Leadership and Change: In Search of Human Agency

Djayadi Hanan

The conceptualization of agency and structure and the relationship between the two will affect how we view the role of leadership, especially in its relation to change. Leadership is usually associated with the emphasis on human agency. Imbroscio, in his discussion on “Structure, Agency and Democratic Theory” (1999) for instance, suggests that the emphasis on agency or structure will determine to what extent the role of democratic leader is conceptualized. It also will have significant implication to the practice of democracy. Similarly, what is change and what factors cause it are questions that bring the debate in social sciences, including political science, into the contrast and relations between agency and structure. Change can be caused by agency or structure or by both of them depends on how the social scientists define agency, structure, and the relations among them. Literature on transition to or the breakdown of democracy, for example have been engaging in the debate between the voluntarism camp which takes the agency as the explanatory factor, and the determinism camp which emphasizes the role of structure as the cause of the regime change (Mahoney and Snyder, 1999; Kitschelt, 1992).

This paper looks at several notions/concepts which are developed by social scientists about the role of agency and structure and identify some of its implications on the conceptualization of the role of leader and leadership as human agency especially in its relation to change. With different point of departure, three articles from Emirbayer and Mische (1998), Sewell (1992) and Mahoney and Snyder (1999) reviewed in this paper are attempting to look at agency and structure without being in favor of one and eliminating the other. This paper argues that the conceptualization of agency and structure and their relationship which attempts to view that the existence of one does not deny the other will be useful to understand how leadership (leaders) can make a difference in social change.

Defining Agency: An Autonomous Actor?

All articles reviewed in this paper claim that they are attempting to put both agency and structure in a way that is not in favor of one or the other. It is interesting that both article that focuses on agency such as Emirbayer and Mische’s, and article that focuses on structure such as Sewell’s started with the statement that the subject they are dealing with is the most under theorized, elusive, and confusing in social sciences. Both structure and agency seem to suffer the same conceptualization problem especially on the relationship between the two.

In conceptualizing the relationship between agency and structure, most theories, according to Emirbayer and Mische tend to make agency “…remain so tightly bound to structure that one loses sight of the different ways in which agency actually shapes social action” (963). Agency according to them must be reconceptualized by looking at its several analytical elements and how those elements related to (interpenetrate) with structures. Therefore they define agency as:

“the temporally constructed engagement by actors of different structural environments—the temporal relational contexts of action—which, through the interplay of habit, imagination, and judgment, both reproduces and transforms those structures in interactive response to the problems posed by changing historical situations” (Emirbayer and Mische: 970).

Because of its capacity to differentiate the different dimensions of agency, Emirbayer and Mische argue that their conceptualization “can help account for variability and change in actors’ capacities for imaginative and critical intervention in the diverse contexts within which they act” (970). Their conceptualization is also claimed to focus on the dynamic possibilities of human agency by viewing it as “composed of variable and changing orientations within the flow of time” (964).

This conceptualization provides clear place for human agency. It assumes that agency has its own reasoning and consciousness (imagination) in its efforts of intervening diverse contexts. This notion of temporal constructive engagement seems to be in line with the conceptualization from Bhaskar (1979: 48-49) that “social structures, unlike natural structures, do not exist independently of the agents’ conceptions of what they are doing in their activity.”

Based on their definition, Emirbayer and Mische propose three constitutive elements of agency i.e. iteration, projectivity, and practical evaluation. Iteration is “the selective reactivation by actors of past patterns of thought and action, as routinely incorporated in practical activity, thereby giving stability and order to social universes and helping to sustain identities, interactions, and institutions over time” (971). Projectivity is “the imaginative generation by actors of possible future trajectories of action, in which received structures of thought and action may be creatively reconfigured in relation to actors’ hopes, fears, and desires for the future” (971). Practical evaluation is “the capacity of actors to make practical and normative judgments among alternative possible trajectories of action, in response to the emerging demands, dilemmas, and ambiguities of presently evolving situations” (971).

By introducing these constitutive elements, especially on the projective capabilities of the agency, Emirbayer and Mische give further place and significant role to human agency in the making of change. Projective element seems to imply that human agency has the capabilities of constructing the future and use the current temporal engagement to achieve it. This projection of future can be put in the current framework of structure or outside it. In line with this assessment, Hays categorizes change into reproductive and transformative (1994:63-64). By using the temporal constructive engagement of Emirbayer and Mische, it can be further stated that agency can construct the engagement as to reproduce or transform the structure. Burns’s notion on transforming leadership (1978) can also be understood in the framework of these constitutive elements of agency.

In the current dichotomy of agency–structure, Emirbayer and Mische’s conceptualization of agency starts from the side of agency and then projects it to structure. Clearly, agency is more a focus here. The problem with this conceptualization is that it has the tendency to assume that actor always understands the contexts. Or actor can always adjust its engagement construction over time in a changing context. The first problem is that actor does not always understand the context. Wendt (1987: 359) has pointed out that “agents may not understand the structural antecedents or implications of their actions.” The second problem is the constructive engagement by the agent can result in the unintended outcome and the further response of the agent can be more problematic because it can also result in more unintended outcomes. Strategic choice approach used by Collier and Norden (1992) for example shows that agent’s choice depends on strategic environment which does not always provide complete information to make agency fully understands the context.

In contrast with Emirbayer and Mische, Sewell’s conception of agency can be regarded as structure based. It starts with structure and then projects it to the agency. However, he views agency “not as opposed to, but as constituent of structure” (20). Agency is the one that is:

“capable of exerting some degree of control over the social relations in which one is enmeshed, which in turn implies the ability to transform those social relations to some degree. … agents are empowered to act with and against others by structure: they have knowledge of the schemas that inform social life and have access to some measure of human and non human resources. Agency arises from the actor’s knowledge of schemas, which means the ability to apply them to new contexts. Agency is implied by the existence of structures” (20).

Therefore, Sewell also puts agency in an important place. However, his conception is different from Emirbayer and Mische in the sense that he puts the structure more as the source of the agency’s capacity. He clearly views agency as inseparable from the structure (something that seems to bother Emirbayer and Mische). In other words, the existence of structure constitutes the human agency. He further states that “capacity of agency… is inherent in all humans. But… humans are born with only a highly generalized capacity for agency…. The specific forms that agency will take consequently vary enormously and are culturally and historically determined” (20). Human has a kind of limited autonomous agency capacities at the first place which then develops depending upon the structure it encounters. On this, Sewell further states that “…agency differs enormously in both kind and extent. …what intention they can form, and what sort of creative transpositions they can carry out vary dramatically from one social world to another depending on the nature of the particular structures that inform those social world” (20-21).

The question is however; to what extent this born-agency capacity differs from one agency to another. Can this explanation be related to the different personal or psychological traits of individuals? From the leadership point of view, can this be the source of agency based explanation about the different outcome of the actions from different leaders? Unfortunately, Sewell does not elaborate more what he really means by “highly generalized capacity” of human agency. He does not explain further about what is the relationship of this inherent generalized capacity of agency with the next capacity that the agency gets later from its interaction with the structure. Is that relation is deterministic or more dynamic? If it is dynamic, what accounts for that? Do different agencies get the same empowerment from structure? Also, how the agency gets these agentic capacities? Sewell’s explanation does not give insight to answer those questions.

Mahoney and Snyder’s conception of human agency is different from both Emirbayer and Mische and Sewell. From their study on the explanation of regime change, they try to embrace/synthesize both agency based and structural based conception of human agency. According to them, “Voluntarist approaches conceive human behavior as underdetermined by social structures. In this view, actors’ identities and interests during regime transformations cannot be explained by social or economic roles. Human action is understood as a force external to and disengaged from “objective” social relations” (5). This conception is called undersocialized conception of human agency. Structural approaches on the other hand “treat the identities and interests of actors as defined by positions within social structures and view choices and actions as results of these positions” (5). This is called oversocialized conception of human agency.

The undersocialized conception on interaction between actors and change, Mahoney and Snyder continue, “deemphasizes the possibility that these interactions may be affected by pre-existing social relations which shape actors’ interests and capabilities” (5). This results in the tendency of voluntarist approaches to “overemphasize immediate, short-term processes, choices, and political crafting, while ignoring the extent to which “the possible” is conditioned by social structures” (5). The inverse problem occurs to the oversocialized conception of agency. It has bias for emphasizing long-term, impersonal processes and for overlooking the possibility that actors may have margins of maneuverability during periods of regime change (5).

