POLSCI 1G06 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Liberal Democracy, Economic Liberalism, Authoritarianism
5 Mar 2014
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Political science 1g06 2012 lecture 11a non-democratic political systems. In their 2011 analysis, freedom house classified 115 of 193 countries as electoral democracies. Meaning that 41% of the total are not democratic. 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 political questions. Consider: are authoritarian regimes sustained just by the imposition of force? o. Note: in exploring the justifications for authoritarianism i am not attempting to justify these justifications. Liberal democracies at least two things are present: the majority can vote, there are freely contested elections. Non-liberal-democratic political systems where both of the above factors are not present. For reasons of simplicity we will call these political systems authoritarian (although some may be totalitarian) For many liberal economists: wealth and the distribution of wealth are the key factors explaining the existence of authoritarian political systems.
