Presidential and Parliamentary Democracy
"It's not how many votes you get, it's..."
"how they're counted"
What are three elements of the Swedish welfare state?
-It is a universal right of citizenship whether you need it or not. The middle class is covered by the welfare state.
-Means it's very expensive
-High replacement rates
-Virtue of including the middle class in it, and so they will defend it; politically protecting the welfare state
What political system does Germany most represent and in what ways is it similar to that nation?
The United States.
-Bicameral system in legislature
-State governments and the federal governemnt are assigned certain powers
-Judicial Review: In Germany the constitution is called the basic law and there is a court dedicated to reviewing whether laws that are passed are compatible with the basic laws and if not, they can be nullified. This is different from the US as SCOTUS is for judicial review but has other functions as well.
What are the social characteristics that separate the west from the rest? How are their values different than what you see in other countries?
1. These states tend to be highly secular
-organized religion does not place as much of a role in the (governing? Someone coughed when I took these notes) of people than you find elsewhere
2. Women
-Gender roles are much less defined than elsewhere
Is Christian Democracy an arm of the church?
No, these parties are completely independent from the catholic and protestant churches. They represent Christian values more than Christian dogma
What happens if you change the electoral rules?
You change the winner, regardless of people's preferences. When you change the rules, people think strategically and want to make their votes count.
How does the welfare state affect gender?
Women find it easier to combine family and a career and thus there are remarkably high fertility rates compared to the rest of Europe.
How does Germany run elections? What does the ballot look like?
-Germany has a proportional representation system and a 5% barrier, meaning that if you receive below 5% of the vote, you don't obtain any seats in the legislature.
-The ballot is separated into two parts: 1/2 is the names of candidates and the other half has names of the political parties.
-Seats are first filled out by the candidates voted for on the left side of the ballot and then the remaining seats are filled by the percentage that each party wins on the right side of the ballot (positions filled by the list within those parties)
Is Britain a federal government or a unitarian government?
Britain is a unitarian government. It has Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland all with their own legislatures and with the approval of parliament can legislate on certain domestic issues for their areas). England does not have its own legislature, which means that Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland can vote and say what the policy is going to be for England because England is ruled by Britain, but England can't vote for the three other nations.
What are Christian Democracies and what do they believe in?
They are center-right parties and they believe in capitalism and the market but are skeptical of it at the same time. They believe in a kinder, gentler capitalism in which markets are limited and tamed.
What makes presidents different from prime ministers?
Fixed terms. Prime ministers/chancellors can hold office for as long as they hold the majority.
Why has it been cataclysmic for Sweden to open up its borders?
-It has transformed Sweden from a monocultural to a multicultural society and there has been tremendous backlash. This backlash has taken the form of the rise of a radical right-wing party, the Swedish Democrats
-Many Swedish people are concerned that the immigrants are moochers, that they take from the welfare state and don't give back into it
What was/is the political culture in Germany after WWII?
Germany= a post-nationalist state.
-The allies made an effort to alter the culture of Germany in the process of the "de-Nazification of Germany". All statues of soldiers of any kind were taken down, books were filled with the details of the Holocaust and each student had to visit a concentration camp, etc.
-The US had a major influence on the restructuring of Germany's government
-Germans had a sense of shame and restraint due to the war, but this is slowly dying off as the new generation doesn't have that direct connection to the shame of the war, which is showing a rise in the radical right wing party. Germany needs to find balance.
Why is it that the working class has had more political success in Scandinavia than elsewhere?
-no cross-cutting cleavages to cut the power of class
-In Sweden you find a division on the right that didn't happen elsewhere. The left was competing with a divided right.
-Never had to compete with the communists to divide the workers and the left wing vote
-The ability of the social democrats to attract the middle class through the welfare state
Why is there not a high degree of class voting in Anglo-American (extreme market) Democracies?
People in these democracies define and ally themselves with different markers than simply class. In countries like the US, people don't define themselves by their class but more their heritage, ethnicity and race, religion, etc. In Canada region matters a lot for how people vote. In Ireland what matters for how people vote is where they stand on nationalism and Irish independence.
