JUSTICE AND EFFECTIVENESS

FOR CONSIDERATION…• What things must the leaders and their people think about in considering what the state

should do?

JUSTICE• What is justice?

• Do we base it on weight of contributions?

• Contributions can be based on luck as much as virtue…

• Doesn’t account for need…

• Do we base it on need?

• Very tricky…

• It is all very difficult to assess

• Substantive justice

• Looks at the idea that people should receive what they need and deserve

PROCEDURAL JUSTICE Worries less about fairness or distribution and more about procedures by which decisions are

reached Whether government action is arbitrary

Capricious Due process

Could have learned of existence and meaning of law before committing act Entitle to know with why they are charged and the evidence against them Judges must be disinterested, unbiased, and attentive Some means of later reconsideration Trial is invalid if rules violated

PROCEDURAL JUSTICE Whether special basic rights are violated

Right to survive Right of free speech Right to privacy Not necessarily absolute

Whether special overriding social needs are present To be just to most of the people, may mean being less just to others Times of war Ends justify the means

Is this right normally?

EFFECTIVENESS• An effective policy is one that gives the state and the people of the state the greatest benefits

at the least cost

• Tough to measure and compare

• Unanticipated consequences

• Any judgment must take into account all the costs and benefits…not just those intended

EFFECTIVENESS• Do we want to rely more on governmental authority or market mechanisms to carry out

policies?

• Under government authority, people get less say

• Under market mechanisms, government leaves choice up to people to choose for themselves through exchange of goods and services

• Can be an interplay of both…

• Examples? When? Why?

PROBLEMS Problems with Authority

Not good at getting things to people who need them most or will value them most (does not allocate optimally)

Lack of incentives to encourage authority-based policy to use resources as efficiently as they might need to be

Problems with Market Unequal distribution Not good with public goods Do not take into account externalities

Social cost does not enter market calculations Positive and negatives

DEMOCRACY AND AUTOCRACY

REGIMES• General form of government of a state—includes constitution and rules of government

• Typically continues beyond the term of officeholders

• Democracy and autocracy

DEMOCRACY Regime in which all fully qualified citizens vote at regular intervals to choose, from among

alternative candidates, the people who will be in charge of setting the state’s policies There is no pure democracy

On the other end, we have authoritarian democracy…thus, we have a range Democratic bargain

Implicit agreement by conflicting groups to accept possibility that they will lose out in the making of policy

Of the 104 states that were independent as of 1960, only 29 have an uninterrupted record of electoral democratic government

THE WAVES OF DEMOCRACY Wave I

Wake of WWI Germany and others in E. Europe…along with Latin America Ultimately tended to fail…why?

Wave II Wake of WWII Reestablished in Germany and Italy…and other former European colonies in Third World

Wave III Late 1970s thru mid-1990s Southern Europe, Latin America, E. Europe, around the world

SO WHY DEMOCRACY DURING THE THIRD WAVE? • Fatigue of authoritarian regimes

• International pressure

• Citizen desire for security against arbitrary abuse

• Citizen desire for economic development

• Potential downfall: democracy opens up potential for regional nationalist pressures

WHAT WE LEARN FROM THE THIRD WAVE The importance of pacts

Try to assure smooth transition Amnesty? Symbolic affirmation? Fund army? Didn’t work in Eastern Europe as much…why?

Sudden changes Figure 7.1 Net rewards of coming out may tip suddenly The danger of favoring democracy can decrease quickly

Economic crisis or not Transition occurs differently depending on state of economy Impacts the importance of pacts

LINK BETWEEN PROSPERITY AND DEMOCRACY Average per capita income of $9,053 for democracies, $1,653 for non-democracies Are democracies better at fostering economic growth? Or is it too tough to say? Figure 7.2…once a state is a democracy, prosperity makes it more likely that it will remain a

democracy Link between democracy and freedom…what makes it tough? Link between democracy and capitalism…what makes it tough?

AUTOCRACY• Of the 104 states that were independent as of 1960, only 13 have an uninterrupted record of

autocratic regimes

• Examples

• USSR

• Pakistan

• Saudi Arabia

• Congo/Zaire

MILITARY GOVERNMENT• Group of officers use troops to take over the government apparatus and run it themselves

• Coup d’etat

• Cluster around certain times

• Institutionalized in some areas

• Military controls more armed power than anyone else

• Vary with political direction

• No relationship with economic performance

WHY NOT MORE?• Legitimacy

• How they take power

• They have not been trained to be political leaders

• Problem of succession

• Shaky alliances

ONE-PARTY STATES• Government is based on and supports a political party…the only one allowed to exist

• More stable and responsive than military

• Embrace a reasonable range of social groups

• Varied positions can develop into factions

• Transition of leadership can occur

• Most frequent form of autocratic government

OTHER FLAVORS• Monarchy

• Power passes through descent in family

• Relatively underdeveloped

• Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait

• Different than constitutional monarchies

• Theocracy

• Religious leaders derive power from positions in religion

• Iran and Vatican City

DEMOCRACY V. AUTOCRACY Economic development

Average performance grew at about 4% Range of possible outcomes was wildly greater than for democracies More likely to have miracles or disasters with autocracy

Life expectancy At each level of per capita income , those living in democracies can expect to live

significantly longer than those in autocracies (as much as 5.6 years in most prosperous states)