PS7710 Seminar in Comparative Politics

Nevena Trajkov
PS 7710
4 December 2006
Response to Robert Yahrmatter on Timur Kuran,
"Now Out of Never: The Element of Surprsise in the East European Revolution of 1989"

Timur Kuran’s piece, Now Out of Never: The Element of Surprsise in the East European Revolution of 1989, addresses the mystery as to why political scientist, with all their theories and formulas, failed to predict the "sudden" 1989 collapse of socialist and communist regimes in Eastern Europe. Although Robert Yahrmatter’s critique on this piece points out holes in Kuran’s argument, Yahrmatter excessively divorces Kuran from structuralist thought and misinterprets the notion of rational choice in Kuran’s main theory.
Yahrmatter’s first contention is that Kuran discounts the structuralist argument that attributes the role of outside, international forces for the collapse of the socialist and communist regimes. Yahrmatter specifically references Skocpol and states that although Kuran mentions her theory regarding the role of international forces, he "promptly discounts its validity". It is evident in Kuran’s piece that he does not "discount" Skocpol to the extremism that Yahrmatter claims. It is Kuran’s position to include the theories of Skocpol as a valid component for explaining the regime collapse, but he also mentions that there are other factors involved. Kuran states "Structural factors are thus part of the story, yet by no means the whole story".(Kuran 1991, 22) Kuran’s main point is to expose the importance of the role of the individual that is all but ignored in structuralist thought. Kuran states that "a single person’s reaction to an event of global importance may make all the difference between a massive uprising and a latent bandwagon" (Kuran 1991, 22). Kuran also adds, "Structuralism and individualism are not rival and mutually incompatible approaches to the study of revolution, as Skocpol would have it. They are essential components of a single story."(Kuran 1991, 22) It is evident that although Kuran agrees with structuralists that international players have a significant role in revolutions, he views them only as the fuel for the fire…individual players throw the match.
Kuran’s main point and theory throughout the piece is that rational choice is the key variable in the cause of revolutions and because rational choice is non-predictive, neither are revolutions. He uses weather predictions as an analogy to predicting revolutions. He states, "Sophisticated theories of weather elucidate why it is in perpetual flux but without making it possible to say with much confidence whether it will rain in Rome a week from next Tuesday"(Kuran 1991, 46). Yahrmatter’s difficulty with Kuran’s position on rational choice and the fallibility of his theory is due to the insignificance Yahrmatter places on individual actors. Yahrmatter’s statement, "How can a researcher following in his path test the contention that people will present a public face supporting a government while privately holding anti-government views?", is precisely the point that Kuran himself is making. Kuran contends that all variables in revolutions are related non-linearly and the individual is one variable where via rational choice, any change in preference regardless of "size" has the potential to either have no significance or explode into a revolution. Furthermore, Kuran notes that his theory is based on the inability to predict rational choice. Kuran does however welcome political scientists to falsify his theory not by developing a method to predict rational choice and individual preference, but by showing that the variables he presents are insignificant to his overall theory.

Robert Yahrmatter
Comparative Seminar
4 December, 2006

A Critique of Timur Kuran’s
“Now out of Never”

Many studies have been undertaken trying to understand the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. Most of these focused on how most everyone failed to see what was coming. Timur Kuran’s article falls into this category. Like most, he attempts to find a reason why scholars, politicians, and interested parties all missed the signs showing communism was on the verge of collapse. Kuran, however, proposes a different theory than is offered either by Skocpol’s historical structural institutionalism or rational choice theory. Although he incorporates, to a degree, elements of both, he instead targets individual attitudes and how they affected developments leading to the collapse. The argument he proposes is that the collapse could not be foretold as individual attitudes are closely guarded, making them immeasurable.
Kuran presents what, at least on the face of it, seems a solid argument explaining why almost no one saw the collapse of communism. Unfortunately, there are some significant problems with his proposition. In order to locate the difficulties within his theory, I will first offer an condensation of his argument. Following this, I will offer valid reasons why his argument is weak and how it could have been better if he would have included some ideas from the two theories, historical institutionalism and rational choice, he rejects as insufficient. The critique will center on the point that external forces such as Skocpol theorizes on did have an impact on the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the communist leaders in those countries did use a rational choice model in deciding to step down and to not use violence to control the burgeoning protests. Finally, one addition, almost fatal, flaw will be covered. At the end of his piece, Kuran discusses falsifiability and its impact on his theory, arguing his ideas are falsifiable in the Popperian tradition. I will counter that this is not the case; there is no good way to challenge what Kuran advances.
The main thrust of Kuran’s argument rests on the idea of “preference falsification”. For him, preference falsification is the idea that members of communist societies would hide their true beliefs about the governmental system in order to maintain their place in those societies. The individual may believe there are problems with the government but will not be willing to speak out against it. Because of this, the individual would find the cost of revolution higher than s/he was willing to pay. Only if others led the way into revolution would the individual begin to speak her/his true opinion on the government and only then would s/he participate in the revolution. Thus, a domino effect must happen before the revolt can begin. Some one or some group must be willing to risk ostracization or even imprisonment in order to start a revolt. These individuals bear the extreme costs in order to change the system. Most individuals, however, will not be willing to participate until their transaction costs for participation are lower than their costs for staying on the sideline and holding on to their falsified beliefs about the government.
Although Kuran’s theory is not completely a bad idea, he does miss on what seem obvious arguments. The first that needs consideration is Skocpol’s theory of social revolutions. Here, states are influenced by their interactions with other states, thus weakening their ability to maintain law and order. Additionally, elites within the state are powerless to restore order but still powerful enough to stop a change in governance, thus leading to revolt (Kuran, 13). Kuran mentions this theory but promptly discounts its validity. Because of this, he misses one of the main points that could have led to the collapse. If he really wanted to test Skocpol’s idea, he would have built in some view on American pressure on the Soviet Union. At this time, President Reagan was exerting enormous pressure on the Soviet leadership, forcing the nation to spend more and more in an attempt to keep up with the American arms build-up. This had the effect of bankrupting the Soviet state, thereby lessening its control over its satellites in Europe. This pattern of outside pressure fits Skocpol’s theory exactly. For the second part of Skocpol’s analysis, the elites, led by Mikhail Gorbachev, were indeed powerless to restore the status quo. Gorbachev could not spend with the United States and he also recognized the financial problems within his own system. The problem however is that although he could not compete with outside forces, he could still control the state machinery of the state. But, even though he could control Russia, his already tenuous grasp on the European states was slipping. He was unable to watch over all aspects of the Soviet Union while his attention was diverted by troubles within the USSR.
Ignoring this angle, Kuran focuses solely on individual motivation. Although there is nothing inherently wrong with such an approach, his idea that Skocpol does not apply here is inaccurate. There are a multitude of causes for the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and Skocpol’s theory certainly has a role to play in analyzing this situation. Although individual action at the highest level certainly played a role in the collapse of the system, Kuran does not pay much attention to these high-level individual actors. He instead builds his theoretical base on the actions of common citizens. Such a construct leads to skepticism as best because there is no sure way of knowing what this class of people truly does believe.
The second problem Kuran faces lies in discounting rational choice. Again, he briefly touches on the theory, but he does not expound on its uses in this situation. This is especially problematic for his theory as he is arguing that common individuals use rational choice to decide when the time is right to switch sides away from the government and to the revolutionaries. However, he misses the main point of rational choice theory in that, excepting some information on Gorbachev, he mostly ignores elite leadership and the choices they face during the revolts. Leadership, including Honecker and Ceausescu both had to arrive at rational choices regarding the situation in East Germany and Romania. Both advocated for violence in an attempt to control the rising rebellions, Ceausescu successfully, at least for a time, and Honecker unsuccessfully due to his commanders disobeying orders. Even more to the point, Honecker saw the impending doom of his leadership as he offered many concessions to the rebellion, most of which fell short of actual demands. Because of this, it can be argued Honecker was practicing rational choice in his effort to hold on to power. On the other hand, Ceausescu again attempted to use force, especially his security police, in an attempt to hold on to power, another rational choice decision. Unfortunately for him, the revolt in Romania had proceeded too far and his decision ended up costing him his life.
The point here is that it was not just common individuals who used rational choice in their switch from public governmental support to the revolution. Leaders also made such choices, first in an effort to maintain control and then to minimize threats to themselves. By basically ignoring this point, Kuran has again left out what is in all likelihood a major reason as to why the revolts in Eastern Europe took place. Common individuals can indeed have an impact on any revolution but elite actors must be accounted for as they will make rational choices in response to public demands.
The final, and most important, problem with Kuran’s theory lies in his contention that his contentions are falsifiable. Popper argues any theory in science should be falsifiable and Kuran makes this claim for his idea on preference falsification. His contention, however, is extremely problematic. How can a researcher following in his path test the contention that people will present a public face supporting a government while privately holding anti-government views?
The basic difficulty with what he asserts lies in measuring individual beliefs, especially in a time of crisis. If we accept his thought that people do harbor anti government views but are unwilling to express them due to the political climate and the threat of retaliation from the government, there can be no method of measuring such a belief structure. He presents us with no method of controlling for respondent bias or for accurately gauging whether the individual in question actually does or does not believe in her/his answers. Because of this, there is no available method of testing his theory, leading it open to charges of being an idea without a base.
Additionally, building a theory on what individuals hold internally is highly suspect. Perhaps he has something to offer in his proposal but, due to the difficulty in measurement and testability, there is no way to see if his contention is correct. Any decent theory of political action must be subject to testability. Not being able to test Kuran’s theory, one is left to wonder if there is any validity to what he asserts. How can the researcher know if people will reach a tipping point within their belief structures if such an effect cannot be measured? Because he provides no method of testing his hypothesis, his idea should prove less than successful. Even though his theory may indeed be a useful way of looking at how revolutions start, without a test method, it fails to measure up.
Overall, in spite of its problems, Kuran presents us a useful model for measuring political change. Individuals’ attitudes can be both hidden and contrary to what the present government may desire. However, one would find extreme difficulty in measuring such attitudes as most persons would, in all likelihood, be unwilling to share anti-government beliefs. Perhaps survey data could reach to the core of an individual’s belief structure but it seems unlikely a true result could be ascertained. The greater problem he faces, however, is not that finding attitudes would be challenging. It is instead posing the question as to whether such changes in attitudinal beliefs could be a bellwether for revolution. Even if citizens harbor misgivings about their government and eventually do become swayed into voicing those objections, the problem remains as to how to use such data as signals of revolution. Clarify this and his model calls for additional study. Without it, Kuran’s ideas are just another method at guessing why people react.

