Reference no: EM131646492

1. Read the article by Stathis Kalyvas entitled, "Commitment Problems in Emerging Democracies: The Case of Religious Parties." This reading can be found on the homework page of the course website. In the paper, Kalyvas examines whether religious parties are compatible with secular and liberal democratic institutions. He concludes that religious parties may be compatible with democracy so long as they can credibly commit not to impose a theocratic dictatorship if they come to power. He goes on to argue that some religions are better able to provide these credible commitments than others.

We now provide a Religious Party Game that throws light on the credible commitment problem facing religious parties that Kalyvas describes. The two players in our game are a dictatorial regime (Regime) that has recently introduced a process of democratization and a religious party (Religious Party) that seeks to gain power through the newly-proposed democratic elections. The religious party is expected to win the elections and many fear that it will turn the country into a theocracy rather than continuing the process of democratic consolidation.

The Regime has to decide whether to hold the elections as scheduled or to cancel them and retain power as a dictatorship. If elections are held and the religious party wins (which we are assuming will happen), then the Religious Party has to decide whether to pursue a moderate political agenda and support democratic consolidation or to subvert the democratization process and create a religious regime. The religious party comes in two types moderate and radical. One way to think about these types is that religious parties have both moderate and radical factions; whichever faction is dominant determines the religious party's type.

Moderate religious parties prefer democratic consolidation to establishing a theocracy, while radical religious parties prefer the opposite. There are three possible outcomes in this game: Continued Dictatorship, Religious Dictatorship, and Democratic Consolidation. Figure 8.7 in the textbook illustrates an incomplete information version of this game with cardinal payoffs where the Regime does not know whether they are interacting with a Moderate Religious Party or a Radical Religious Party. Now answer the following questions.Based on the cardinal payoffs shown in Figure 8.7, what is the preference ordering for the Regime over the three possible outcomes?

A) Continued dictatorship > New religious dictatorship > Democratic consolidation
B) Democratic Consolidation > Continued Dictatorship > New Religious Dictatorship
C) Democratic Consolidation > New Religious Dictatorship > Continued Dictatorship
D) Continued dictatorship > Democratic consolidation > New Religious Dictatorship

2. Based on the cardinal payoffs shown in Figure 8.7, what is the preference ordering for the Moderate Religious Party over the three possible outcomes
A) Continued Dictatorship > New Religious Dictatorship > Democratic Consolidation
B) New Religious Dictatorship > Democratic Consolidation > Continued Dictatorship
C) Democratic Consolidation > New Religious Dictatorship > Continued Dictatorship
D) Democratic Consolidation > Continued Dictatorship > New Religious Dictatorship

3. Based on the cardinal payoffs shown in Figure 8.7, what is the preference ordering for the Radical Religious Party over the three possible outcomes
A) Democratic Consolidation > New Religious Dictatorship > Continued Dictatorship
B) New Religious Dictatorship > Democratic Consolidation > Continued Dictatorship
C) New Religious Dictatorship > Continued Dictatorship > Democratic Consolidation
D) Continued Dictatorship > New Religious Dictatorship > Democratic Consolidation

4. Solve the subgame on the left where the Religious Party is moderate as if there were no uncertainty. What is the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium?
A) (cancel elections; pursue radical policy)
B) (hold elections; pursue moderate policy)
C) (hold elections; pursue radical policy)
D) (cancel elections; pursue moderate policy)

5. Solve the subgame on the left where the Religious Party is moderate as if there were no uncertainty. What is the expected outcome?
A) Democratic consolidation
B) New religious dictatorship
C) continued dictatorship

6. Solve the subgame on the right where the Religious Party is radical as if there were no uncertainty. What is the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium?
A) (cancel elections; pursue radical policy)
B) (cancel elections; pursue moderate policy)
C) (hold elections; pursue radical policy)
D) (hold elections; pursue moderate policy)

7. Solve the subgame on the right where the Religious Party is radical as if there were no uncertainty. What is the expected outcome?
A) Continued Dictatorship
B) New Religious Dictatorship
C) Democratic Consolidation

8. What is the expected payoff for the Regime from Cancel Elections ?
A) 5
B) 20
C) 25
D) 30

9. What is the expected payoff for the Regime from Hold Elections ?
A) 25p
B) 5+20p
C) 5+25p
D) 5 + 30p

10.  Use the expected payoffs from the two previous questions to calculate the critical probability at which the Regime will choose to hold elections rather than cancel them.
A) 0.5
B) 0.66
C) 0.75
D) 0.8

11. If the Regime believes that the Religious Party is moderate with a probability of 0.75, will it choose to hold elections, cancel elections, or will it be indifferent between these two actions?
A) Hold elections
B) Cancel elections
C) Be indifferent

12. If the Regime believes that the Religious Party is moderate with a probability of 0.8, will it choose to hold elections, cancel elections, or will it be indifferent between these two actions?
A) Hold elections
B) Cancel elections
C) Be indifferent

13. If the Regime believes that the Religious Party is moderate with a probability of 0.5, will it choose to hold elections, cancel elections, or will it be indifferent between these two actions?
A) Hold elections
B) Cancel elections
C) Be indifferent

14. If you were a moderate religious party poised to win the elections, would you want the Regime to believe that you were moderate or radical?
A) Moderate
B) Radical
C) It wouldn't matter