Mahoney and Snyder’s proposal is to combine the two approaches of undersocialized and oversocialized human agency. They come up with “structurally conceptual based” and “voluntaist conceptual based” human agencies (6-7). There are two problems of this kind of broad conceptualization. First is objective problem. How do we decide that the problem we are dealing with can be analyzed by using structurally based or voluntary based human agency? Is it based on the characteristic of leadership during the time of regime change? Or, is it based on the type of socio-economic factors dominant during the time of regime change? Are there any other objective criteria for judging it? The second problem is subjective problem. By introducing the structurally based and voluntary based human agency, Mahoney and Snyder tend to leave it to the subjective tendency of the researcher in analyzing and explaining the problem. If the researcher tends to lean toward voluntarism, he /she will tend to use it as analytical tools and vise versa. Therefore this categorization is less helpful in conceptualizing further the role of leadership in change.

Defining Structure: Context and Culture?

In Emirbayer and Mische’s conceptualization, structure is defined more as contexts or environment in which human agency can show “varying degrees of maneuverability, inventiveness, and reflective choice in relation to the constraining and enabling contexts of action” (964). Structure or structural environment: “are both dynamically sustained by and altered trough human agency—by actors capable of formulating project for the future and realizing them, even if only in small part, and with unforeseen outcomes, in the present” (964).

This characterization of structure seems to imply that structure is more like a playing field for agency. This concept is again seems to be in line with Bhaskar’s notion that “structure may be only relatively autonomous. …, they do not exist independently of the conceptions that the agents possess of what they are doing, … (1979: 48). The different contexts or structure or environment affect agency’s construction on how to engage with it and later, the agency will prepare further response on the possible changing structure as a result of the previous temporal engagement. This can be regarded as a kind of Sewell’s characterization of human agency on its general agency capacity at the first place but Emirbayer and Mische apply it on structure. If this reading is true, Emirbayer and Mische look at the structure as having a sort of general impact on agency at the first place but the further impact depends on how the agency constructs its temporal engagement with the structure. Both agency and structure then is in the state of changing over time but the direction of change is more on the control of agency. This is one of the main problems of this characterization because it can lead to the impression that everything can be controlled by agency. If we accept the notion that agency does not always understand the structure as has been reiterated by Wendt, the problem is getting problematic. The failure of understanding the context will result in the improper temporal engagement construction which can lead to unintended outcomes. The strategic choice models for example, has suggested that the games that are played by agency in many instances (if not most) are not based on complete information, but the games of incomplete information in which there is no uncertainty about the environment or structure and the agency must rely on possible choices that can be drawn from the signal of the strategic environment.

Structure according to Sewell consists of schema and resources. Schema is “generalizable procedures applied in the enactment/reproduction of social life. They are generalizable in the sense that they can be applied in or extended to various contexts of interactions” (8). Sewell’s examples of this schema are rules of etiquette, aesthetic norms, recipes for group actions, democratic vote, set of equivalence such as wet and dry, male and female, nature and culture, private and public, etc. This schema is generalized (can be transposed or extended) to new situations when there is opportunity (8). Resource as the second element of structure consists of two types: human and non human. Nonhuman resources are “objects, animate or inanimate, naturally occurring or manufactured, that can be used to enhance or maintain power; human resources are physical strength, dexterity, knowledge, and emotional commitments that can be used to enhance or maintain power, including knowledge of the means of gaining, retaining, controlling, and propagating either human or nonhuman resources. Both type of resources are media of power and are unevenly distributed” (8-9).

In Sewell’s conception, structure is possible to change. Social transformation in his view cannot only explained by the change from outside the system. Social transformation can be generated by the operation of structure internal to society (16). This will be possible if the theory of structure adopts a multiple, contingent, and fractured conception of society and structure. He further suggests five axioms that will enable the social transformation. The five axioms are the multiplicity of structures, the transposibility of schemas, the unpredictability of resource accumulation, the polysemy of resources, and the intersection of structures (16).

The room for human agency in Sewell’s construction of structure looks more limited that Emirbayer and Mische’s conceptualization. Sewell’s human agency’s role in social transformation depends on the five enabling axioms of the change. The most possible significant role of human agency in social transformation derives from the concept of transposability of schema. Agency’s knowledge of a rule or schema means “the ability to … apply it creatively” (Sewell: 18). The room of transposability is limited however, because it depends on the opportunity. This opportunity seems to be more structurally bounded.

According to Mahoney and Snyder, structure can be viewed from the constraint and generative models. Constraint model depends on the conception of structures as contingent constraint that “potentially limits the ability of actors to achieve their goals” (6). In constraint model “structural factors are treated as barriers external to actors which may or may not stand between them and the achievement of their autonomous goals and interests” (6). Generative model conceives structure as “necessary relations internalized by actors and from which their interests, identities and goals derive” (6). Structure constitutes the properties that define actors and motivate their behavior.

Constraints model looks to be more compatible with the concept of temporal constructed engagement of Emirbayer and Mische while generative model is more in line with the structure based concept from Sewell. From these two typologies of views on structures Mahoney and Snyder suggest that structure can be both constraining and empowering the actors (agency). Thus, they are not infavor of one or the other.

Agency – Structure Interaction

The main problem in understanding the interaction between agency and structure is the nature of their relationship. Is the relationship constitutive or causal or both? If the relationship is causal which one is more as a causal factor than the other? Emirbayer and Mische have clearly rejected the idea that agency and structure are mutually constitutive because they want to define agency from its own internal structure. They proposed a type of relationship called double constitution of agency and structure which means “temporal-relational contexts support particular agentic orientations, which in turn constitute different structuring relationships of actors toward their environments” (Emirbayer and Mische: 1004). This conception, according to them is different from mutually constitutive since the agency “is never so deeply intertwined with every aspect of” the structure (ibid). Mahoney and Snyder, with their integrative approach seem to leave it out to the choice of researchers whether or not to use funnel, path dependent or eclectic strategies in combining the role of agency and structure. They are more concerned with how the conceptual framework could provide analytical tool that include both structure and agency. Sewell seems to embrace the idea that agency is “deeply intertwined with every aspect of the structure.” Sewell’s structure as the source of agency’s empowerment (schema and resources) is compatible with the idea of resources from Galbraith (1983) and Swiddler’s idea on culture as a tool kit (1986). It is not clear however whether these resources/tool kits are the constitutive elements or the causal factors of the human agency.

With regard to the outcome of human agency’s action, what is the nature of the structure’s role/effect? Sewell seems to see it more deterministic than Emirbayer and Mische, while Mahoney and Snyder look it as more situational, depends on the approach that is used. In helping to understand this, the view from critical realist such as Bhaskar (1979) and Lewis (2002) can be useful. They suggest that, although not deterministic to the behavior of human agency, social rules and resources given by structure may exert important influence to social affairs/actions (Lewis, 2002: 20). Structure, in this conception provides material cause while human agency provides efficient cause to the outcome. Material cause provide medium of action for human agency, while human agency is acted as the driving force because of its creative and initiative capacity.

Conclusion: Some Preliminary Lessons for Leadership and Change

Although not specific, the above discussion on several conceptualizations on agency, structure and the relationship between the two have provided some insights on the role of leadership as human agency and change. Clearly, the explanation of social affairs/events cannot be viewed from the perspective which is in favor one and eliminating the other. The discussion from Emirbayer and Mische, Sewell, and Mahoney and Snyder suggests that it is possible that the intensity of human agency’s role will be various from one situation to another. Leader or human agency plays roles in change, but it depends on what kind of structure the human agency encounters and what kind of human agency that is playing the game. A Mahoney and Snyder’s eclectic strategy is one example of this insight.