Creating Rules When Rules don’t Apply:

Critique on Wagdy’s Text Analysis of Transition from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies by Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter

INTRODCUTION

Wagdy has done a fine job outlining the main points raised by O’Donnell and Schmitter in their account of the mechanisms of transitioning from an authoritarian form of government to a democratic form of government. The essence of the treatise, however, seems to have been overlooked. This failure to appreciate the underlying point is most keenly expressed in the first of Wagdy’s two critiques; namely, the alleged contradiction between rules at a time when all formal rules fall by the wayside. The following paper will briefly identify the elements that Wagdy’s analysis seems to have overlooked and then based on that, the paper will explain why Wagdy’s first critique is incorrect, and her second critique, though correct, is highly irrelevant.

PART ONE: ON THE SUMMARY

This excellent treatise by O’Donnell and Schmitter attempts to describe and dissect one of the features of political life that usually, by its very nature, eludes description and dissection. The processes of regime transition are highly complex and highly irregular. It is difficult to find predictable patterns in such transitions because as the authors indicate in their third theme, during transitions, the usual rules fall by the wayside, the usual actors are usurped, and there is a shift in power and benefits. However, despite these constraints, the authors endeavor to create “conceptual tools” that can be used to make this highly erratic phenomenon meaningful to political scientists and policy makers. As the authors state in their introduction: “… we have attempted to shape conceptual tools that may be reasonably adequate for dealing with choices and processes where assumptions about the relative stability and predictability of social, economic, and institutional parameters … seem patently inadequate (4).”

Considering these major limitations in forming hypotheses or descriptions about the period of transition, O’Donnell and Schmitter have done a remarkable job illuminating this erratic phenomenon and, additionally, in describing, dissecting, and advising. The writing is often cryptic and difficult to follow, particularly because the interplay between the analysis and the supporting data is decidedly inelegant; nonetheless, once decoded, the ideas are good—they are carefully structured, and very subtle. One must therefore approach the ideas noting their subtlety and not expecting them to be rigid or opaque. Using the terminology of other comparative thinkers, one can say that the authors write in a “thick” manner and as such, the writing cannot be interpreted in a “thin” way. Keeping this in mind, one can see why Wagdy’s approach often misses the pulse. Three such examples will be noted below.

Firstly, consider Wagdy’s treatment of the third major theme.

[A]nd thirdly because normal science cannot be used to analyze transitions because the rules are always in flux, ‘strategic concepts’ (p. 5) must be utilized to analyze what happens during transitions, as transition after liberation produces uncertainty.

This statement is correct, but it is a “thin” treatment of a “thick” concept. The fact that the rules are always in flux, and the typical, or “normal,” terms of political science cannot be used, means that new tools must be created; and with care and careful analysis, the uncertainty of transitions can be mitigated a little bit. The uncertainty is not a STOP sign; on the contrary, it’s a HELP sign, inviting new thinking and new conceptual tools.

Secondly, Wagdy’s summary highlights the description of the four main terms and/or stages of transition: transition, liberalization, democratization, and socialization. Once again, the “thin” treatment does not do justice to the extreme subtlety of this section. Consider the following passage:

The arguments about liberalization and democratization are furthered by noting that both notions cannot exist simultaneously and demonstrating how it is possible to have one without the other. For example, liberalized authoritarianism exists when authoritarians “may tolerate or even promote liberalization” (p. 9), and a limited democracy exists when there is democratization with “restrictions on the freedoms of particular individuals or groups…to enjoy full citizenship status” (p. 9).

Allow me to repeat this concept with greator clarity and illustrate why the underlined passage is incorrect. Liberalization is the process of the ruler or rulers in power redefining and recognizing rights, both individual and communal. Democratization is the actual “giving” of the rights and accompanying obligations; usually this includes transferring power to citizens or legitimate organizations that will take care to protect those rights (7). There is no pure moment of democracy. As such, there is a fluid interaction between liberalization and democratization and unlike Wagdy’s claim, the ideal situation has both; sometimes, however, there can be one without the other and that situation is not ideal.

When there is only liberalization, it can remain merely an empty promise of freedom; this is called “Liberalized authoritarianism” (9). When there is only democratization, the democratic promise of rights and freedom is only being offered to select groups because certain groups are deemed unwilling, unable, or agnostic; this is called “limited democracy” (9). These two scenarios may be necessary as part of the process of forming a new form of government, but they are not meant to last. Ideally, there is both. The authors note that the two stages of democratization and liberalization can be seen as a double-stream; sometimes the two streams flow separately, and sometimes, they overlap. “In the event of a successful outcome, (…) the two become securely linked to each other (10).”

Regarding Wagdy’s description of socialization, the third and final point mentioned in this response, additional clarity is once again needed. Wagdy writes:

The final concept defined is socialization, which is referred to here as the “second transition” (p. 12) happening as result of the nature of democracy institutionalizing uncertainty. This second transition is defined by the “simultaneous presence or attainment” of social democracy—making citizens “actors with equal rights and obligations to decide what actions institutions should take” (p. 12), and economic democracy—which relates to “providing equal benefits to the populations from the goods and services generated by society” (p. 12).

Firstly, where and how does the treatise by O’Donnell and Schmitter state that democracy institutionalizes uncertainty? Secondly, the process of socialization or what the authors termed the “second transition,” has much more color and form. The process of socialization occurs as the precepts of democracy, both social and economic, are learned (11). It is a dynamic and difficult process. Citizens, repressed for so long under authoritarian rule, must now be taught a new way of thinking, relating to government officials, relating to fellow citizens, and relating to financial institutions. This is not an easy or a short process. In order for the government to succeed, there must be a balance of both social democracy and financial democracy (11-12). Most likely, there is no finish line to this process; it is something which democracies struggle with on a constant basis.

In conclusion, this section has looked at Wagdy’s analysis of the first two chapters by dissecting three of Wagdy’s comments. Hopefully, although it is only a glimpse, the reader has come to appreciate the depth and subtlety of the ideas proposed by O’Donnell and Schmitter, and realized the danger of reading it too literally. One can say that the treatise Transition from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies is a description of the many sub-sub-processes in the sub-processes in the larger process of transitioning from an authoritarian government to “something else” with the objective of creating a democracy.

PART TWO: ON THE CRITIQUE

Having established the background of how O’Donnell and Schmitter are approaching the process of transition, one can see that they are working within a paradox. They are trying to create “conceptual tools” and “strategies” to make a process, one that ordinarily defies rules, into something meaningful. Keeping this inherent paradox in mind, Wagdy’s first critique falls away as incorrect; or rather, it is correct, but it is not a problem. Wagdy writes:

While I agree that it may not be feasible to analyze transition using rules which apply to a stable regime, the authors contradict themselves several times regarding the admissibility or inadmissibility of “rules” and their application during the transition.

The contradiction she notes is entirely designed to be there and it cannot be any different. The authors are looking to make rules that contradict the rule-less order of transitioning. In fact, a treatise such as this one is only valuable because there a desperate need for clarity and the application of a set of artificial rules. If the authors accept the lawlessness of the transition period and resign themselves to it, there would be no reason to write a book.

Regarding Wagdy’s second critique, one can’t help but noting that it is irrelevant. Timing is not an issue in this treatise. It is not about hours, days, and minutes; rather, it is about stages and sub-stages, it is about streams and double-streams. For a regime transition to be successful, it must go through various stages of development. Skipping stages is very problematic for O’Donnell and Schmitter. They believe that a missed step can endanger the whole transition. Be it the dealing with hard-liners, settling past accounts, disarming the military, creating a pact of a military, political, or economic nature, establishing elections—all of these problems must be recognized and resolved; all of these stages must be acknowledged lest the entire structure fall apart. Consequently, timing is significant but, the lack of a closing date or the particular length of a given stage does not invalidate the treatise and does not offer a substantial critique.

CONCLUSION

Transition from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies by Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter is a treatise on the many facets and elements of a transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic regime. It is complex in its often lengthy sentences, curious choice of language, excessive use of parentheses, and unclear use of supporting data. No comparative tables or scatter grams are set up to aid the reader with understanding the evidence of other regimes that is provided. Once the reader moves beyond those obscurities, however, the ideas presented are actually extremely clear.

A clear idea needs bounds; in this treatise, such bounds are identified, and if it can’t be, the reader is informed. The boundaries provided cannot be in the form of physical time or in the form of tangible written rules because they are conceptual in nature. In the second half of the treatise, the authors focus more on tangible policy-oriented ideas, but the first half is almost entirely conceptual. Consequently, when talking about the concepts of transition, liberalization, democratization, and socialization, the bounds established, such as the overlap or lack of overlap between liberalization and democratization, are entirely abstract.

After noting all of the above, it is clear to the reader that it is erroneous to claim that the authors’ conceptual description of the upheaval of transition, being one of overriding freedom and absence of law, contradicts the later suggestion of laws. Additionally, one cannot claim that the lack of estimated timing to the specific conceptual stages is problematic. Wagdy’s two claims, therefore, are not deemed significant or relevant.

