Syllabus
Content I. Part: Division of power in theory and practice, role of parties and party systems. Opposition as a modern form of division of power, its types.
1) role of political parties and party systems. Role of parties between voters and rulers.Parties and public opinion. Division of power in theory and practice. Example of strict division of power between legislative and executive powers: presidential system. Example of flexible division of power: parliamentary system.
2) Division of power in theory and practice. Majority and non-majority parliamentarism (M.Duverger).
3) Presidential system: does president belong to the same party as the parliamentary majority? Does majority party have rigid or flexible structure? Does presidential system work satisfactorily elsewhere than in the USA?
4) Typology of semi-presiential systems: how do they differ from parliamentary regimes. Difference between constitutional and real presidential powers. President as "absolute monarch", "regulator", and "symbol" M.Duverger).
5) Modern division of power: opposition and its types (R.A.Dahl): according to the degree of concentration of opposition, degree of competitive character, according to site for encounters between opposition and government, degree of identificability of opposition, according to aims and means of opposition II. Part: Consensual and majority democracies
6) Majoritarian and consensual principle (Lijphart)
7) Homogeneous and segmented societes - segmented autonomy, overlapping membership
8) Empirical typologies of four types of democracy (Lijphart) 9-10) Ideal types of consensual and majority democracies and discussion on their advantages and drawbacks. III. Part: Types of democracy and transition to democracy
11) Democratization and selection of constitutional settings in Czechoslovak Federative Republic, Hungary and Poland according to A. Lijphart. Rokkan's hypothesis.
12) Types of transition according to T.Lynn Karl and Ph.C.Schmitter distinguished on the basis of actors and their stategies: pact, enforcment, reform, revolution
13) What kinds of democracy are evolving in Latin America, Easter Europe according to T.Lynn Karl and Ph.Schmitter?
14) Democratization "granted or conceded", "co-regulated" and "capitulation" according to G.Hermet, J.Wiatr and S.P.Huntington. Examples of Hungary, Poland, the former Czechoslovakia and the former German Democratic Republic
15) Party cleavages in new democracies in central and eastern Europe (D.-L.Seiler, H.Kitschelt, M.G.Roskin). Differences depending on the way of transition
16) Can Spain be a model for Central and Eastern Europe? IV. part. Political democracy and economic system. Is democracy connected to capitalism?
17) Confrontation of Marx with Tocquevill and Pareto according to R.Aron.
18) Capitalism, socialism and democray according to J.A. Schumpeter. Comparison fo Schumpeter and Poper's theory of democracy
19)Cutlural contradictions of capitalism (D. Bell)
20)Spirit of democratic capitalism according to M. Novak
21) Managerial revolution (J.Burnham) a technostructure (J.K.Galbraith).
22) Capitalist revolution, economic culture and political freedoms according to P.L. Berger.
23) Democracy and globalization
Annotation
The aim of the two-semester course, which is designed for the students of master's level, is deeper understanding of selected problems of plural democracies. What are major types of democracy and in what ways are they different in praxis? How is power divided in democracies and what kinds of opposition are there? How do transitions to democracy evolve? Does the way of transition determine to a large extent future form of democracy? Does political democracy require capitalist economic system? These are key questions the course is going to discuss from many perspectives.
The stress is put largely on active participation of students, who are supposed do their own readings. The first semester is ended with a credit; the second semester is ended with oral exam that is based on the lectures and required readings.
Students must hand in a paper on the topic related to the course (about 10 pages), which is a precondition for the oral exam. The paper must be sent at least one-week before the lectures are over.