Although the place for human agency has been provided--at least by the three articles reviewed in this paper, to put leadership as a distinct human agency requires the social scientist to view it as an individual agency. The three articles do not clearly discuss this or give more insight. Sewell only mentions briefly that agency is collective as well as individual (21). But again, his explanation on this tends to put individual to be bound to collectivity. Therefore in an effort to understand leadership as a distinct individual agent the discussion in more literature is needed. Until we can explain that the individual agency can act and make a difference without necessarily bound to collectivity or structure the conceptualization on leader’s agentic nature will always be under criticism. Finally, there is still not much discussion on how to put the issue of personality or personal traits into the debate between structure and agency. This is important because if the leader is conceptualized as individual human agency there must be explanation on why several leaders seem to act differently even in the same structural constraints/empowerments.

Bibliography:

Bhaskar, Roy. 1979. The Possibility of Naturalism. A Philosophical Critique of the Contemporary Human Sciences. Sussex: The Harvester Press.

Burns, James MacGregor. 1978. Leadership. New York: Harper Torchbooks.

Collier, David; Deborah L. Norden. 1992. “Strategic Choice Models of Political Change in Latin America.” Comparative Politics 24 (2): 229-243.

Emirbayer, Mustafa and Ann Mische. 1998. “What Is Agency?” American Journal of Sociology 103 (4): 962-1023.

Galbraith, John Kenneth. 1983. The Anatomy of Power. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Hays, Sharon. 1994. “Structure and Agency and the Sticky Problem of Culture.” Sociological Theory 12 (1): 57-72.

Imbroscio, David L. 1999. “Structure, Agency, and Democratic Theory.” Polity 32 (1): 45-66.

Kitschelt, Herbert. 1992. “Review: Political Regime Change: Structure and Process-Driven Explanations?” The American Political Science Review 86 (4): 1028-1034.

Lewis, Paul. A. 2002. “Agency, Structure and Causality in Political Science: A Comment on Sibeon.” Politics 22 (1): 17-23.

Mahoney, James and Richard Snyder. 1999. “Rethinking Agency and Structure in the Study of Regime Change.” Studies in International Comparative Development Summer: 3-32.

Sewell, William H., Jr. 1992. “A Theory of Structure: Duality, Agency and Transformation.” The American Journal of Sociology 98 (1): 1-29.

Swiddler, Ann. 1986. “Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies.” American Sociological Review 51 (2): 273-286.

Wendt, Alexander. 1987. “The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory.” International Organization 41 (3): 335-370.

KKV’s Designing Social Inquiry as a Common Ground
Djayadi Hanan

My position with regard to KKV’s Designing Social Inquiry is that I agree and support their main purpose and general advices for both quantitative and qualitative researchers to focus on the importance of scientific research design in making sure that their research will be valuable. I am, however, skeptical to several parts of their arguments and its implications to the practice of research and to the scientific community especially on the side of qualitative tradition.

The main argument of KKV is that the differences between qualitative and quantitative traditions are actually “only stylistic and are methodologically and substantively unimportant” (1994:4). Why this is so? Because “all good research can be understood—indeed is best understood—to derive from the same underlying logic of inference. Both quantitative and qualitative can be systematic and scientific” (ibid: 4-5). Statistical or quantitative technique is not always necessary. Instead, the importance is that the researcher pays a great attention to the “rules of scientific inference” (ibid: 6). Scientific research in social science according to KKV can be conducted when the research’s design can approximately meet four characteristics. The research is designed to reach inference, to use the explicit procedure in which public can see it and other researcher can replicate it, to be aware that the conclusion is uncertain, and to adhere to a set of rules of inference on which its validity depends (ibid: 7-9).

I would agree with KKV’s argument at this point because in fact, when the research is conducted the researcher usually combines the qualitative and quantitative data and analysis. Mahoney and Geertz (2006) for example, after examining ten criteria of qualitative and quantitative research, conclude that the labels quantitative and qualitative cannot explain the difference between the two traditions. All quantitative analysis also rely heavily on words for interpretation. On the other side, qualitative analysis quite frequently uses quantitative information or data. KKV themselves provide a number examples of research that rely both on quantitative and qualitative techniques such as Martin’s Coercive Cooperation and Putnam’s Making Democracy Works. Another recent example is from Bates et.al (1998) on The Politics of Interpretation: Rationality, Culture, and Transition which discusses the democratic transition in Zambia and ethnic violence in Yugoslavia by combining the quantitative methods of game theory and rational choice and interpretive approach.

An attempt to have or to propose a kind of what Laitin (1995) calls “common vocabulary and common standard” is very logical if we want to have a kind of common ground between quantitative and qualitative traditions. This common ground should be minimum or broad enough to include as many approaches as possible without losing its capability of disciplining the thought (ibid: 454). In line with this argument, the minimum standard of characteristic of scientific research proposed by KKV, in my opinion, is broad enough to include statistically minded scholars, formal modelers, comparativists, thick description proponents, and interpretivists. None of these research traditions will deny that they seek inference in their research, all of them use certain procedure in their endeavor, not only interpretivists will agree that their conclusion is uncertain but the statistically minded scholar also will say that their conclusion is probabilistic, and finally all approaches will agree as well that they use certain rules in making inference. Therefore, in a general sense, I think, KKV’s proposal for a common ground should be supported.

KKV also argues that there are two kinds of inference: descriptive and causal. Descriptive inference is “the process of understanding of unobserved phenomenon on the basis of a set of observations (KKV, 1994: 55). Causal inference is meant to meet the need for causal explanation of the phenomena that the researcher studies. Causality is defined in terms of causal effect: “the difference between the systematic component of observations made when the explanatory variable takes one value and the systematic component of comparable observations when the explanatory variable takes on another value” (ibid: 82). The differentiation between descriptive and causal inference enables KKV to bridge between the claim that social science research seeks for understanding particular event and that social science research seeks for generality. KKV believe, “where possible, social science research should be both general and specific” and “timeless and timebound at the same time” (ibid: 43). Descriptive inference can focus the researcher to understanding while causal inference to explanation. Depending on what the real subject of investigation is, the researcher can stop at descriptive inference or further pursue the causal inference.

Another point that KKV make clear is that social science is a collective enterprise. It is an endeavor that is conducted by many researchers across time, field, and method/tradition. Qualitative researchers are usually accused of working only with single observation such as a case study (small-n studies). In quantitative tradition, the problem of small-n is cured by increasing the number of observations then it will be able to be used for testing hypotheses or theories. This procedure cannot be applied to qualitative research because it deliberately deals with small-n or even single observation. Does it mean that qualitative research cannot make causal explanation? KKV’s answer to this is no.

According to KKV, because social science is a collective enterprise, “a single observation can be useful for evaluating causal explanations if it is part of a research program. If there are other single observations, perhaps gathered by other researchers, against which it can be compared, it is no longer a single observation” (ibid: 211). In their response to their critics KKV (1995) gave an example of this from the work of Lijphart on The Politics of Accomodation. Lijphart, in his research in 1968, intended to test the causal effect of the pluralist theory which says that the existence of cross cutting cleavages will increase the likelihood of social peace and legitimate and stable democratic government. Lijphart conducted his observation only in one country: Netherland. He found that this country had deep religious and class cleavages with very few cross cutting. He further found however that Netherland, by pluralist theory measurement, is socially peace with legitimate and stable democratic government. Because Lijphart based his study on previous scholars by measuring different variable (social peace instead of social conflict as previous researchers did), Lijphart observation cannot be considered as one observation. Therefore, his inference is valid and can be used to rule out the previous one. This is an example of collective enterprise. This is also the reason why qualitative research, which, for example focuses only descriptive inference, can be complementary to quantitative research which seeks causal explanation because any research with good scientific standard as proposed by KKV will contribute to this collective enterprise.

As many other critics of KKV, as a political science student, I am skeptical to several parts of KKV’s account. I will just point out some of them here.
Although KKV maintains that qualitative and quantitative approaches are not superior to each other, they clearly imply that causal inference is superior to descriptive inference. They for example states: “analysis is incomplete without causal inference… just as causal inference is impossible without good descriptive inference, descriptive inference alone is often unsatisfying and incomplete” (1994: 75). In their discussion on the chapter of descriptive inference (chapter 2), KKV tend to put most of the qualitative interpretivist works into descriptive. The definition of descriptive inference itself points out to “understanding,” the word which usually attached to the aim of qualitative works. Wendt (1998: 108) also concludes that KKV in their “Designing Social Inquiry, … accept that Understanding or constitutive theory is a distinct intellectual activity, but consider that activity to be descriptive inference.” The implication is that the qualitative works will still fall into second to quantitative ones. One of the proponents of KKV, Laitin (1995: 455) describes:

With a disciplinary division of labor, the search for valid causal inferences invites participation of scholars on both sides of our present disciplinary divide. …the discipline is open to pure describers. Historical and anthropological interpretation are potentially fundamental for us, just so long as researchers in this mode seek to distinguish what is systematic--and what, random-in the particular events they are interpreting.