PS7710 Seminar in Comparative Politics
Nested Games: Rational Choice in Comparative Politics
Response to Samra Nasser’s Critique


























Sarah Wagdy
PS 7710
Fall 2006
Introduction
In recent history, there have been several shifts in the process of decision making in politics, namely, from historical institutionalism to behavioralism, and finally to the neo-institutionalist approach of rational-choice, also known as game theory. This paper will provide a response to Samra Nasser’s critique of George Tsebelis’ book Nested Games: Rational Choice in Comparative Politics. This paper will defend this piece of work by offering counterarguments to the three major critiques presented, which are: a defense of rational choice based on adequate information, a defense of the interchangeability of individuals, and a defense of the different yet intertwined roles of the individual and institution in rational-choice theory.
Rational Choice Based on Information—In her critique, Nasser claims that it is hard to fathom that a perfectly rational decision made by an actor every time will be based on complete and thorough information. Although I agree with Nasser that it is impossible to obtain complete and thorough information every time, this is not primarily what Tsebelis contends as the foundation of rational-choice. He himself admits that he does not “claim that rational choice can explain every phenomenon and that there is no room for other explanations” (p.32). Tsebelis takes his argument further by saying that “political games structure the situation as well and that the study of political actors under the assumption of rationality is a legitimate approximation of realistic situations, motives, calculations, and behavior” (p.33). Therefore, he argues only for rational-choice as being the closest approximation of reality, and approximations are never precise every time. Furthermore, Tsebelis’s rational-choice approach also relies on statistics, and since probability based statistics is typically the most legitimate form, there is always room for error. In short, Tsebelis is not arguing the completeness of information to make a rational decision, but rather that an actor’s decision will be always be rational regardless of completeness of information.
Interchangeability of Individuals—Nasser claims that Tsebelis notion of rational actors as “interchangeable actors” can be proven false. She also argues against interchangeability of actors based on the same taste. Although I agree with Nasser that actors should not be acknowledged merely by their rationality, these actors can still be interchanged, as rationality is the only necessary and required component of rational-choice actors. In rational-choice explanations, “tastes are considered exogenous” (p. 43), in other words, tastes originate outside the rational-choice model. Since they are not endogenous, it is therefore possible to interchange or replace rational actors (or individuals) with others, since their rationality and tastes are not a product of the system. Thus, it is their exogenous tastes that will cause individuals to make similar decisions when placed in the same context.
The Insignificant Role of the Individual—Nasser’s final critiques claim that Tsebelis emphasis on the institution rather than on the individual in the decision making process of rational-choice is contradictory to his theory of “nested games” presented earlier in his book. I argue that Tsebelis does not shift from an individual level approach to an individual/industrial level approach which in turn undermines the role of the individual, as Nasser portrays. The main assumption of rational-choice is that institutions (the rules of the game) are the driving force of the organizations (composed of individuals), or the players of the game. Individuals are capable of making their own rational, optimal, and maximizing decisions, as long as they achieve the desired goal. If the desired goal is not achieved, the players will be replaced. This does not represent a shift as Nasser claims. The theory of “nested games” refers to how a political situation can be analyzed, and how decisions made at one level can affect another level or the larger arena. Similarly, in rational-choice theory, an organization’s acts (based on individuals) can fail to achieve the desired goal, thus affecting the institution.
Conclusion
Nasser’s critique appears to portray Tsebelis as undermining the role of the individual in rational-choice. Although the concern with individuals appears to be paradoxical at points, Tsebelis still maintains throughout that an actor’s decision—based on acquired information to achieve the desired goal of the institution—will always be rational, thus an approach preferred over others.

PS7710 Seminar in Comparative Politics
Transition from Authoritarian Rule:
Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies
Text Analysis













Sarah Wagdy
PS 7710
Fall 2006

Introduction
The underlying assumption of the Democratic Peace Theory is that democracies almost never go to war with each other. Because of this belief, many current democracies have taken the initiative to export democracy internationally, as this in turn would produce less violence and lessen the probability of countries going to war with each other. But how do regime types change? The central theme of Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter’s book Transition from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies deals with transitions from certain authoritarian regimes toward an uncertain “something else”. Although the desired goal is transition to democracy, this book examines what possibilities, interactions and outcomes can happen from the beginning to the end of the transitional period, irrespective of what the final regime type is. This paper consists of two parts: the first part will begin by introducing the key concepts—uncertainty, transition, liberalization, democratization and socialization, and summarizing the central themes— how contingent consent and founding elections during the transitional period produce the final outcome: regime change. The second part of the paper will offer my critique of the selected readings from the book. My critique will consist of two parts: first, I will highlight a contradiction in the role and admissibility of “rules” during transition, and second, I will demonstrate how the paper does not address the question of the length of transition and its impact on failure or success of transition, irrespective of the following regime type.



PART I
On Uncertainty, Transition, Liberalization, Democratization and Socialization
O’Donnell and Schmitter begin their discussion about uncertainties of transitions by introducing three shared themes that should be agreed upon before examining and analyzing transitions. The first element that must be agreed on is that “political democracy constitutes per se a desirable goal” (p. 4), the second is the need to “capture the extraordinary uncertainty of the transition, with its numerous surprises and difficult dilemmas” (p. 4), and thirdly, because normal science cannot be used to analyze transitions because the rules are always in flux, “strategic concepts” (p. 5) must be utilized to analyze what happens during transitions, as transition after liberation produces uncertainty.
The book continues by defining four main concepts: transition, liberalization, democratization and socialization. According to the authors, transition refers to the “interval between one political regime and another” (p. 6). During this period, the “rules of the political game are not defined” (p. 6) because they are in constant flux by the actors of the transition. Transition begins when the “authoritarian incumbents, for whatever reason, begin to modify their own rules in the direction of providing more secure guarantees for the rights of individuals and groups” (p. 6), and it ends when “abnormality is no longer the central feature of political life” (p.65) and when actors have agreed on the rules for proceeding. Liberalization is defined as “the process of redefining and extending rights” (p. 7), which signals the beginning of the transitional process. Under liberalization, the rights of both individuals and groups are protected from any illegal acts. Democratization refers to the “processes whereby the rules and procedures of citizenship are either applied to political institutions previously governed by other principles, or expanded to include persons not previously enjoying such rights and obligations, or extended to cover issues and institutions not previously subject to citizen participation” (p. 8). The arguments about liberalization and democratization are furthered by noting that both notions cannot exist simultaneously and demonstrating how it is possible to have one without the other. For example, liberalized authoritarianism exists when authoritarians “may tolerate or even promote liberalization” (p. 9), and a limited democracy exists when there is democratization with “restrictions on the freedoms of particular individuals or groups…to enjoy full citizenship status” (p. 9).
The final concept defined is socialization, which is referred to here as the “second transition” (p. 12) happening as result of the nature of democracy institutionalizing uncertainty. This second transition is defined by the “simultaneous presence or attainment” of social democracy—making citizens “actors with equal rights and obligations to decide what actions institutions should take” (p. 12), and economic democracy—which relates to “providing equal benefits to the populations from the goods and services generated by society” (p. 12). After having defined the above significant concepts, the book continues by implementing all of these notions to maintain that democracy is still the desired goal during transition.
On Convoking Elections
The book continues by discussing what the authors see as the main determinant of the next regime type: elections. During transition, there exists a temporary transitional authority, and once this authority announces that it will convoke legitimate free and fair elections for significant governmental positions, “voters will be reasonably free in their choice, and incumbents…will not be free to count votes or eliminate candidates as they see fit” (p. 57). Prior to the actual elections, parties are organized and candidates may step up to run for elected offices in a very different fashion than possible under authoritarian rule. The party now is seen as the “modern institution for structuring and aggregating individual preferences” (p. 58). These parties have a strong interest in participating in the “formulation of rules determining which groups are allowed into the contest, what boundaries constituencies will have, what criteria will be applied to determine winners, and so on” (p. 59). Next, parties and actors will have contingent consent when the rules are successfully elaborated. Contingent consent has three dimensions: first, to “determine which parties will be permitted to play the game”, secondly, to select a “formula for the distribution of seats within constituencies, as well as the related one of the size and number of constituencies”, and thirdly, to determine a “structure of offices for which national elections are held” (p. 60), such as parliamentarism or presidentialism. The founding elections are significant in that the uncertainty of outcome is very high because it is extremely difficult to make predictions about winners after an incumbent authoritarian regime. During elections, tactical voting will be common because “some [voters] will wish to vote for candidates and parties that most decisively reject the previous regime, while others will prefer those which seem to offer the best bulwark against such a radical rejection” (p. 61).
Transition: A Multilayered Chess Game?
After elections, when normality replaces abnormality and there is agreement on rules, the transition is over. The authors conclude their book by proposing a metaphor of a multilayered chess game. They argue that in addition to the complexity of normal chess, a transition is like multilayered chess because of the “infinite combinations and permutations resulting from each player’s ability on any move to shift from one level of the board to another” (p. 66). Thus, the transition process is an “orderly and cerebral game played by decorous and mild-mannered gentlemen” (p.66).

