozone crisis, resulting in extra-treaty arrangements and another treaty amendment. Although the official appetite for treaty reform all but evaporated in the 2010s, the UK’s June 2016 vote to quit the EU raised the hopes for further changes. The end of the 2010s and into the 2020s saw Brexit being negotiated within the terms of the Treaty of European Union the EU’s treaty agreeing measures to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. Calls for treaty revision continued but active steps to re-negotiate the consolidated treaties have not yet begun.
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Clive Church and David Phinnemore
This chapter explores the emergence and implementation of the Treaty of Lisbon. Its origins lie in the Constitutional Treaty of 2004 and its rejection in the French and Dutch referendums of 2005, which led to a period of so-called reflection. Then, mainly under the German Council presidency of early 2007, there was an emphatic drive to produce not a constitution, but an orthodox amending treaty to carry forward the basic reforms of the Constitutional Treaty. A deal was reached in October 2007. However, while parliamentary ratification went successfully, an initial referendum rejection in Ireland in June 2008 cast doubt on the new Treaty’s future. In part, this symbolized a rejection of some elements of the Treaty, but it also owed much to a deeper unease about the EU. Once Irish concerns had been assuaged, a second referendum produced the necessary ‘yes’ to ratification and, following some last-minute concessions to the Czech Republic, the Treaty of Lisbon entered into force on 1 December 2009. Its implementation proceeded relatively smoothly but was complicated by the eurozone crisis, which in turn pushed the EU to pursue some further treaty reform. In the face of increasing Euroscepticism, and persistent question marks over the popular legitimacy of the EU, the appetite for treaty reform all but evaporated for much of the 2010s, even if for integrationists the eurozone crisis demanded further reform. Towards the end of the decade, with Emmanuel Macron as French President calling for a ‘re-founding’ of the EU and the UK negotiating its withdrawal from the EU, opportunities for and some interest in a new round of treaty reform appeared to be emerging.
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This chapter examines the decline of the Cold War during the period 1985–9. It begins with a discussion of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s ‘new diplomacy’, a more flexible, less ideological foreign policy based on his belief that ‘a less confrontational stance towards the outside world would provide greater security than endless rearming’. It then considers Gorbachev’s reforms, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty signed in December 1987 by Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan, and US–Soviet relations under George H. W. Bush and Gorbachev. It also analyses the end of the Cold War in less developed countries such as Afghanistan, Angola, and Cambodia, before concluding with an assessment of the demise of Soviet communism in Eastern Europe.