Wendt (ibid) further argues that treating understanding or constitutive theory as descriptive will “inevitably have the effect of reinforceing the prejudice that it is second best, inferior, and not fully ‘science’”. This will render the main aim of KKV to provide common ground for both traditions.

Characterization of KKV to most of qualitative works as descriptive raises question. Is it true that understanding is only descriptive? According to Wendt (1998), although not in terms of causality, understanding or constitutive theory indeed gives explanation. He gives example in which when a child ask his father “what is a dog?” and the child’s father answer with “man’s best friend”, this answer is not only descriptive. It is also explanatory because it is explaining the role of dogs in human society and that dogs are not dangerous to human being (best friend). Besides that, according to Wendt, inferences, including descriptive inference, are always based on theories and the nature of theories is explaining.

Since causal inference is one most important goal in scientific research, KKV provide advices to qualitative researchers in order for them to achieve this goal. Although at the beginning of the book KKV clearly send signal that they “do not wish to encourage the exclusive use of quantitative techniques” (1994: 6), their advices to qualitative researchers to achieve causal inference are mainly statistical. This has invited heated criticism from qualitative researcher such as Alford (1995). He (1995: 425) writes: “The result is a set of inappropriate rules of causal inference for qualitative research, rules that cannot deal with dynamic and complex processes occurring in one or a few cases.” The problem, according to Alford is not on the researcher that includes too few cases or has no control at all on their explanatory variables, but the problem is on the view of the theory as a hypothesis stating that two or three variables are causally related.

This then raises another skepticism. Because KKV’s advices to qualitative researcher are mainly statistical: Can it overcome epistemological question that qualitative researcher is facing? Bartells (in Laitin, 1995) for example pointed out that the problem of context in area studies, which requires them not to seek generality, cannot be overcome merely by statistical convention such as increasing the number of cases. Context in this research tradition holds that it is “highly determinative of outcome yet itself not subject to variable analysis” (ibid: 454). Formal modeling and statistical method will be difficult also to be reconciled with Schwartz’s (1984) suggestion that comparative political scientist needs to study political participation from the perspective of subjectivity. Studying participation according to Schwartz must “avoid simply imposing the researcher’s theoretical assumption onto the data and begin to appreciate the diversity of self understanding that the people hold” (ibid: 1139). Statistical advice from KKV will also be difficult to be applied to the study of Rudolph and Rudolph (2003) on subjective knowledge which analyzes the diary of one person to understand and explain identity formation in British India. The main point here is that statistical method will not be able to accept that subjective knowledge as part of science. In the beginning of their book, KKV admitted that they are dealing with objective knowledge. They states: “we assume that it is possible to have some knowledge of external world but that such knowledge is always uncertain” (1994: 6).

Another skepticism to KKV’s common ground is about how far their “precepts and rules” can encompass multiple methods especially in qualitative tradition. McKeown (1999) has made an assessment that given their strong reliance on statistical method in framing scientific endeavor and their position that view the superiority of causal than descriptive inference, the status of several research techniques in the study of international relations remain unclear. Included in this category, according to McKeown are the constructions of decision or game trees, and computer language, or ordinary language representations of a decision making process (ibid: 175). According to Alford (1995: 426), interpretivist and historical works in KKV’s account are “downgraded to preparation for the genuine scientific work of causal inference.” Besides that, Alford added that KKV also ignore the development in rhetorical and cultural studies by emphasizing formal modeling and statistical criteria.

It seems to me that KKV, through this book, will reach only those researchers in the same tradition as theirs who see that their reliance on quantitative techniques is not enough in answering several or some part of their research questions. Putnam’s Making Democracy Works piece can be a good example of this. According to Tarrow (1995), Putnam, after spending about two decades conducting and administering his research by using quantitative design and techniques, faced difficulties in explaining big differences that he found between Italy’s north central and southern regions. His quantitative analysis only provided indirect evidence. As a way out, he turned to history from which he discovered that civic tradition that provides “social capital” was available in the north while lacking in the south.

Finally, this account, which is aimed to be the common ground between quantitative and qualitative tradition, was written by positivists, but the spirit is patronizing to qualitative researchers. This is not a good writing strategy since it sends the message that the authors still hold their superiority view over the qualitative tradition. Indeed in the substance of the account this superiority feeling is still implied, as I have mentioned above. This book, to be more productive, should have been written in another fashion: instead of the quantitative researcher patronizing and advising the qualitative researcher, it will be much better written in a fashion where quantitative researchers try to show how qualitative work can be fruitful for quantitative works. That way it will serve its aim of providing common ground. Or to be even more advanced: the book should have been written collaboratively by quantitative and qualitative researchers.

References:

Alford, Robert R. “Review: Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research”. by Gary King; Robert O. Keohane; Sidney Verba. Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 24, No. 3. (May, 1995), pp. 424-427.

Bates, Robert H. et.al., “The Politics of Interpretation: Rationality, Culture, and Tradition.” Politics and Society, Vol. 26, No.4 (Dec. 1998), pp. 603-642.

King, Gary. et.al. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

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Djayadi Hanan

Book Review

Kurt Schock, Unarmed Insurrections, People Power Movements in Nondemocracies, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005, xxvi pp., 228 pp.

Schock’s purpose of writing this book is twofold. First, to contribute to the theory of democratization from the perspective of social movements by explaining the process of mass political contention which, almost always precedes democratization. The literature on democratization usually only emphasizes either on the structural requisites of democracy or transaction among elites. Second, to contribute to the increasing application of the political process approach to explanations of political contentions in non-democracies and to include the nonviolence explanation into the social movement studies (xviii). Political process model (PPM), according to Schock, is strong on explaining the emergence of social movements, while non violence action (NVA) is better in explaining its trajectories and emphasizes on the role of agency, especially strategy in promoting political change. NVA is also important because its use has been increasing in contemporary social movements related to democratic transition (16-23).

Unarmed insurrection is defined as “organized popular challenges to government authority that depend primarily on methods of nonviolence action rather than on armed method” (xvi). It is characterized by “…network oriented mobilizing structures, the implementation of a broad range of nonviolent actions, and the effective targeting of the state’s dependence relations…” (55). The focus is on pragmatic nonviolence action. It is deliberately chosen by the movement as method of struggle, not as a lifestyle (xvii).

By comparing unarmed insurrections in six countries, Schock applies the approaches of PPM and NVA to answer his main question: How and why the unarmed insurrections in South Africa, the Philippines, Nepal, and Thailand were successful while in Burma and China were failed? The main argument is that the success and failure of the movement depend on the availability of the political opportunity (both internal and external factors) and the ability of the movement through NVA to be resilient and to leverage those opportunities. There are three keys to Schock’s argument. First, the paradox of repression. All regimes responded with series of repression to the movements, but the effect was different. In South Africa, the Philippines, Nepal, and Thailand it resulted in the strengthening of the challengers while in Burma and China resulted in the collapse of the movements. Schock explains that “… repression may increase or decrease mobilization depending on the presence or absence of other dimensions in the opportunity structure” (33) such as the influential allies. Schock calls this process as “political jiujitsu” dynamic in which the capacity and will of the challengers to reject the repression grow quickly while the state’s capacity and will to govern through repression erode (65). Second, the movement’s resilience. This resilience is determined by whether or not the challengers’ organization is decentralized or centralized. The more decentralized the movement, the more resilient it will be. It is also dependent on the capacity of the NVA to apply as many methods of NVA as possible. Third, leveraging capacity or the ability to activate the third parties to support the movement. In part this is related to the first and second factors, and in another part it depends on the appeal of the movement as an NVA. When people (and elites) perceive that the government’s response to the NVA with violence is un-acceptable, then the movement can leverage to activate more third parties to support it.