PART II
O’Donnell and Schmitter demonstrate effectively the different possibilities, interactions and outcomes during the transitional period after authoritarian regime, namely, party establishment, contingent consent, and the significance of the founding elections. Although their primary goal is democracy, their main focus is the transition only. Despite many of their excellent arguments, there are some concepts which were contradictory or not addressed at all in forming a more complete and precise argument about transitions. My critique of this work consists of two parts: 1) a contradiction on the presence of “rules” during transition and 2) not addressing how the length of the transition may or may not impact the nature of the transition and possibly its cancellation.
A Contradiction in the Presence of “Rules” During Transition
While introducing uncertainty, one of the three shared themes argues how it would be inadequate to analyze transitions using normal science methodology because in contrast to a stable political regime, while in transition, the rules are in constant “flux”. The in-application of rules during transition is found again when the authors initially define transition as the interval between one political regime and another. They further explain that it is the “characteristic of the transition that during it the rules of the political game are not defined” (p.6). However, this notion of undefined and in-application rules is contradicted in several other parts of the book. For example, in their discussion about party formation during elections (which is, according to them, part of the transition), it is argued that parties have a strong interest in participating in the “formulation of rules determining which groups are allowed into the contest, what boundaries constituencies will have, what criteria will be applied to determine winners, and so on” (p. 59). Moreover, the notion of contingent consent rests on the successful elaboration of “rules” among parties and actors. Similarly, another area where this contradiction is seen is in the author’s concluding metaphor of a multilayered chess game. Characteristic of the transition in this metaphor is how the “transition consists in inventing rules” (p. 68) and how the “transition has established procedural rules of political democracy” (p.68). While I agree that it may not be feasible to analyze transition using rules which apply to a stable regime, the authors contradict themselves several times regarding the admissibility or inadmissibility of “rules” and their application during the transition.
Length of Transition—A Factor in Determining Success of Transition or Not?
Although this work does not offer a theory to determine whether or how democracies can be instituted after authoritarian regime, the authors do mention several times that democracy is still the desired outcome. Thus, in their analysis of actors and events that appear during transition, it can be argued that there may be a recipe for achieving democracy, such as convoking free elections and contingent agreement about rules during and post-elections. The success of this recipe appears to primarily depend on the number of competing parties and each party’s ability to persuade citizens that it is superior to the others in providing secure guarantees for the rights of individuals and groups and enhancing economic performance. Thus, parties, contingent consent and elections are the main determinants of the success of the transition, irrespective of what the next regime type may be. But how about the length of the transition? Transition length is only mentioned once without examination. It is argued that a major source of indeterminacy is that the “length and outcome of the transition lies in the fact that those factors which were necessary and sufficient for provoking the collapse or self-transformation of an authoritarian regime may be neither necessary nor sufficient to ensure the instauration of anther regime” (p. 65). Although during transition it is difficult to predict winners because of uncertainty, it should be possible to predict whether or not the transition itself may fail. It is argued that “authoritarian rulers retain discretionary powers over arrangements and rights” (p. 6) even during transition. Thus, a dictator may choose to cancel the transition and retract liberal rights it may have extended to his citizens. But once a transition is in an advanced stage, the possibility of this happening begins to diminish. However, further examination of other factors correlating the length of transition and its success needs to be addressed. Factors which may prolong the transition, other than elections, are not mentioned. The case studies that were mentioned briefly in the selected reading also did not address how long (or short) the transition was. Although length (in time) may prove not be a factor contributing to the success or failure of a transition, it should be studied and analyzed to produce more accurate assumptions about the nature of transitions.
Conclusion Upon analyzing O’Donnell and Schmitter’s work on transitions from authoritarian rule, I conclude that it provides an excellent account for many expectations during transition for individuals and groups hoping to change their countries regime type—hopefully, to democracy. Although recipes can more or less be followed to extend liberal rights to citizens and groups to later be followed by democratization, this cannot be done with regards to transition. Transition always maintains a high degree of uncertainty post-authoritarian rule, thus making it impossible to predict accurate or even semi-accurate outcomes. It is therefore not possible to provide a recipe for the success of a transition or for an individual or group’s success during a transition. Similarly, a clear definition of democracy and how it should be implemented does not exist. With regards to democracy and transition, the only thing that is certain is that each nation has to experiment post-authoritarian regime to find its own solution for succeeding in

Samra Nasser
PS 7710 - Critique
November 27, 2006

Introduction
By means of the rational-choice approach and game theory, the first two chapters of George Tsebelis’s Nested Games: Rational Choice in Comparative Politics attempt to devise a theoretical framework that explains the process of decision-making. Fundamentally, Tsebelis sets out to defend the realism behind the rational-choice approach. This paper will begin by highlighting the central themes of the first two chapters of Nested Games, “Nested Games and Rationality” and “In Defense of the Rational-Choice Approach.” Following the summaries, I will offer my three critiques of the two chapters to include: the question of the accessibility of complete information to the actors involved in the games; the notion of the “interchangeability of individuals;” and finally, the concept that the individual is both institutionally-driven and the real role of the individual.

Summary of Tsebelis’s Chapter One: Nested Games and Rationality
Essentially, the implication behind Tsebelis’s first chapter is that a political situation, for example, a global conflict, can be analyzed by what Tsebelis refers to as a “nested game” occurring in multiple arenas. This analysis of options and motivation and alternate possibilities is rationally arranged into two-level games. In a “nested game,” the political actors engaged determine the result of their decisions (mathematically or logically) based on the effect they can have on more than one arena. For instance, “the games are analyzed separately but, in reality, they are often entangled and form a nested game, that is, a particular game situated within a larger game that simultaneously involves multiple objectives of multiple players.” (p. 8) These “nested games” can generate range for a particular political situation to be explored, not in isolation but considering peripheral elements as well. Thus, the approach for feasibility at one level has penalties for feasibility at the other level. It is within this model that Tsebelis believes that the most appropriate analysis of political decision-making can occur. In short, Tsebelis places the significance on the results and payoffs of decisions and how these can be viewed as the outcomes of the dealings linking political structures through a domestic and international framework. As Tsebelis notes, “the payoffs of the game in the principal arena vary according to the situation prevailing in other arenas, and the actors maximize by taking into account these variable payoffs.” (p. 10)

Summary of Tsebelis’s Chapter Two: In Defense of the Rational-Choice Approach
In Tsebelis’s second chapter, he offers his defense of the rational-choice approach by explaining its logic, its functions and its outcomes. As part of the extensive neo-institutionalist approach, rational choice theories encompass the significant methods for examining politics. Matters such as the shortage of resources and their allocation, the rationality of political actors in a world of calculating games or the prisoner’s dilemma shape the disputed environment for the rational-choice approach. Furthermore, the notions constructing this approach are formed by the inquiries of how rational the political actors are and accordingly, how they decide to target their individual interests. To illustrate this point, Tsebelis provides two different sets of requirements for rationality: weak requirements of rationality and strong requirements of rationality. For instance, the weak category comprises three requirements: “the impossibility of contradictory beliefs or preferences, the impossibility of intransitive preferences, and the conformity to the axioms of the probability calculus” (p. 24). In addition, the strong category also comprises three requirements: “the conformity to the prescriptions of game theory, probabilities approximate objective frequencies in equilibrium, and beliefs approximate reality in equilibrium” (p. 28). Hence, Tsebelis’s intent is to illustrate both sides of the rationality coin. Thus the logic is that actors involved in the game will act rationally.
Tsebelis provides five arguments in maintaining the rationality of human behavior. First the “salience of issues and information” highlights the significance of particular political matters for the people in the polity, and the assisting function of the information in the practice of rational choice. The second argument discusses the course of learning through “trial and errors” stressing the logical process of particular games. The third argument considers the diversity of individuals with the preconception that rational people are intelligent and “sophisticated” which enables them to offset any power of irrational or “uninformed” peoples. The fourth argument, which takes the third argument’s rationale a step further, notes that the most victorious behaviors, or the most rational behaviors, are compensated. The fifth and final argument illustrates the significance and reliance in statistics. As Tsebelis notes, “these arguments further demonstrate that inside the domain of applicability of rational choice, the rationality assumption constitutes a very good approximation of reality.” (p. 39)

Critiques of Tsebelis’s Work:
Critique One – The Question of Complete Information
I have listed and briefly explained the former arguments because they form the crux of my first, and most significant, of critiques of Tsebelis’s defense of the rational-choice approach. That is, Tseblelis’s arguments thrive on the notion that there is a continuous flow of obtainable and flawless information for the actors involved in these games. In other words, for a rational decision to be made, the actor will always be equipped with the necessary information at the exact time his or her decision would need to be made. Furthermore, there is an uncomplicated connection amid the comprehensiveness of information and the action as it is being made. This presumption for complete and thorough information which allows for the actor involved to make either, the expected, perfectly rational or irrational decision each and every time is hard to fathom. As stated by Tsebelis, “I do not claim that rational choice can explain every phenomenon and that there is no room for other explanations, but I do claim that rational choice is a better approach to situations in which the actors’ identity and goals are established and the rules of the interaction are precise and known to the interacting agents.” (p. 32)
Moreover, one should wonder what if a situation or issue arises in which it is impossible for the actors involved to obtain complete information. For example, complete information from one of the players may not be disclosed for a multitude of reasons ranging from merely non-disclosure to lies. Therefore, the actors’ perceptions of a particular situation may be flawed as a result of these lies or ulterior motives of the players. In support of Tsebelis’s work, in this situation, his theory of “nested games” may work better for these games being that nested games are based on a sub-optimal option, occasionally triggered by too little information:
[…To summarize, the argument of this book is that if, with adequate information,
an actor’s choices appear to be sub-optimal; it is because the observer’s
perspective is incomplete. The observer focuses attention on only one game, but
the actor is involved in a whole network of games – that I call nested games…
(Tsebelis, p. 7).]