15. If you were a radical religious party poised to win the elections, would you want to the Regime to believe that you were moderate or radical?
A) Moderate
B) Radical
C) wouldn't matter

16. If you solved the game correctly, you will find that the Regime will hold elections so long as it believes that the Religious Party is moderate with a high enough probability. If there is some uncertainty on the part of the Regime and you are a moderate religious party that wants the elections to go ahead, why might it not be enough for you to simply announce to the Regime that you are a moderate religious party and not a radical one? What's the most appropriate answer?
A) Because the regime does not want a new religious dictatorship
B) Because the announcement is not credible
C) Because the regime will repress you

17. In his article, Kalyvas (2000) claims that there have been only two cases where religious parties won or were expected to win an electoral mandate Belgium (1870-1884) and Algeria (1988-1992). In January 1992 in Algeria, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) were deprived of a sweeping electoral victory when the military stepped in and aborted the country s electoral process.

The result was a bloody civil war. In contrast, a Catholic party was able to come to power in Belgium in 1884 having won a large electoral victory on the basis of a religious program. The incumbent elite accepted the electoral outcome even though they had the power to abort it.

In turn, the Catholic party did not apply its religious program in full, nor did it challenge Belgium s secular and liberal institutions.Although the religious parties in both countries had moderate and radical factions, Kalyvas presents evidence that the moderate factions were dominant in each party.

If our Religious Party Game is correct, then the reason why the Catholic party in Belgium was allowed to come to power but the Islamic party in Algeria was not must have been because only the promises from the Catholic party to pursue a moderate policy once in power were seen as credible. This raises the question as to why the promises to adopt a moderate policy once in power were credible coming from the Catholic party but not coming from the Islamic party.

After examining several potential answers to this question, Kalyvas argues that it has to do with the different organizational structures of the two religions. In effect, he claims that commitments to pursue moderate policies when in power are more credible when they come from hierarchical religions like Catholicism than when they come from more decentralized religions like Islam. The idea is that when someone at the top of a hierarchy orders its members to abide by liberal democratic rules, then this should be seen as a credible statement since they actually have the ability to control the behavior of their members.

This is exactly what Pope Leo XIII did in 1879 when he told Belgian Catholics to stop attacking the Belgian constitution and purge prominent radical leaders (Kalyvas 2000, 389). In contrast, promises to pursue moderate policies are seen as less credible when there is no single religious leader who can speak for all believers. This is the case in Islam where different religious leaders compete with one another and claim to speak for the masses.Use internet and other sources to answer the following questions about democracy and Islamic religious parties in Turkey.Is Turkey a democracy or a dictatorship?
A) Democracy
B) Dictatorship

18. Is Turkey a secular or a religious state?
A) Secular
B) Religious

19. What kind of party was the Refah (Welfare) Party?
A) Welfare party
B) Religious party
C) social democratic party
D) liberal party

20. How did the Refah Party do in the 1995 legislative elections?
A) It did not win many votes
B) It was the largest party
C) It was an average sized party
D) It disappeared

21. What happened to the Refah Party and its leader Erbakan in 1997?
A) The military forced the Refah-led government to step down
B) They won re-election
C) They got to form a new government

22. What kind of party was the Fazilet (Virtue) Party and where did it come from?
A) Religious party founded by members of the Welfare Party
B) social democratic party founded by members of the Welfare Party
C) liberal party founded by members of the Welfare Party
D) communist party founded by members of the Welfare Party

23. What happened to the Virtue Party in 2001?
A) It won elections
B) It formed the government
C) It was banned

24. What kind of party is the Saadet (Felicity) Party and where did it come from?
A) moderate religious party founded by members of Virtue Party
B) radical religious party founded by members of Virtue Party
C) social democratic party founded by members of Virtue Party
D) communist party founded by members of Virtue Party

25. What kind of party is the Adalet ve Kalkinma (Justice and Development) Party and where did it come from?
A) radical religious party founded by members of the Virtue Party?
B) Moderate religious party founded by members of the Virtue Party?
C) social democratic party founded by members of the Virtue Party
D) Communist Party founded by members of the Virtue Party

26. Are there any religious differences between the Felicity Party and the Justice and Development Party?
A) Felicity Party is more radical than the Justice and Development Party
B) Felicity Party is less radical than the Justice and Development Party

27. How did the Justice and Development Party do in the 2002 legislative elections?
A) They did not win many votes
B) They were the largest party and got to form a single-party government
C) They were the largest party and got to form a coalition government
D) They were a moderate sized party

28. How did the Justice and Development Party do in the 2007 legislative elections?
A) They won a small number of votes
B) They were the largest party and formed a single-party government
C) They were the largest party and formed a coalition government
D) They were a moderately sized government

29. In his article published in 2000, Kalyvas (p. 380) states that "No contemporary case of compliance with a religious party's mandate victory is available." Based on what you have learned from Turkey, is this statement still true?
A) No
B) Yes

30. An implication from Kalyvas analysis is that unlike Catholic parties, Islamic parties will be unable to be successfully incorporated into liberal democratic regimes because their decentralized organizational structures make it difficult for them to credibly promise to adopt moderate policies once in power. Does the history that you have examined from Turkey lend support for this implication or not?
A) Yes
B) No

31. Does the evidence from Turkey suggest that repeated interactions in the electoral arena can help religious parties to overcome the difficulty they face in credibly committing to pursue moderate policies once in power?
A) No
B) Yes