Several critiques can be raised to Schock’s account. First, how and why the people choose the NVA is not explained very clearly. Knowing that the regime’s reputation in using violence is high like in China and Burma, why people chose the NVA? How do they know that NVA is the best strategy in challenging the regime? Do people (organizations) choose NVA because of deliberately analyzing its strengths and weaknesses or because people do not have other choices? The role of leadership can be the answer here, but Schock does not address it clearly. Second, his claim that NVA can be more important than political opportunity (162) is questionable. Part of his argument is that when the movement started, the political opportunity facilitates its emergence. But the NVA itself can create opportunity. Therefore, the divisions among political or military elites, for instance, can be the outcome rather than precondition of the movement (162). The problem to this claim is that why in Burma and China this could not happen. The plausible answer will be because there was no precondition of military or elite division before the movement. This means that political opportunity more fundamental than NVA. All countries that Schock studied show that where political opportunity is available, the movement succeeds and where the political opportunity is un-favorable, the movement fails. Third, why in countries like the Philippines the broad based umbrella organizations (to facilitate decentralized movement) could emerge while in Burma and China could not? How do we explain this? Part of the answer can probably be the nature of the regime. Differentiating which non democratic regime still allows the emergence of civil society organizations and which one does not is important. Unfortunately Schock regards non-democracies in residual category which means we cannot differentiate the type of non-democratic regimes. Fourth, many non-democratic countries like the Philippines before 1986, if not embraced isolationist policy like Burma, are very dependent on international context/support. Out of political opportunity dimensions of Schock’s model (influential allies, elite division, state repression, information flow), it is possible that this international context is a necessary condition, although not sufficient for the movement to succeed or fail. Schock’s model does not differentiate this; rather, he argues that the combination of all of these factors coupled with NVA that contribute to the success and failure of the movement.

Schock’s account can make contribution in at least three areas namely to the study of social movements, to the study of politics (democratization), and to the practice of social movements.

In the study of social movement, this book modifies the political opportunity approach by including the international context and broadening the opportunity scope. International context works through three levels and types of relations with the national: “(1) the extent to which a country is integrated with or isolated from the international system, (2) the extent to which a country is dependent upon another country, and (3) the nature of economic relations with other countries” (154). This study also broadens the dimensions of the opportunity by including influential allies from outside of the polity (such as Church in the Philippines) and the information flow. Political process approach application is also extended by its utilization in non-democratic context especially in the study of democratization in developing countries.

The inclusion of NVA can give insight on how to understand the trajectories of the movement and offset the shortcoming of political process approach. McAdam et al. admitted that “Movement largely born of environmental opportunities, but their fate is heavily shaped by their own actions” (quoted by Schock: 35). The NVA approach can specify how “power is used strategically…to undermine the state and alter the political context…” by using “…methods of contention that increase the likelihood of the success…” (36). In addition, Schock’s effort to conduct a comparative approach among the six countries is not only still rare in the study of social movement but also will give more insights to understand the social movement beyond the state/national capacity and context. Lastly, this study contributes to the social movement by explaining that political opportunity is dynamic and the movement itself can reduce or increase it along the way (162). Having this explanation, the mismatch of perception between objective opportunity and subjective opportunity as identified by Kurzman (1996) in Iranian Revolution case or by Schock in the case of China in this book, can be explained.

This account can also contribute to the study of politics, especially on democratization. It implies that mass political contention is not an epiphenomenon of the democratic transition. It is substantially part of it and by strengthening and increasing political opportunity it can contribute to the process of democratization. Democratization is not only caused by the availability of structural requisites of democracy or by elite’s transaction but also enabled by the unarmed insurrection. This movement for example, can create situation which forces political elites to withdraw their support to the regime. Another contribution is the insight that toppling authoritarian regime does not necessarily have to use violence or armed struggle. People power or unarmed insurrection, at least in four countries out of six of this study is possible to make “peaceful revolution.”

Last but not least, this study can also provide many useful insights to the social movement activists. Political opportunity should be leveraged by the movement to make it successful. The most salient one is the strength of a decentralized but coordinated organization of movement. Schock provides analysis in this book that decentralized organization will be more able to be resilient especially in facing the repression from the regime (142-153). His analysis also suggests that it is important for the movement to have a clear and limited goal, to embrace oppositional consciousness and temporary organizations rather than rigid ideology, to use multiple channels of resistance, to design and implement multiple methods of NVA, to have maneuvers in many places and spaces, and finally to make sure the use of communication and reference to public (163-170).

In conclusion, Schock’s account on unarmed insurrections has provided us with more comprehensive theoretical approach by modifying political opportunity approach and non-violence actions insight to understand the success and failure of people power/unarmed insurrection in several countries. These two approaches, when combined together, are very useful to understand not only how the movement emerges but also its dynamic and trajectories. His comparative method is also still rare in the study of social movement and has implication on understanding the social movement beyond the state capacity level.

Presidentialism, Parliamentarism and Semi-Presidentialism

Incentives and Disincentives in Achieving Multiple Democratic Goals

Djayadi Hanan

Debate about the relationship between democratic political institutions (presidential, parliamentary, and semi-presidential systems) and democratic stability has attracted a great attention since the publication of Juan Linz’s essay on “Presidential or Parliamentary Democracy: Does It Make a Difference?” which was originally written in 1984. Scholars have been trying to provide empirical evidence supporting or disproving Linz’s arguments since then and the results are still ambiguous. Meanwhile, other scholars try to contribute to the debate by looking at the effect of these types of democratic institutions on the performance of government in terms of political process, policy making, and economy.

One side of the debate argues that presidentialism is less likely to sustain democratic stability compared to parliamentary system. Evidence supporting this conclusion is the fact that presidentialism’s record is so poor, while most of stable democracies—predominantly Western democracy—are practicing parliamentary system. On the other hand, another tentative conclusion says that presidentialism contains many advantages that can be maximized so that it can compensate its perils (Mainwaring, 1997).

Another way of assessing this debate is by looking at the multiple democratic goals and relating them to the government’s ability in achieving them. Some scholars assess how these different formats of political institution affect the government’s ability with regard to conflict management, representativeness, responsiveness, policy making effectiveness, and protection of the interests of vulnerable minorities. This potentially fruitful area of research, however, has been relatively unexplored (Gunther, 1999: 80). Efforts in this subfield is also important because the government’s performance and achievement regarding these multiple democratic goals are related to the people’s trust to the government and hence to the sustainability of democracy.

This paper will assess the strengths and weaknesses of presidential, parliamentary, and semi-presidential systems in dealing with these issues. Bearing in mind that other variables such as social, economic and political contexts are also important (Gunther, 1999: 80; 2001: 161), this paper will focus merely on how the different institutional formats may affect the government’s performance in achieving multiple democratic goals. I will argue that semi-presidential system is theoretically the most appropriate option for achieving multiple democratic goals.

Presidentialism and Parliamentarism: Risks and Advantages

Government policy making and implementation is the arena where we can assess the government’s ability in achieving democratic goals. Given the nature of multiple democratic goals that are not always mutually compatible, trade-off among them will happen when the government is trying to simultaneously achieve them. When representativeness is emphasized—the process and output should involve and serve as many interests as possible (including minority interest)—, the policy effectiveness will be likely to be sacrificed. Representativeness requires broad consensus among all parties, involving long negotiation and time consuming process. Emphasis on effective policy making and implementation assumes that the government is able to autonomously make decision with respect to all competing interests and hence lowering down the degree of representativeness.

Representativeness in government policy making is essential to democracy since it determines how inclusive the government is in involving all segments of society and how responsive it is to all interests of the people. Representative means all competing interests are involved. This implies that conflict among different groups in the government and expectedly in the society can be managed better. From this it can expected that the government will be successful in conflict management (one of the democratic goals). Representative also means that the policy making output (the content of the policy) has considered all needs of competing parties including the minority groups. From this we can expect that the policy will be responsive and protecting the vulnerable minority interest. At this point, we are now facing another issue, policy making effectiveness. This relates to decisiveness and substantive accuracy of the policy when dealing with the real problem in society. Unfortunately, this desire of effectiveness, in many cases, especially in new democracies, can be gained by giving low attention to consensual and democratic process of government policy making.