Critique Two – Concept of “Interchangeability of Individuals”
To continue, my second critique of Tsebelis’s defense of the rational-choice approach is in the concept of the “interchangeability of individuals.” (p. 43) The “interchangeability of individuals” is one of four major advantages of the rational-choice approach over its rivals as highlighted by Tsebelis. As Tsebelis notes, “because the only assumption regarding actors is their rationality, they lack any characteristic or identity; they are interchangeable.” (p. 43) Consequently, ‘any rational actor in a given context will choose precisely the same (optimal) course of action.’ (Tsebelis, p. 43) Tsebelis supports his notion of interchangeability by taste. In other words, individuals are interchangeable so long as they have the same tastes. Tsebelis explains his argument by using the following quote as an example, for instance, “one can provide a rational-choice explanation of voting by arguing that there is an intrinsic satisfaction from the act of voting.” (Riker & Ordeshook, 1968, p. 43). In my view, this assumption is much too strong, as there are assorted differences within each institution, and some of them, as in the example of voting, may bring more centralized results following voting, although others might not. Additionally, Tsebelis’ claim that the actors in these games are acknowledged merely by their rationality may, at certain points, prove to be false. For example, how can the institutions forming the European Union and the European states themselves be perceived as being interchangeable? According to Tsebelis’s view, they are both considered as “actors,” therefore, despite the differences in their foundations, so long as they have the same goals and the same actions used to achieve those goals, they are interchangeable. In addition to their rationality, there are other elements that differentiate the actors that are difficult to overlook.

Critique Three – A) Institutionally-Driven Individual
The third and final critique of Tsebelis is two-fold. Firstly, it concerns the emphasis of the individual (representing the institution) as the crux of the rational-choice approach. In other words, the notion that the rational-choice approach is driven by the individual may seem appropriate, however Tsebelis defends the rational-choice approach by claiming that it is in fact, the institution, which influences the actions of the individual. I contend that it is reasonable and rational to characterize an individual’s rational decision as being symbolic of that individual’s own interests. On the other hand, it is difficult, and in a sense, unnatural to perceive institutions as if they were individual/unitary actors. For instance, “individual action is assumed to be optimal adaptation to an institutional environment, and the interaction between individuals is assumed to be an optimal response to each other. Therefore, the prevailing institutions (the rules of the game) determine the behavior of the actors, which in turn produces political or social outcomes.” (Tsebelis, p. 40) It is a strong assumption pursued by Tsebelis in which he offers little evidence or support to strengthen his argument and thus, persuade the reader. In brief, it is essentially the same oversight which he makes in this paper’s former argument of the interchangeability of individuals. However, in this final critique of his use of the individual as representing the institution, Tsebelis goes even further by claiming that individuals are incapable of operating outside of the dominant institutions being that individuals react to their (institutional) environment.

Critique Three – B) Contradictions in the Role of the Individual
Secondly, Tsebelis contradicts himself and although he partially admits to it, he does not restructure his argument based on that contradiction. To explain, Tsebelis states that “the rational-choice approach is unconcerned with individuals or actors and focuses its attention on political and social institutions seems paradoxical.” (p. 40) Tsebelis then goes onto state as noted above, that the ‘prevailing institutions determine the behavior of the actors.’ (p. 40) The contradiction is that in Tsebelis’s first chapter in which he discusses the “nested games,” he states that “along with the mainstream of contemporary political science, I assume that human activity is goal oriented and instrumental and that individual and institutional actors try to maximize their goal achievement. I call this fundamental assumption the rationality assumption.” (p. 6) To be exact, in Tsebelis’s defense of the rational-choice approach, despite its supposed interest with individual choice (as explained in his “nested games”), he portrays rational choice as doing away with all the factors which comprise individuality substituting political participants with heartless followers of the institution. Instead of examining the choices of a particular subject as he does in his “nested games” theory, Tsebelis turns his argument into a sterile description of what any utility maximizing chooser would do in a particular situation. Thus, in this fashion, Tsebelis’s rational-choice approach shifts from an obviously individualist- level demonstrated through available choices to an individual/industrialist-level demonstrated through exclusive choices solely under an institutional umbrella.

Conclusion
Upon analyzing Tsebelis’s notions of “nested games” and his defense of the rational-choice approach, it is clear that his intent was to explain the seemingly off-based decisions of political actors by exploring every possible explanation, outcome and intention behind those decisions. As Tsebelis states, ‘this book elaborates the nested games concept in order to account for puzzles and anomalies not as failures of rationality, but as indications of the systematic impact of contextual or institutional factors; when these factors are taken into account, the actors’ behavior becomes intelligible.’ (p. 46) It is apparent to me that behind the mysteries of these decisions are oftentimes, and possibly most times, calculated moves which resulted in anticipated outcomes. However, despite the fact that Tsebelis’s arguments signify the basics for the rational-choice approach to function, one is still left with too many questions on how they actually maintain the rationality of human behavior.

PS7710 Seminar in Comparative Politics

What role do the interactions between actors and issues play in the breakdown of democratic regimes?

A Comment on Alfred Stepan, “Political Leadership and Regime Breakdown: Brazil” in Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Latin America (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), Chapter 4 pp. 110 – 137.

Michael Discenna
Department of Political Science
Wayne State University
Version: 11.19.06
Prepared for PS 7710 Comparative Politics Seminar

1. An Explanation Overlooked?
In analyzing breakdowns of democratic regimes, are only “macro-political” factors sufficient to explain the collapse? Or must we analyze the regime breakdown using the individual level of analysis? In “Political Leadership and Regime Breakdown: Brazil,” Stepan, using a historical analysis method, examines the collapse on two levels, which he calls the “micro-political” and “macro-political” levels. The macro-political level examines the internal social, economical, and ideological problems that were present in Brazil leading up to the 1964 coup. The level of analysis that Stepan considers essential to the collapse is the micro-political, which examines the individual leader and the decisions that he made in the period leading up to the coup. Stepan believes that both levels must be considered as the breakdown may not have occurred had there been a different leader in power making decisions. His main argument is that, although there clearly were many issues at the macro-political level, these were not enough to cause the regime to breakdown and there existed several reasons to believe that the system would continue. Stepan regards the micro level to be critical in his analysis, while also stating that this level had been all but ignored in previous social science literature. His attempt to explain how decisions at the micro-political level caused the fragile system to collapse was clear, logical, and very well done. However, I have identified 3 key points of critique that I would like to consider.
2. Summary: Macro-Political Levels of Analysis
In his analysis, Stepan identifies 4 macro level political factors that shaped the broad context for better understanding the micro-political decisions that effectively caused the breakdown of the regime: (1) an increasing rate of political and economic demands made on the government, (2) a decreasing extractive capability due to decline in the growth of the economy, (3) a decreasing political capability to convert political demands into concrete policy because of fragmentation of support, and (4) an increasing withdrawal of commitment to the political regime itself. Stepan does state that these events may have been cyclical rather than secular, but were understood by the elite as being a structural failure.
The first macro-political factor was the population boom that had taken place in the years prior to the breakdown in 1964. Since 1939, the population had more than doubled with a growth rate higher than most countries of the world. The location of most of the growth, in Brazilian urban areas, caused this factor to be especially important. This type of growth led to a higher demand for government policy that would better provide jobs, transportation, housing, and food distribution. Concurrently, the rural peasant population was also increasing their demands on the government as they had recently been granted new rights to organize and be protected by wage laws. Social mobilization in both urban and rural areas also had doubled the size of the electorate in the 20 years prior to the breakdown.
These factors in themselves may not have proved to be such a problem if it had not been for our second factor. The economy in the first part of the 1960's had become unable to provide sufficient resources. The GDP growth during the decade prior to the regime breakdown had been among the highest in the world, but by 1963 the GDP was actually declining. To help offset the demands made by the Brazilian people, the Goulart government increased spending which created skyrocketing rates of inflation and uncertainty about the future of the regime.
Third, the fragmentation within the elite destroyed any chance to gain majority support on any policy. The elite actors spoke openly about the crisis that the regime was experiencing, which created a high level of polarization within the parties. This polarization meant that there was no chance for a party to obtain any non-alliance vote to approve any plans for development. Brazil was left with no growth and, worse yet, no plan to overcome this.
Lastly, the elite actors within the government had lost faith in the regime and openly spoke about the issues that it was facing. The fundamental issue was easily identifiable by the elite actors and electorate alike as demand for policy increased and revenues had decreased. The growing gap between demand and revenue was largely seen as an obstacle that the regime simply could not overcome.
3. Summary: Micro-Political Levels of Analysis
The micro-political level of analysis is the major method used by the author to explain why the breakdown occurred when it did. In fact, Stepan believed that the breakdown would not have occurred had it not been for the role of the elite actor, President Goulart. Stepan writes “A working hypothesis that this chapter brings to the analysis is one also stressed by Linz, namely that while powerful economic, political, and ideological strains normally contribute to the breakdown of a regime, these macro sociological factors do not in themselves lead inevitably to its fall. The diffuse generalized factors that are placing a strain on the system have to be brought to a crisis point by the interaction of actors and issues at the micro-political level (Stepan 1978).” Stepan cites at least 3 key factors that show that indeed the regime would have been supported had it not been for the actions of the political leader. These factors lead the author to conclude it could only be the actions of President Goulart that caused the regime breakdown.
The first reason to believe that the regime would have continued throughout Goulart’s presidency was the interest of elite actors to maintain and grow their careers in government. These actors wanted to ensure that the regime would survive so that they would be able to advance. Many of the governors of the largest and most powerful states had ambitions to become president. This fact led many anti-regime military actors to believe that they could not overthrow the Goulart government without support of the powerful governors.
Next, the author states that the “legalistic” minded actors would not support an overthrow of the government. Since the power of the presidency is derived from the constitution, there existed support for the maintenance of the regime. The legalistic-minded actors, who perhaps consisted of 70% to 80% of the military elite, were understood to be against any actions that would undermine the constitution. Therefore, we can understand that this large group also wanted to maintain the regime.
Lastly, it was believed that the military would only attempt to overthrow the president if there was public support for that action. Stepan writes “that in 1963 the activists in the military planning a revolution represented only 10% of the higher office corps, while another 70% to 80% were “legalists” or simply non-activists (Stepan 122). The fear of those who were active in plotting a coup were, therefore, worried about starting a civil war if they lacked an essential level of support. This lack of coup support created another reason that Stepan believes that the regime could have been maintained. That being said, we can understand that Stepan believes that the actions of President Goulart were responsible for the breakdown of the regime.
4. Critique: Concerns about Stepan’s Work
Stepan provides a clear and systemic approach in understanding the regime breakdown in Brazil using historical analysis on the micro-political level. His analysis is quite detailed and logical to the reader, but it does create a few personal concerns. The key issues that I have identified in analyzing the article are: (1) How do you effectively measure the concept of political leadership, (2) can political leadership be considered a plausible causal factor for regime breakdown?, and (3) where does this study take the discipline and what type of conclusion can be determined?

