Structuring Democracy: Advanced Democratic Development

This lecture explores the trade-offs between competing democratic values in constitutional design, examining the consensual vs. majoritarian models of government, and analyzing the pros and cons of presidential vs. parliamentary forms of democracy.

This lecture examines the importance of political parties to democracy, exploring criteria of institutionalization, variation in parties and party systems across democracies, and the implications of different types of political parties for democratic governance.

This lecture covers various types of majoritarian electoral systems, including First Past the Post, Alternative Vote, Two Round Runoff System, and Single Non-Transferrable Vote, analyzing their advantages and disadvantages.

This lecture analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of proportional representation (PR), examining different types of PR systems, closed vs. open list PR, mixed electoral systems, and the determinants of proportionality.

This lecture explores the nature of ethnicity and ethnic identity, examining the challenges that ethnic pluralism poses for democracy and analyzing when ethnic divisions are most likely to endanger democratic stability.

This lecture discusses policies and institutional designs for managing ethnic conflict, exploring power sharing models, vote-pooling strategies, and the role of federalism in conflict management.

This lecture examines corruption and state capture, analyzing their impact on democratic stability, exploring different forms of governance, and discussing mechanisms for institutional accountability and reform.

This lecture explores international effects on regime types, examining regional institutions, international support mechanisms for democracy, and the phenomenon of authoritarian regime promotion by countries like Russia and China.

This lecture discusses the role of established democracies in promoting democracy globally, examining various forms of assistance, historical examples, and strategies for effective democracy promotion.