The diverse formats of democratic political institutions play a range of roles in achieving these goals. Presidential, Parliamentary and Semi-presidential systems provide various risks and advantages to the government in its performance to realize democratic objectives.

Presidential systems, according to Juan Linz, provides more risks than advantages. His critique over presidentialism can be elaborated into two major points (Linz, 1990; 1994) i.e. dual democratic legitimacy and rigidity. With regard to dual democratic legitimacy problem, either the president or legislators is elected by people and therefore both could claim owning full mandate of the people. In addition, there is a possibility that the majority of legislators are from different parties from those of the supporters of the president. A problem arises when there is a conflict between the two in which the president’s policies are not supported or denied by the legislature. Since both are enjoying the legitimacy from the people, a dramatic conflict is very likely to occur and since there is no democratic mechanism to resolve it, the stalemate (immobilism) can be expected. In the country where social and political cleavages and ideological polarization are high, this conflict can be worse and lead to the breakdown of democracy. According to Linz (8):

“ …, it becomes easy for a president encountering resistance to his program in the legislature to mobilize the people against the oligarch, to claim true democratic legitimacy, deny it to his opponent, and confront his opponents with his capacity to mobilize his supporters in mass demonstrations.”

Another risk of this problem is the possibility of the president to expand power which can lead to the establishment of authoritarianism.

The second major criticism of Linz is rigidity. This problem comes from the fact that president is voted for a fixed term. Linz argues that “…this entails a rigidity in the political process that makes adjustment to changing situations extremely difficult; a leader who has lost confidence of his own party or the parties that acquiesced to his election cannot be replaced”(1994, 9-10). This rigidity implies that when the president does not perform or develop and implement bad policies, the presidential system does not have any mechanism to overcome it. The only way is to wait until the next election with the expectation that the voters will not vote for the same person for the post. But this is prone to risk democratic durability since it can possibly lead to a coup when the disappointment toward the unpopular president is getting worse (Mainwaring, 1993).

Linz’s argument is supported by a great amount of empirical evidence. Several scholars have also presented supporting data through their researches. Gonzales and Gillespie (1994), in their account on “Presidentialism and Democratic Stability in Uruguay” come to a conclusion that “…policy disagreements between president and opposition very easily became institutional conflict between the legislature and the president” (171-172). In line with this finding is the work of Valenzuela on Chile (1994: 94), in which he states“…the rigidities of presidentialism and the gradual erosion of arenas of accommodation, particularly the legislature, heightened the politics of confrontation in Chile, making it more difficult to negotiate political compromise.” Other work such as Colombian’s Presidentialism of Hartlyn (1994) also furnish facts on these perils of presidentialism.

Parliamentary systems, in contrast to presidentialism, following Linz’s argument, do not contain any problems pertaining to immobilism and rigidity. The Prime Minister as the head of the government is not elected by the public. His/her power comes from the parliament which means that the potential of heightened confrontation politics leading to stalemate will be unlikely to occur. The Prime Minister will only be in power as long as he/she can maintain the vote of confidence of the parliament. Rigidity also has less potential to happen. In Linz’s argument: “Parliamentarism also allows changes in leadership without a regime crisis and continuity without the fears associated with continuismo in presidential system” (1994: 64). When the head of the government fails in his/her policy performance, the parliament can call for the replacement so the cost of experiencing bad government’s policies will not last long.

Having said the perils of presidentialism and the superiority of parliamentarism (according to its supporters), the question now is how well parliamentary systems can support democratic goals achievement?

One of the advantages of parliamentarism is its potentiality of providing higher degree of representativeness. It is logically clear that forming broad coalitions among parties has been one of the characteristics of parliamentary system. Moreover, in parliamentary system, coalition government is needed since it is very probable that there is no single party with absolute majority (Linz, 1994: 65). Forming coalition requires inclusiveness, embracing as a broad range of interests as possible. This accommodation of different interests will be taken into account in the government policies, making it not only representative but also responsive to the different segments of society. We can also expect that the protection of minorities will be more possible. Coalition also means moderating and bridging any potential conflicts among different groups. Accordingly, this provides more support for the government to be better in conflict management. The absence of rigidity in which the parliament can call for replacement of the prime minister allows the opportunity for reforming the coalition and making new consensus. By doing so, the party which was previously not part of the coalition will get the opportunity to be part of the new consensus.

Presidentialism does not have this kind of virtue. Being elected by public, there is a tendency of a president to assume “an unwarranted aura of possessing a superior legitimacy, and a mandate to represent “the people” in the struggle against the “special interests” which allegedly dominate the legislature…”(Gunther, 1999: 64). This feeling of superiority can lead to the ignorance of the pluralist politics in the legislature. Besides that, it is possible that the policy making is viewed as separated from the legislative politics. Given these circumstances, the president will encounter opposition to his/her policies, making it difficult to implement the policies.

The “winner take all” character of presidential system provides the tendency of “excluding the losers,” making it less accommodative to a broad range of different interests. The defeated parties are less likely to involve in the policy making process. This means that the possibility of protecting the minority interest will be low. Consequently, the opportunity of the government in moderating and bridging the conflict among different groups is limited. Stated differently, presidentialism is less superior to a parliamentary system in serving diverse interests and conflict management.

After assessing the strengths of parliamentary system and highlighting the perils of presidentialism, it is fair now to look at several weaknesses of the parliamentary systems and bring up advantages that presidentialism has.

In his criticism of Linz’s argument, Mainwaring (1997) maintains that a kind of “dual legitimacy” problem also exists in the parliamentary system. This problem is not between the executive and legislature but between the lower and upper houses in bicameral parliamentary system. If the two chambers are controlled by opposed parties or blocs, the problem can be troublesome. Mainwaring offers several examples from Canada, Germany and Japan where the upper houses have significant legislative power but cannot exert a no confidence vote over the government. There are also countries where the upper house cannot be dissolved by the government and hence giving the possibility of dual legitimacy problem between the government and part of legislature. In short Mainwaring states that dual legitimacy problem is not exclusively the problem of presidentialism.

In its relation to achievement of democratic goals, one weakness of a parliamentary system is a logrolling process of policy making. In this system, broad consensus among different parties is required in making the policy. The process of achieving this can be long, back and forth, and time consuming. In a multiparty system the process can be worse because many different parties have to negotiate their agendas and priorities—which are not always compatible─before coming to the coalition and consensus formation. One coalition theory suggests that the minimum winning coalition will be formed among parties with similar ideology (Liphart, 1984). However, in the countries where the culture and skills of bargaining are not well established such as in most new democracies, this process can be troublesome.[1] The logrolling process of policy making can also sacrifice the content of the policy since the parties will only focus on the political process rather than the substance. This assessment suggests that parliamentary system is not superior in terms of policy making effectiveness. The government decisiveness in developing and implementing the policies that will affect the society is low.

Presidentialism can offset this shortcoming. The independency of the president over the legislature provides more decisiveness to develop and implement the policies. The president does not need to go through the logrolling and tiring process of the policy making involving legislature. According to Mettenheim (1997: 136), “…once elected, presidents can deftly renegotiate legislative coalitions because they are free to appoint professional politicians to administrative post.” The president, with his/her independence has more rooms for maneuvers and will be able to focus on the content and accuracy of the policy and hence will be likely more effective both in developing and implementing it.

According to Bunce (1997), the strength of presidentialism is crucial in the countries experiencing democratic and economic transition simultaneously. Democratic and economic transitions not only provide more freedom and the establishment of democratic institutions and political process, but also reduce (in many cases eliminate) political and economic privileges enjoyed by the powerful elites in the country. Once the transition started and the government introduces transitional policies, these former privileged groups will oppose them including through the political process in the legislature. Presidentialism which gives certain degrees of autonomy to the president as the policy makers can overcome this problem and move forward with the transitional and reform policies.

Another virtue of presidentialism, I would argue, is that the president can play as an arbiter and unifying symbol in the countries where social conflict is acute and political parties’ image in the eyes of the public is negative. In a nutshell, presidentialism and parliamentarism have their own strengths and weaknesses given their own circumstances. It is now the time to discuss a possible combination between the two systems.