4.1 Issue 1: The measurement of political leadership
How do we effectively measure the concept of political leadership? As stated, the author focuses primarily on the actions of the elite actor, in this case President Goulart, as the cause of the regime breakdown. Although Stepan identifies several macro-political factors that could have toppled the regime, he actually identifies reasons that the regime could have existed had there been a different elite actor other than Goulart.
How do we measure the concept of political leadership? What qualities or attributes can we examine to come up with an empirical analysis of how we can measure this very vague concept? Using counter-factual information, how can we take another elite leader and plug him into the equation to see what kind of results we come up with? I take issue with the lack of a model of understanding this concept more comprehensively and more empirically. Stepan does not even attempt to create this, but simply lists factors of why he believes that Goulart is the causal factor in the breakdown. I truly do not see this as an analysis, but more of a historical account of the things that took place. In a perfect world, I would have liked to have seen a more empirical definition of the concept in order to better understand how the actor played into the breakdown and how others would have fared in the same conditions.

4.2 Issue 2: Political leadership as a causal factor
Is it reasonable to determine that political leadership can cause the breakdown of a regime? Stepan identifies the actions of Goulart as being the causal factor for the 1964 coup and the subsequent regime breakdown that occurred. Perhaps, however, the author is not giving the macro-political level of analysis the due process that it may demand.
The scope of this study was admittedly narrow in scope and the author was simply trying to identify middle range generalizations. However, I think that perhaps in achieving this end the author may have marginalized macro level factors in order to create the causation of the elite actor. I think that there really was no single causal factor, but several factors intertwined within each other to create the breakdown that took place. The macro political factors were identified by that author as being cyclical rather than secular where the actor pushed the regime over the top to collapse. I did not see, at any time, any validation of this statement and perhaps it was the fragility of the social and economic system that really caused the breakdown regardless of what leader was in power. How do we know that the macro factors were cyclical and not an output of a fragmented government and the cause of the breakdown?
4.3 Issue 3: Where does this leave us?
After reading this historical analysis, what conclusions can we draw that will help us better understand the concept of regime breakdown? Have we learned any new ideas that can be further used to explain regime breakdown in other parts of the world? Drawing on the conclusion that Stepan has put forth, are we able to better understand the concept of democracy and its breakdown? When completing the reading of the analysis, I cannot effectively identify a conclusion other than the actor caused the breakdown.
Stepan had drawn the conclusion that the decisions of the elite actor were the cause for the breakdown of the regime. He founded this conclusion by stating that there were several reasons that the regime could have existed had it not been for President Goulart. I simply question the seemingly simplistic conclusion and wonder if this helps us to further understand the concept of regime breakdown. Before reading the analysis, I would have thought that the President would definitely have an effect on the sustainability of a regime. However, I would have thought that other factors would have played more of a role. I am still not convinced that the author has used this level of analysis for me to better understand the concept as a whole.
Can we look at other democratic regime breakdowns and study them at the micro level to obtain a better insight into the failure? This article was a chapter in a large study that attempted to better explain how democratic regimes breakdown. I do not think that we would be able to take Stepan’s approach to Brazil and use it to analyze other regime breakdowns to the extent that he does. I believe that the macro-political social and economic factors in a state do play a much larger role than Stepan gives credit to in his analysis.
5. Conclusion
“Was there, at the time of crisis, a viable political option with a reasonable chance of success (Angell 1980)?” Stepan, in his analysis of regime breakdown in Brazil, believed that, even up to the period directly before the coup, President Goulart had a reasonable chance of success in keeping the regime alive had he made different choices. This reasonable chance remained despite macro-political constraints that were producing higher social demands, decreasing economic supplies, increasing political fragmentation that decreased government efficiency, and decreasing faith in the existing regime. Stepan writes that “what brought the regime to breaking point was the quality of political leadership of President Goulart, whose acts in the last months of the regime crucially undermined existing supports (Stepan 111). Stepan’s micro-political level of analysis that focused on the actions of the elite actor, President Goulart, was very convincing and something that was lacking in previous cultural, institutional, and structural analyses that we have read. The author is successful in providing a clear, systemic, and reasonable explanation of the events that occurred that led to the collapse of the regime. The question, after considering this level of analysis, is how, when moving forward in the discipline, to determine what levels of analyses are most important in attempting to explain events?


References
Angell, A. (1980). "Review: The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes." International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1994 -) 56(2): 341 - 342.

Stepan, A. (1978). Political Leadership and Regime Breakdown: Brazil. The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Latin America. J. J. Linz. a. A. Stepan. Baltimore and London, Johns Hopkins University Press. 3: 110 - 137.

Regime Breakdown as the Fate of the Erosion of a Winning Coalition

Comments on Michael Discenna’s “What Role do the Interactions between actors and issues play in the breakdown of democratic regimes? A Comment on Alfred Stepan, “Political Leadership and Regime Breakdown: Brazil”.

By Susumu Suzuki, Department of Political Science, Wayne State University
Version: 11-20-06

In his analysis on Alfred Stepan's “Political Leadership and Regime Breakdown” (Stepan, 1978), Michael Discenna poses three critical concerns about Stepan’s work, while sincerely acknowledging Stepan’s efforts of the micro-political (political leadership) level analysis on the breakdown of regime in Brazil in 1964. Specifically, focusing on Stepan's concept ‘political leadership’, Discenna raises the questions about (1) insufficient measurement of political leadership and (2) inadequate analytical model of the causal link between political leadership and the regime breakdown in Stepan (1978). In addition Discenna quests for Stepan’s (1978) key contributions to the field with respect to the applicability of the political leadership analysis of the regime breakdown beyond the 1964 Brazil's regime breakdown with military coup. Here, I argue that, although Discenna’s three concerns about Stepan’s work are legitimated, he might misunderstand Stepan’s analytical model on political leadership for a winning coalition building. In the remainder of this paper, I elaborate the missing link between Discenna’s criticism and Stepan’s (1978) key effort.

As Discenna summarized, Stepan’s major goal in this article was to introduce an analytical insight on how “the quality of the individual political leader can play in shaping political outcomes” (Stepan, 1978, p. 111) by reconsidering the micro-political level analysis— a study of the quality and style of political leadership— in addition to the macro-political level analysis—a study of the internal linkage among social, economic, and ideological issues within a society (Stepan, 1978, pp. 110-111). Further, Discenna nicely traces out Stepan’s analysis of the 1964 Brazil’s regime breakdown in terms of macro- and micro-level approach, respectively. Consequently, Discenna concludes “we can understand that Stepan believes that the actions of President Goulart were responsible for the breakdown of the regime” in Brazil of 1964 (quoted from Section 3- paragraph 4 in Discenna, 2006).

In my reading of both Discenna’s analysis and Stepan’s original work, however, Discenna’s conclusion above is misleading us what Stepan did in his article because of Discenna’s misunderstanding of Stepan’s analytical model of the role of political leadership in the regime breakdown. That also leads Discenna to make very weak criticism to Stepan’s analytical model on political leadership. In my reading, Stepan (1978) quite implicitly defines political leadership as a set of political strategies or tactics to obtain/maintain a winning coalition for political survival. According to Stepan’s model, the 1964 regime breakdown in Brazil could be illustrated clearly as President Goulart’s political leadership (not personal) failure by exacerbating the erosion of a wining coalition between him and other allies, specifically, military officers. Precisely, Stepan demonstrates that President Goulart made several crucial mistakes at the final stage of the crisis by extending issues at stake and combining different issues with potential supporters for his wining coalition. In other words, President Goulart failed to sufficiently mobilize various political cleavages for his political survival, even though he had a chance to stay in office. This supports my argument that Discenna did incorrectly read Stepan’s analytical model. Accordingly, his incorrect readings create the missing link between Discenna’s two key critical concerns about inaccurate measurement and modeling of political leadership in the regime breakdown and Stepan’s actual efforts. Despite Discenna’s misunderstanding, however, I pose that Discenna’s basic concerns remain valid because Stepan did not sufficiently build his theoretical and empirical model in this article.

Finally, Discenna expresses his concern about the applicability of Stepan’s political leadership model on the regime breakdown in other parts of the world. This remains a good question. As Stepan noted, the 1964 regime breakdown in Brazil was the most convenient case for demonstrating his analytical model (Stepan, 1978, p. 110). Although Discenna exhibits his skepticism, Stepan’s model on the role of political leadership based on a winning coalition could be applicable to various cases in democratic electoral competitions; yet we must make several modifications of Stepan's model in terms of complex causal mechanisms of the regime breakdown.

In sum, I certainly concur with Michael Discenna’s praise for Alfred Stepan’s provoking effort to apply a micro-political level analysis to the regime breakdown. However, on contrary to Discenna’s conclusion, I argue that, while the mechanism of the regime breakdown may be influenced by multiple factors, Stepan should elaborate the intersection between the micro-political and macro-political level analysis in more theoretically and empirically rigor manners.