What is the difference between the head of government and head of state?
The head of state:
-represents the country
-In Britain, the Queen is the Head of State. In the US, the president is.
The Head of Government:
-Who runs the executive branch
-Prime ministers or chancellors/the president in the US (rare)
What are some of the differences between the Swedish people and the Muslims who have emigrated to Sweden?
-Muslim women don't work as much as native Swedish women because culturally, Muslim's don't want women in the public sphere working out of the house.
-Muslim men also have lower labor force participation rates out of a reluctance to learn the Swedish language.
What is the key to German manufacturing success and how does Germany occupationally differ from the rest of the word according to the characteristics of modernity?
In the west there was a shift in the occupational structure from manufacturing to the service set (white collar service work), but Germany has remained strong in manufacturing and that is where it has found its success. The key to German manufacturing is apprenticeship.
What does the welfare state in Sweden look like?
1. Universalistic- applies to all citizens
2. High replacement rates (unemployment, social security, etc.)
3. Redistributive- taxes the rich and gives it to the poor. The rate of taxation is flat, but taxing rich people 20% is taking more money than the poor even though the poor also have the 20% tax rate.
4. Range of Benefits- cradle to grave (after school centers, day care, elder care, health care, pensions, etc.)
5. Service intensive- The government doesn't hand out checks (for unemployment yes but not for others), but provides services (day care, elder care, after school programs, etc.)
What do social democrats do with power?
-They keep private control over the means of production (Sweden). Markets set prices, very little nationalization of industry, capitalist state economy
-They have a very large state; the state plays a large role in terms of its size relative to the economy. The state's budget in Sweden is around 50% of its GDP. (The money goes predominately to the welfare sate, giving Sweden its incorrect socialist label, it is a capitalist economy with a large welfare state).
What happens when a prime minister loses a vote of confidence?
-The prime minister sends a bill to the legislature, the legislature (majority that supports him) says no, disagrees with him even though they’re a part of the same party and coalition. So the prime minister then sends back the same bill but with a vote of confidence (blackmail) if you turn this one down, then we all may lose our jobs (like calling their bluff).
Can you build and maintain a universal welfare state in a multicultural society? And what does the future hold for Sweden?
This is currently up for grabs in Sweden. The rise of the Swedish Democrats has come at the expense of the Social Democratic Party.
-The left and right blocks do not want to align with the Swedish Democrats and thus cannot make a majority. The right party will probably end up forming a coalition with the SD, and hope that by doing so and legitimizing them they will put an end to their party.
What happened in the most recent election in Germany and why is it not reflective of the voters?
The ruling party today is a coalition of the Christian Democratic Party-Catholic Social Union and the Social Democrats (SPD) making it a center-right coalition.
-A center right party has to form a center left party and they don't want to, to form a majority coalition
-This coalition is not good for either party as the more they coalesce, the less the voters like them
-In this election that brought the coalition to power, both parties actually lost seats. In that, the voters clearly rejected the CDU-CSU and the SPD, but still ended up with a government of the CDU-SPD.
How does the welfare state in Sweden not undermine the work ethic of the Swedish people?
1. With all the benefits of the welfare state, workers are not scared of technological displacements. You don't get political pressure to save industries which the market says can't compete because the people know that losing their jobs won't impact their standard of living dramatically and they can be patient in search of a new job.
2. This kind of welfare state also contributes to wage restraint. Swedish employers don't have to pay their workers a lot of money in wages because the workers are being provided for by the state.
3. Active labor markets:
-training the unemployed
-moving allowances
-matching workers to jobs
4. Permits women to work. Labor participation rates are higher in Sweden than in the US and this is because of women. The welfare state has allowed women to have a job and a family because of the services it provides.
What is the main property of these nations and why?
High per capita GDP due to:
- high labor productivity
The key to high labor productivity is:
1. Highly skilled work forces (educated human capital)
2. Technology (physical capital)
-high capital to labor ratios
-increases output
-Manufacturing: very few workers, turn out twice as many goods as they did in the past