Semi-Presidential System

This system of government according to Maurice Duverger (1980: 166), combines three elements: “(1) the president is elected by universal suffrage; (2) he possesses quite considerable powers; (3) he has opposite him, however, a prime minister and ministers who possess executive and governmental power and can stay in office only if the parliament does not show its opposition to them.” According to Linz (1994: 48), this system is characterized by dual executives: a president elected by the people and a prime minister who needs the confidence of parliament. The president, with the support of parliament, appoints the prime minister and the president cannot dissolve parliament. Elgie (2007) simplifies the definition as: “A regime where there is both a popularly-elected fixed-term president and a prime minister and cabinet responsible to the legislature.

The main weakness of this system according to Linz (1994: 52) lays on its dependence on the personality and abilities of the president. Because the responsibility is diffused, additional conflict may arise (involving prime minister and parliament). Given the fixed term of the president, the problem of immobilism as in presidentialism is inclined to happen. The case is getting worse when there is “cohabitation”--the situation where the president and prime minister are from dissimilar political forces. This can result in the inability of the government to reach consensus and thus will sacrifice the representativeness.

Theoretically, this problem is not inevitable. The prime minister in a semi-presidential system by definition is appointed by the president with the support of the parliament. This implies that the prime minister should be somebody who can bridge between the two. Therefore this can overcome the problem of dual legitimacy as potentially happens in presidentialism. In this position, the prime minister will be able to accommodate diverse interests in policy making both from the president and parliamentary sides. Since the prime minister is responsible as the head of government, the logrolling process of policy making in parliament is also potential to be minimized.

As far as academic wisdom, semi-presidentialism is not recommended (Elgie, 2007). The system however is still quite popular. At least 57 countries in the world adopt semi-presidentialism as their system of government. Linz (1994: 59) argues that the success of this system in the French’s Fifth Republic and the hesitance of many failed presidentialism (especially in Latin America) to radically move to parliamentarism make semi-presidentialism as a viable choice. I would argue, however, that the success of French’s Fifth Republic as empirical evidence should be explored and developed more so that it can be the viable model especially for the new democracies. The fact that this system has been so popular could be a reason for this. A more important reason is the latest findings of Elgie (2007) which says that “…there is inconclusive evidence to support some of the major problems commonly associated with semi presidentialism.” Elgie continues that “…the performance of semi presidentialism seems strongly influenced by non-institutional factors.”

Conclusion

The short discussion above implies that the different format of democratic political institutions (presidentialism, parliamentarism, and semi presidentialism) has its own virtues and risks. Nevertheless, I would argue that theoretically, semi presidentialism has the potential to overcome the risks that presidentialism (potential deadlock in policy making) and parliamentarism (potential of low degree of decisiveness) have by making the prime minister as the bridge between the president and the parliament. The challenge however is how to maintain the virtues of both presidentialim and parliamentarism when the semi presidentialism is adopted as a system of government.

Bibliography:

Bunce, Valerie. 1997. “President and the Transition in Eastern Europe,” in Kurt von Mettenheim, ed., Presidential Institution and Democratic Politics: Comparing Regional and National Contexts. Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press, pp. 161 – 176.

Duverger, Maurice. 1980. “A New Political System Model: Semi-Presidential Government,” in European Journal of Political Research 8, pp. 165 – 187.

Elgie, Robert. “Varietas of Semi-Presidentialism and their Impact on Nascent Democracies,” paper presented at International Conference on “After the Third Wave,”Taipei, August 13 -14, 2007.

Gonzales, Luis Eduardo and Charles Guy Gillespie. 1994. “Presidentialism and Democratic Stability in Uruguay,” in Juan J. Linz and Arturo Valenzuela, eds., The Failure of Presidential Democracy, Comparative Perspective, Volume II. Baltimore and London, The John Hopkins University Press, pp. 151 – 178.

Gunther, Richard. 2001. “Opening a Dialogue on Institutional Choice in Indonesia: Presidential, Parliamentary and Semipresidential Systems,” in R. William Liddle, ed., Crafting Indonesian Democracy. Jakarta: Mizan, pp. 149 – 178.

_______________. 1999. “The Relative Merits (and Weaknesses) of Presidential, Parliamentary and Semi-Presidential Systems: The Background to Constitutional Reform,” in Journal of Social Science and Philosophy (Taipei), 11, March, pp. 61 – 91.

Hartlyn, Jonathan. 1994. “Presidentialism and Columbian Politics,” in Juan J. Linz and Arturo Valenzuela, eds., The Failure of Presidential Democracy, Comparative Perspective, Volume II. Baltimore and London, The John Hopkins University Press, pp.220 – 253.

Linz, Juan J. 1994. “Presidential or Parliamentary Democracy: Does it Make a Difference?,” in Juan J. Linz and Arturo Valenzuela, eds., The Failure of Presidential Democracy, Comparative Perspective, Volume I. Baltimore and London, The John Hopkins University Press, pp. 3 – 87.

___________. 1990. “The Perils of Presidentialism,” in Journal of Democracy, Winter, pp. 51 – 69.

Lijphart, Arend. 1984. Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian and Consensus Government in Twenty-One Countries. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Mainwaring, Scott and Matthew S. Shugart. 1997. “Juan Linz, Presidentialism, and Democracy. A Critical Appraisal” in Comparative Politics, pp. 449 – 471.

Mainwaring, Scott. 1993. “Presidentialism, Multipartiism, and Democracy, The Difficult Combination,” in Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 198 – 228.

Valenzuela, Arturo. 1994. “Party Politics and the Crisis of Presidentialism in Chile: A Proposal for a Parliamentary Form of Government,” in Juan J. Linz and Arturo Valenzuela, eds., The Failure of Presidential Democracy, Comparative Perspective, Volume II. Baltimore and London, The John Hopkins University Press, pp. 91 – 150.

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[1] Bunce (1997: 172) called this as “nonbargaining culture of political parties.”

Comparative Method

Comparative method is defined by Lijphart as “a method of discovering empirical relationship among variables.”(683). Scholars have been discussing the relations between comparative method and comparative politics, its strengths and weaknesses, and examples of study that used it as a method of inquiry. As far as the readings go, I see several points in which comparativists are still debating on.

What is the goal of comparative method? Lijphart regards comparative method as “one of the basic scientific methods, not the scientific method” (682). He also contrasted this notion with Lasswell and Almond who clearly view comparative as a science. If Lijphart is true, the goal of comparative method can be narrower than seeking for causal inference, the main goal of scientific method. If comparative method, given its main weakness (many variables, small number of cases) can only reach “systematic comparative illustration”(Jackman: 164), it will not be a problem.

To reach causal inference, comparative method can benefit from other basic scientific methods (experimental and statistical method). Therefore, we can agree with Lijphart when he insisted that case studies can be part of the works of comparativists which can still contribute to hypotheses testing and theory building. Jackman’s claim that comparative method should be concerned with the causal relationship among variables (1985: 166-167), is not always necessary. As has been discussed for more than two decades, however, main problems of “many variables, small N” should be fixed.

Generalization or deep analysis. In advocating cross national statistical research, Jackman (166) maintains that an attempt to develop generalization is crucial to comparative method. Comparativist, Jackman continues, should focus on as many similarities as possible and not spend too much time assessing the “exceptional performance” or deviant cases. It has been common in comparative method that when one or two cases in the study deviate from the general proposition, then the proposition will be invalidated. This will need a large number of cases, which will not be always possible especially in countries where aggregate data is hardly available. This also will require simplification which can be done at the expense of descriptive accuracy. Over-simplification can cause the lose of the richness of the data.

To reach generalization also requires “the valid application of concepts across diverse contexts” (Collier: 110) which will face the problem that Sartori calls “conceptual stretching.” The concept that can be applied is so general and therefore cannot grab the similarities and contrast of the variables involved in the comparative inquiry. Even after the general concept is formed, it should be treated very carefully to be applied to different set of cases. This leads us to the impression that having small number of cases will be more interesting.