References:
Discenna, Michael (2006). “What Role Do the Interactions between Actors and Issues Play in the Breakdown of Democratic Regimes? ” http://comparativeseminar.blogspot.com/ [to be posted on November 20, 2006]

Stepan, Alfred (1978). “Political Leadership and Regime Breakdown: Brazil”, in Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan eds., The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Latin America. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 110-137.

Breanne Armstrong
Response to Nevena’s Critique of From the Sociology of Politics to Political Sociology by Giovanni Sartori

The purpose of this paper is to respond to Nevena Trajkov’s critique of Giovanni Sartori’s article “From the sociology of Politics to Political Sociology.” The first part of the paper will explain and defend Sartori’s argument, while the second part will respond to specific arguments Nevena makes.
First, I feel that it is necessary to point out the general concept behind the article and offer a defense of Sartori’s general argument. First, as a disclaimer of sorts, Sartori states that sociology fundamentally is different than political science. He says that sociologists do a nice job when dealing with analysis of education, urbanization, and the family. He also states that the “research methods are largely decided by the kind of evidence which is available for the units and the kind of problems with which one deals (p. 68).” Sartori shows right away that these two disciplines study different units and problems and must use different methods to study them. This is why Sartori makes the distinction that there is a difference between political sociology and sociological reduction of politics. He states that political sociology is an interdisciplinary approach which combines the different explanatory variables from each field (p. 69). This shows that Sartori does not think that sociologists are ignorant, but rather they lack certain analytic qualities when dealing with political science.
Second, the general argument of the paper is that institutions play a large role in electoral behavior and party affiliation. Past political sociologists have ignored this principle, and only looked at the structural effect on political parties, especially socioeconomic status. Sartori shows this weakness in the work done by political sociologists by examining countries where class does not affect the party structure. As an example, Sartori points out that the working class vote is often associated with labor unions. Members of working class in England, who are union members, tend to vote left. This seems to imply that people in the working class vote left, but this is a fallacy. When voting habits of non-union working class people are examined, it is found that their votes are split between left and right parties (p. 84). Sartori also states that, in regards to the issue of political parties, that “real political sociology call for simultaneous exploration of how parties are conditioned by the society and the society is conditioned by the party system (p. 93).” This concept is relevant to most political sociological literature because it looks at how society affects institutions rather then how they interact with one another. This also coincides with Sartori’s point that political sociology usually finds a cause to go along with an effect, rather than to participate in predictive research to determine effects of certain inputs (p 91). This is even true when looking at party systems. It is easy to say that the working class voted left because they are in the working class and that side of the political spectrum is associated with giving preferential treatment to the lower class. But, what about the deviant cases, such as the United States or England? There are some unanswered questions when the institutions or organizational variables are ignored. Sartori shows some very relevant examples and produces a coherent argument to show that political sociology is a misnomer.
This part of the paper will respond to a few points made in Nevena’s paper. First, she states that Sartori contradicts his point as stated below :
“ …if the demarcation between sociology and political science is sought-as it should be-at the level of their respective conceptual frameworks, it soon appears that the formal theory of the social system leaves off where the formal theory of the political system begins,”

by stating later in the article that political sociologists are ignorant of political science. But, the point that Sartori is making is that there should be an intersect between the two fields. He is basically stating that if the framework used by both political scientists and political sociologists was the same, then a relationship would be better established. But, this is not the case and the differences in the way that political sociologists examine politics (structure affects institutions) do not provide the necessary bridge between the two fields.
Also, Nevena’s critique of Sartori using the terms “political science” and “political sociology” interchangeably does not appear to be a major problem to me within the article. I actually did not notice this occurring, and there are no specific occurrences listed in the critique.
Nevena also provides a critique of Sartori’s definition of class stating that he tries to complicate the meaning, but he is providing an alternative distinction of what class means in political science. Sociologists see class differently than political scientists and the institutional relationship is often passed over.
In regards to her criticism of “sociological laws,” Sartori means is that political sociologists only look at structures affect on institutions, but political scientists are subject to more scrutiny and need to prove the reciprocity of the cause and effect relationship. He specifically mentions how political scientists strive to show the effect of electoral systems on electoral behavior. This is something that sociologists ignore. Also, the Nevena states that “laws” in political science are changing, but I think that she missed point Sartori was trying to make.
Overall Nevena was able to find a few limitations in Sartori’s argument, but she misses the overall point that he is trying to make. People who call themselves political sociologists ignore many of the crucial units of measure used by political scientists.

Response To: Suzuki Review for Przeworski “Party Strategy, Class Organization, and Individual Voting”

Response to: A comment on Adam Przeworski “Party Strategy, Class Organization, and Individual Voting” co-authored with John Sprague in Adam Przeworski, Capitalism and Social Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 99-132.

Michael Discenna
Department of Political Science
Wayne State University
Version: 11.5.06
Prepared for: PS 7710 Comparative Politics Seminar

1. Article Summary
In the article “Party Strategy, Class Organization, and Individual Voting”, Przeworski attempts to explain how individuals vote in modern Western democracies and how left/socialist parties compete in a system with a heterogeneous population and the majority rules. His main statement is that to better understand how an individual votes, we must understand the strategy that parties take in order to gain a majority as to control the government. His argument considers two possibilities that left/socialist can take in order to reach their goals. The first possibility is for parties to appeal only to their base and keep the party class-pure as to address the values of the class effectively at the risk of turning off potential allies. The second possibility is for parties to appeal to allied voters in order to gain a majority of the electorate and possibly turning the worker class off to the party. I believe that the argument that is put forth by Przeworski is, if nothing else, very intriguing and brings fundamental voting behavior questions regarding a minority party and a minority electorate, into light.
2. Suzuki’s Analysis
In his analysis, Suzuki praises the author for the attempts made to better understand the seemingly simple, yet complex, question of voting behavior. He believes that the theory is well-developed and quite thoroughly explained, but lacks quality in the development of the models and empirical evidence analyzed. Suzuki cites three potential pitfalls in his analysis: the class-based approach that is used, the nature of political parties, and the specification of models.
3. Beyond the Traditional Class-Based Approach in Social Cleavages
Przeworski defines “workers in a narrow way, as manual wage-earners employed in mining, manufacturing, construction, transport, and agriculture, persons retired from such occupations, and inactive adult member of their households” (p.104). Suzuki claims that the author uses this definition of worker in order for his theory development and empirical analysis to be significant. He claims that Przeworski could extend his argument much further by exploring the cleavages within the worker class. I would counter that Przeworski did identify the differences in the middle-class by identifying the concept of “brain-worker” and discussing the difference between manual wage-earners (the traditional working class) and the other various segments of the middle-class. As a neo-Marxist himself, it is easy to say that he is traditional is his definition, but I would argue that broadening the scope of the article and analyzing all segments of the middle-class would be quite an undertaking. By touching on the concept that the middle-class is indeed split, he effectively notes that we should be aware of this phenomenon.
4. The Nature of Political Parties
Suzuki argues in this section that a left/socialist political party is no different than any other political party in the Western democratic tradition of majority rule in the goal of vote-maximizing in order to gain a majority rule in government. In that, the idea that Przeworski could claim that his theoretical argument could be generally applied to all parties that have the goal of vote-maximization, which is all of them. How come we need a separate theory? I believe that I read this section a bit differently. On pages 118-121, Przeworski discusses the idea of socialist leaders as vote-maximizers. He notes that “politicians who maximize in the long run end up writing memoirs within a short one”. In essence, the author is considering whether left/socialist leaders look to secure as many votes as possible in the short-term or look to the long-term. Przeworski also writes that “the strategies which party leaders choose today produce the conditions under which they are forced to decide in the next election”. I would argue that there is not a party on earth that considers the composition of its future membership when attracting voters for the current election. The author is considering otherwise, by stating that the election that we are currently in has been shaped by past elections and all have consequences. Also, I would also argue that the author, for the scope of this article, was not interested in the nature of all parties, but specifically one party as the goal of the book was “to exemplify a new paradigm shift in the study of Marxist social theory” (cover page).
5. Model Specification of Differences of Electoral System and Social and Economic Conditions
In his analysis, Suzuki writes that Przeworski “ignores to discuss any electoral system difference and different social and economic conditions in each country in time and space”. He also adds that “he entirely omits the discussion of the significant importance of the development of the Welfare State within his selected countries”. His claim is that Przeworkski ignores the complexities of reality in order for his model and empirical date to be significant. Again, I think that we have to look at the overarching concept of his work in accessing how the left/socialist parties change in Western democracies where the majority rules. I also believe that the goal of the author was to create a starting point for the further study of the paradigm shift in the study of Marxist social theory considering that the basis for Marxist theory, that capitalist societies would become homogeneous, was wrong. His goal was to identify how the party will react to this and how it would coincide with other parties in the democratic system.
6. Conclusion
Przeworski’s article “Party Strategy, Class Organization, and Individual Voting” was very thought provoking and interesting to read. The theoretical framework was significant to the understanding of the voting behavior on both the party level and the individual level. The scope of the article was indeed limited to the study of left/socialist parties, which was cited as a pitfall by Suzuki. I would argue that the limited scope was indeed the intention of the author in order to begin a longer-term and deeper analysis of the very questions that are raised. To broaden the scope of the article would be to compromise the theoretical starting point that he has created.

How Could Left/Socialist Parties Win in the Electoral Competition within Heterogeneous Society in Industrial Democracies?

A Comment on Adam Przeworski "Party Strategy, Class Organization, and Individual Voting" co-authored with John Sprauge in Adam Przeworski, Capitalism and Social Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 99-132.

