POLSCI 1AB3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Liberal Democracy, Authoritarianism
17 May 2017
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In their 2016 analysis, freedom house classified 125 of 195 countries as electoral democracies. Meaning that 36% of countries are not democracies. So, if we only focus on liberal democracies: we are missing out on a very large piece of the world"s political puzzle. We avoid asking a number of questions. Note: in exploring the justifications for authoritarianism i am not attempting to justify these justifications. Rather, there are two purposes i am aiming at: Non-liberal-democratic regimes often justify themselves as being more democratic than actually existing liberal democracies. What strategies do authoritarian regimes use to manufacture consent? (see mayer (on the syllabus), from whom this discussion is drawn) Authoritarian government is a means to an end rather than a legitimate end in and of itself. If a society wants to achieve a certain goal (like economic development), Liberal democracy may not be the best route (according to this justification)