Meanwhile focusing on deep analysis will make the study only involve the key variable. As noted by Lijphart, this kind of comparative method has been very well applied in anthropological research. This is very possible since anthropological study deals with mainly non-advanced (even primitive) societies where variables are still not as large as in advanced societies. The main problem here is how to resemble this kind of research in anthropology for political science where variables that need to be considered are so large. Phrased differently, how do we know that the key variables of our research are really what we chose and how do we make sure that other variables will be treated constant.

What to compare? “Can we compare apple and orange?” has been very well known phrase when dealing with comparative method. Can we compare apple and orange as the fruit not as apple and orange? The simple answer about what to compare is of course: variables. How we define variables and how do we interpret the relationship among/between variables are not clearly conclusive yet.

Sartori and Kalleberg (in Jackman: 167) states that “two items being compared must be of the same class—they must either have an attribute or not. If they have it and, only if they have it, may they be compared as to which has it more and which has it less.” Reacting to this definition, I would agree with Jackman that comparable does not always mean comparing similarities but also comparing similarities and differences. With regard to comparison of the same class is still problematic to me. Can I for instance compare the legislature of the United States with the Legislature of Indonesia while both countries are not from the same class (the former is advanced country while the latter is developing country)? If the answer is I cannot compare them, what if I study the US Congress and look at Indonesian legislature then I find that there are similarities and differences. Did I do a comparative method in that respect?

I would also agree with Lijphart’s saying that “comparable means: similar in a large number of important characteristic (variables) which one wants to treat as constant, but dissimilar as far as those variables are concerned which one wants to relate each other” (687). I would like to add however, that similarity and dissimilarity of the variables depends on the level of comparison we want to do. We can compare apple and orange as fruit (its shape, taste, texture, etc.).

What method must be used? Jackman’s study (1987) on “Political Institution and Voter Turn Out in the Industrial Democracies is an example of how historical comparative method is applied to a cross national study. He demonstrates that his study could challenge the idea that national differences in voter turnout reflect national differences of political culture. This is a proof that comparative method can be useful for finding alternative explanation on variables relationship and hypotheses testing.

What puzzles me is Putnam’s (et.al) work on institutional performance in Italy (1993) which shows the usage of different kind of methods and techniques in conducting comparative study. My question is what kind of method are they using? Is this example of multiple methods? In their work, Putnam and his colleagues combined observation, case study, statistical analysis, experiment, and quantitative techniques to reach to the conclusion on conditions for creating strong, responsive and effective representative institutions. Their works are massive, involving a lot of individual interviews and national surveys and in a relatively long time (a decade). Their cases however are still limited and most importantly, they are only in Italy. In the end I would say that this is still a case study. Geddes (1990) has been reminding the students of politics like us to be very careful using case studies since it is prone to selection bias.

Overall I would agree, again, with Lijphart that in comparative politics other methods can be employed and comparative method is not only of the comparative politics (690).

Reaction Paper: Interviews and Questionnaires

Crafting questionnaire and conducting interview are complicated but key to survey research. Both require a very careful methodological consideration but in the end it is simply an art (Converse, 1986: 7). Many readings discussed general guidelines on how to craft the standardized questionnaire, problems and challenges need to be considered in mind when crafting it, and problems in conducting face-to-face interview and how to deal with them. In this short note, I would like to raise several issues that can be problematic when crafting the questionnaire and conducting interviews.

Meaning. How to make sure that the question in the questionnaire is interpreted by the respondent exactly the same as intended by the researcher/the question writer is the main problem in crafting the questionnaire. Meaning relates to many things. It can relate to certain concept/reference, to certain context (time and space), etc. Converse (1987) suggests that the question needs not only to provide a frame of reference (since it may not be that the respondent commonly uses) but also a detailed explanation, such as: “By ‘family’ we mean…” (18). A more general guidelines from Converse to deal with this issue is by providing clear and straightforward questions by using simple language, common concept, and widespread information and then pretest it.

Tourangeau (et.al), Schwart (et.al), and Feldman reiterate that understanding the process of how respondents react to the question is a key issue so that we will be able to predict the answer to the question (the theory of response process or response effect). Respondent, according to this theory, will react through the process of comprehension, retrieval, judgment, and response to the question. These whole processes are not necessarily sequential and can be affected by many things such as the wording of the question, the order of the questions, and types of response options. Respondents, for instance, “are likely to draw on the content of preceding questions in interpreting subsequent ones” (Schwart, et.al,:37).

In my view however, crafting straightforward and clear questions and understanding the response process can only predict reactions of the respondents in general. In the end, the questions in the questionnaire will be answered by each respondent with his/her unique situation and response process. This is still problematic to the meaning of the researcher’s question. The desire to come to exactly the same interpretation between researcher and respondent is still difficult.

Social and cultural context. This issue is not very much discussed by the readings. Standardized questionnaire assumes that all questions are valid and appropriate to all respondents. What if the survey is conducted in a country governed by repressive regime or military junta such as in Burma? Can we ask standard questions? Or we can simply answer that the survey is not possible to be conducted in such a situation.

In certain cultural context, such as in some countries in Southeast Asia, asking clear and straightforward question as suggested by Converse is not always useful. For example, individual information in this situation is categorized into several layers. First, individual information that can be shared to others such as age and number of children. Second, information that individual hesitates to share such as whether or not she/he uses condom. Third, information on which individual is not sure enough and therefore she/he does not want others to know such as: Is he/she religious enough? Fourth, when evaluating others (including the government), the people tend to say it in indirect way. In the situation number 2 to 4 above, the questions cannot be straightforward. Therefore in crafting the question the researcher should also think of whether using proxy-question or not. For example, when asking whether or not someone like the president, the researcher can ask how he/she feels about life under the current government.

Public mood. According to Feldman, in interpreting the question and responding, respondents will activate only one interpretation (out of his/her multiple interpretations) to provide the answer. Therefore, “when respondent hear or read a survey question, the first thing they do (most likely automatically) is to activate an interpretative framework to make sense of the question” (10-11).

This process, however, assumes that the respondent’s situation is normal. It will be problematic when the question is asked in a certain public mood. What I mean by public mood here is a general feeling of the public related to certain situation. For example, again, in countries in Southeast Asia which are still affected by the economic crisis, the pessimistic feeling about economic life is widely spread across the country. In this kind of situation, conducting a survey on public opinion of economic performance of government tends to result in pessimistic evaluation of the government economic performance.

Interview: meaning or strict procedure? Face-to-face interview is commonly used in conducting a survey. The main issue here is how to make sure that the intended meaning is gained while the process of gaining it does not fall into daily conversation between interviewer and interviewee (thus violating the research procedure). Schuman and Jordan, however, found that meaning and procedure in interview are not always compatible each other. When a strict procedure is emphasized, there is a high possibility of having “error of the third kind”, that is “error that arises from the discrepancy between the concept of interest to the researcher and the quantity actually measured in the survey” (262). When the meaning is emphasized, the interviewer should have flexibility in clarifying and modify the question in a way that daily conversation happens. The question then whether or not the interview is still part of scientific research.

To overcome the problem, Schuman and Jordan suggest a collaborative approach in which not only the questions are crafted properly to maximize the intended interpretation, but also there is a flexibility for the interviewer to clarify the meaning when necessary (262). The fact that it will fall into ordinary conversation, following Schuman and Jordan, is not a problem as long as the interview is still structured as the standardized questionnaire required. The problem here however, how do we know that the conversation is still structured, and how do we know that the interview needs to clarify the meaning, and how do we make sure that it does not happen arbitrarily.

Other issues that related to interview are bias from the interviewer when several of these situations happen: 1) interviewer is not neutral or having and expressing certain interests through the ways of asking question, intonation, and attitudes; 2) interviewer does not have the same interpretation as the researcher; 3) interviewer does not qualify for the survey (too curious beyond the need of the survey, poor communication skills); 4) interviewer’s appearance is too attractive; 5) interviewer lies. To deal with these issues, the researcher usually conducts trainings for the interviewers and controls the procedure of survey through auditing.

Having said those several issues, I would like to acknowledge here that the usage of survey research is obvious. Standardized questionnaire is its main instrument of gauging data. Given its ultimate goal of having the same meaning between the researcher and the respondent, endeavor of getting better guidelines of crafting questionnaire needs to be encouraged more so that we do not have to say that it is simply an art.