Susumu Suzuki
Department of Political Science
Wayne State University
Version: 11-05-06
Prepared for PS7710 Comparative Politics Seminar

1. Simple Question, No Easy Answer
How could left/socialist political parties obtain sufficient votes from various divisions of a society? How did left/socialist political parties recruit their supporters? In his "Party Strategy, Class Organization, and Individual Voting," Przeworski presents a good effort to explain and model how individuals vote for left/socialist parties through the electoral competition in industrial democracies. Przeworski’s key claim is that political party’s strategies to obtain majority of vote could shape voting behavior of individuals within industrial democratic societies. More specifically, Przeworski argues that the electoral trade-off confronted by socialist and other left-wing parties is the heart to understand the link between political party’s strategy and voting behavior of individuals within a heterogeneous, rather than a homogeneous, society. Although Przeworski’s argument is fairly persuasive, I think that his presented theoretical model, empirical tests, and evidence are insufficient to endorse his argument and convince all readers including myself. There is no doubt that Przeworski did a great attempt to answer a set of simple questions employing social science tools. As usual, however, a simple question is not an easy one and it is difficult for researchers to provide a good answer to explain the phenomena by combining both a solid theory and strong empirical evidence. I think that Przeworski did a nice job on his theory-side, but did insufficient/poor one on his model development and empirics. In this essay, I present three (potential) pitfalls in Przeworski’s model and research design.

2. Przeworski on "Party Strategy, Class Organization, and Individual Voting"
As a neo-Marxist, the starting point of Przeworski's work is his concern about the fate of left/socialist parties under the electoral competition within Western industrial democracies during the 1980s. Specifically, unlike Karl Marx’s observation on the class division within a capitalist society, Przeworski see that a capitalist society is more heterogeneous than homogeneous and there is no single class by the workers. This is not the good news for the left/socialist parties, who intend to represent the interests of class by the workers, because the growth of various social divisions within a society implies the erosion of the class by the workers as their key constituency. However, observing the history within Western industrial democracies, some left/socialist parties win the election with sufficient majority. How could we explain the phenomena using social science tools beyond the traditional class-analysis?
In order to develop his theoretical and empirical model, Przeworski takes a step-by-step approach or exploratory approach by reclassifying and reconsidering traditional Marxism class-based approach on social division and voting behavior. According to Przeworski, his new approach is necessary to reformulate the traditional understanding of the causal path from individual traits to individual voting behavior and need to reconsider the role of political party in individual’s voting behavior. More precisely, Przeworski notes that "particular traits become causes of individual acts when they are embedded within a definite structure that has been imposed upon political relations at a given moment of history" (p. 99). Throughout modifying the causal path of the link between individual traits and individual voting behavior, Przeworski postulates that the people "may become mobilized into politics as workers" (p. 100) as a cumulative result of political strategies by the left/socialist political parties (see pp. 100-101). Although a political party may successfully create a class with a collective identity, the problem here is that "political parties are not simply reflection of class structure or expression of class interests" (p.101) within a heterogeneous society. This gives us an insight to Przeworski two essential concepts in his theoretical and empirical model: electoral trade-off and class composition.
Electoral Trade-Off: According to Przeworski, class-based parties confront the dilemma due to their social and political environment under democratic political institutions. Because of the combination of minority status as working class in a society with majority rule in a democratic institution, leaders of class-based parties need to choose whether the party is to be homogenous within a class or not. Accordingly, the class-based party leaders make a decision of electoral strategy whether they rely on exclusively on the support of the workers or seek votes regardless of their class origin. In doing this, the class-based party leaders are necessary to calculate the electoral trade-off between losing support from the workers and gaining support from other voters. This argument constitutes Przeworski's first theoretical and empirical model on the electoral trade-off of the class-based party leaders' political strategy; his empirical evidence did not provide strong support for this argument, though (see pp. 102-114).
Class Composition: Przeworski's second component of his theoretical and empirical model is class composition within a society to explain "How do socialist parties choose electoral strategies?" (p. 111). According to Przeworski, "a party adopts under the particular circumstances depends upon the degree to which party leaders are concerned with the class composition of the their electorate" (p. 112). Conducting empirical analysis, he finds the partial support to his class composition argument (see pp. 114-121).
Ultimately, Przeworski constructed a unified model composed of both electoral trade-off and class composition (see pp. 121-128). Relying upon two elements that the class-based party leaders consider for wining strategy through democratic election, Przeworski develops the four ideal pattern of class voting (p. 122). Employing both historical data and survey data, Przeworski finds weak but good empirical support to his theoretical model: "the importance of class varies historically and strategies of political parties and other organizations have cumulative consequences of the way people vote" (p. 126).
Przeworski's research has a simple research design, but his theoretical argument is fairly well-developed within his limited evidence. However, I think that, although Przeworski's achievement with this research is impressive, he could be done more efficiently and adequately by improving his theoretical model and research design below.

3. Three Pitfalls in Przeworski's Work
Przeworski's work was published in 1985. As of today, there are numerous theoretical and empirical innovations on research on social cleavages, party behavior, voting behavior and research design as well as statistical techniques. However, rather making extensive criticism on Przeworski's research, here I pose three potential pitfalls, which weaken his empirical findings: (1) class-based approach; (2) nature of political party; (3) model specification.

3.1. Beyond the Traditional Class-based Approach in Social Cleavages
One of Przeworski's major contributions in this work is his effort to extend the Marxist's class-based approach within the research on the link between a class as a social division and voting behavior of individuals. For the traditional class-based approach, workers can be the only class against the capitalist. Thus, many scholars emphasize too much the ideological salience of the classes and the class division as a key social cleavage in a capitalist society. However, as Przeworski also have found throughout his analysis, there are numerous variations of different types of collective identities within the so-called workers or salaried employees in a capitalist society (see pp. 126-128). In industrial societies, the so-called middle class between the rich and poor class exists as the social and economic phenomena or divisions. In his analysis, although Przeworski recognizes the importance of the middle classes, it seems that he ignores the variation within the middle classes. As for his theory, he restrictedly defines "workers in a narrow way, as manual wage-earns employed in mining, manufacturing, construction, transport, and agriculture, persons retired from such occupations, and inactive adult members of their household" (p. 104) and discriminates other groups from his empirical analysis. I think this narrow focus on enrich class variation underlies Przeworski's theory development as well as empirical analysis. In other words, Przeworski could extend his theoretical argument by more adequately considering other dimensions of social cleavages within the class.

3.2. The Nature of Political Parties
Przeworski points out that "As socialists become parties like other parties, workers turn into voters like other voters" (p. 105). This is certainly true under the electoral competition within the democratic institution. In short, democratic institution may shape left/socialist party preferences. While Przeworski is again narrowing down his theory focus and empirical analysis on the link between the left/socialist party strategy and the voting behavior of individuals through the electoral competition, he could explore or incorporate a general theory of political parties or party strategies in the election. For instance, all political parties on the globe have one specific common goal: seeking to win with overwhelming majority through the election in order to control/influence the government. To this end, each political party has been hard to mobilize individual to be their permanent members or vote for their vision/image at the election. This task for all political parties, however, has become more difficult than the past due to the growing importance of the potential social divisions among electorates who have diverse preferences. This argument suggests that left/socialist or the class-based parties within a democratic society behave as same as other non class-based parties or other groups. In other words, leader's rational calculation to decide party's strategy to gain vote is indifferent. Since Przeworski points out the similar argument, he could explicitly incorporate such an argument in his theoretical model and empirical test. If he would find that the class-based parties act as same as other political parties under the electoral competition, why do we need the separate theory? How could we differentiate Przeworski's theoretical model (except his class-approach) from other theories on party survival strategy to gain the vote from the diverse groups with multiple-interests or preferences of individuals.

3.3. Model Specification of Differences of Electoral System and Social and Economic Condition
My final comment on Przeworski's work is related to his model specification and research design. In his model development and empirical analysis, Przeworski observes at least six different Western European countries as industrial democracies. However, he ignores to discuss any electoral system differences and different social and economic conditions in each country in time and space. Moreover, he entirely omits the discussion of the significant importance of the development of the Welfare State within his selected countries. It is certain that these three institutional and social-economic factors directly and indirectly shape not only left/socialist parties strategy in the election as well as the voter's preference beyond the social division within a society. Although Przeworski acknowledges that our reality is more complex than one what he model and analyze in this chapter (see pp. 128-129), he should be able to incorporate at least some of complexities (e.g., economic stagnation or election system differences) in his empirical analysis. Przeworski only points the quality of his data in this study, but I think that what weaken his empirical findings is the lack of his model specification of complexity in real world as well as in the history.

4. Conclusion: Where Should We Go Now?
My comments on Przeworski's prominent work are very general rather specific. This is because his research clearly set up a starting point to understand and explain the causal path between party strategy, class organization and voting behavior within the electoral competition in industrial democracies. Przeworski's argument is fairly strong, but his empirical findings are surely weak than his theory. In this essay, I point out the three potential pitfalls, which may weaken his empirical findings. I believe that, if we could consider my three points here, Przeworski's research could be more sophisticated with a set of solid empirical findings.
How could left/socialist parties win in the electoral competition within heterogeneous society in industrial democracies today? Social Democratic Party in Germany and Sweden had formed the government with majority until 2005 and 2006, respectively. However, they lost the majority today. During the 1990s, Social Democracy Party in Japan kept gaining general voters' support, but they kept loosing the support from both general voters and class-based voters today. How could we explain these phenomena? Is it the party leaders' failure with party strategy to mobilize the voter? Are there any certain political economic conditions affecting such transitions? In addition to these, there are numerous research questions in party politics with regard to consideration on the effect of political institution on social division-based voting behavior. Therefore, I think that Przeworski's research and theoretical model should be evaluated and assessed in the broader research context.