Democratic Challenges in the Contemporary World (original) (raw)
Related papers
Good'and 'bad'democracies: how to conduct research into the quality of democracy
Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, 2004
This introductory article moves from the definitions of democracy and of quality to propose a definition of democratic quality, that is, of 'good' and 'bad' democracies. The five main dimensions of such a quality (rule of law, accountability, responsiveness, freedom and equality/solidarity) are analysed by enlightening four aspects: the empirical definition, the main indicators, the attempts and practice of its subversion, and the central condition or conditions. A particular emphasis is devoted to the betrayal and circumvention of quality goals. In the short conclusions a few issues are pointed out for further discussion.
Acta Politica, 2015
In recent decades, some attempts have been made to empirically assess different models of democracy in action by identifying and measuring various indicators. Lijphart’s seminal work, Patterns of Democracy, is one of the most comprehensive attempts to categorize models of democracy systematically. However, it has mainly focused on established democracies. There is no extensive operationalization of models of democracy which evaluates a broader range of countries, including new democracies in a systematic way. This article aims to fill the gap by operationalizing two persistent dimensions of democracy – contestation and participation – for 80 electoral democracies around the world between 1990 and 2009. Extracting empirical scores, we present a two-dimensional global map of democracy over two decades. We finally examine the associations between democratic models and indices of level and performance of democracy.
What is a "Good" Democracy? Theory and Empirical Analysis
An analysis of the quality of a democracy, that is, an empirical check on how 'good' a democracy is, requires not only that we assume some definition of democracy, but also that we establish a clear notion of quality. The minimal definition of democracy (see e.g. suggests that such a regime has at least: universal , adult suffrage; recurring, free, competitive and fair elections; more than one political party; and more than one source of information. Among those that meet these minimum criteria, further empirical analysis is still necessary to detect the degree to which they have achieved the two main objectives of an ideal democracy: freedom and equality.
Quality of Democracy and Political Inclusion
Gender and Power, 2016
As many observers have noted, more than at any time in human history, we live today in a democratic age. Extraordinary political changes initiated in Europe and America in the second half of the 18th century consolidated the foundations of this peculiar process during the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the last four decades, changes adopted in all regions of the world have brought the institutions of many existing political systems closer to the ideals of democracy. In marked contrast to the dominant power structures of the 20th century, the majority of independent countries around the world have gone through political transformations that have brought many political systems closer to democratic ideals, but contemporary political institutions and procedures embody these ideals only partially. In many nations, the rule of law, civil and political rights, and mechanisms for citizens’ control of governments remain ineffective or underdeveloped.
Global quality of democracy as innovation enabler: measuring democracy for success, 2019
A fresh monograph of an Austrian and American political scientist Prof. David F. J. Campbell "Global Quality of Democracy as Innovation Enabler" (Campbell 2019) is a comprehensive and conceptual summarizing theoretical and empirical study. The book is published within Palgrave Macmillan series "Studies in Democracy: Innovation and entrepreneurship for growth" and scrutinizes the meanings and tangible manifestations of democracy as a societal trend and mode of political, social and economics regimes in 160 countries worldwide (whether democratic or non-democratic ones) for the period of 2002-2016. The author interprets democracy as a continuum of social, political and economic modus vivendi and modus operandi of contemporary societies along various societal axes and suggests a theoretical matrix and a data-driven framework that allows consistent crosscountry as well as cross-regional comparisons. "Democracies", "semi-democracies" and "non-democracies" are thoroughly analysed in terms of their factual functionality in such areas as social equality, economic and political freedom, sustainability of development and self-organization. David Campbell comes to a conclusion that there exist and co-exist a magnitude of patterns of regimes with various degrees of democratic features and the related modes of securing societal, economic and ecological sustainability. Furthermore, concludes the author, the raising quality of life can be functionally secured also under conditions of "limited" democracy or in non-democratic regimes. At the same time, however, in the post-industrial mode of development, when knowledge becomes a main driver of growth and sustainability, only the countries with prevailing democratic trends along all societal axes would become true winners in the global competition. The latter is exemplified, inter alia, by 35 OECD member countries. David Campbell follows rather a positivist approach that assumes a fact-based investigation and systematic observations using the empirical data. However, a solid theoretical background was elaborated in order to construct a conceptual framework of the matrix for the subsequent and systematic empirical analysis. As a result of the profound and critical theory reviews, the sound empirical data mining and the modelling of a comprehensive analytical matrix, the book can be seen as an unprecedented compendium of up-to-date knowledge about the structural dynamics of modern polities. It provides a reader with clear methodological apparatus, reliable and verifiable data and a wide palette of possible interpretations of yielded data-driven outcomes. In the suggested model, the main components of any political regime that can be empirically measured are (1) the degrees of freedom, were one distinguishes economic and political freedoms; (2) social equality exemplified by income and gender (in-) equalities; (3) control by the government and of the government; (4) sustainability of development measured through the redesigned Human Development Index, Gini index, rate of CO 2 emissions and GDP per capita; (5) political self-organization of a society understood as government-opposition cycles (pp.40-41).
Measuring characteristics of democracy is not an easy task, but anyone who does empirical research on democracy needs good measures. In this article, we present the Democracy Barometer, a new measure that overcomes the conceptual and methodological shortcomings of previous indices. It allows for a description and comparison of the quality of thirty established democracies in the timespan between 1995 and 2005. The article examines its descriptive purposes and demonstrates the potential of this new instrument for future comparative analyses.
Determinants of Democracy: Explaining the Varying Levels of Established Democracies
When democracy is construed as continuous transitions of a polity, it is important to understand what makes democracy deeper or thinner. However, we cannot answer to the question by using most widely used democracy indices such as the Polity and the Freedom House because they cannot capture subtle differences between established democracies. By contrast, the Democracy Barometer (DB), which is a new index designed to overcome both a minimalist and maximalist approach, presents fairly discernible differences across established democracies and over time. This inquiry contributes to the study of democracy by investigating structural factors that affect the level of democracy in established democracies, which is measured by the DB. To do so, an empirical model based on pooled time-series-cross-section (TSCS) data is constructed and analysed with a host of social, economic, institutional, and international factors. The results show that the effects of economic freedom (especially legal system and property rights) and proportional representation are statistically significant and positive in raising the level of democracy; on the contrary, income inequality, economic globalization, and modernization (particularly new media infrastructure) have a significant and negative impact on the level of democracy.
European Political Science, 2015
Over recent decades, comparative political scientists have developed new measures at a rate of knots that evaluate the quality of democratic regimes. These indices have been broadly applied to assess the quality of democracy cross-nationally and to test the generalisability of theories regarding its causes and effects. However, the validity of these inferences is jeopardised by the fact that the quality of democracy is an abstract and contested concept. In order to address this eventuality, researchers constructing indices measuring the quality of democracy as well as researchers applying these indices should critically examine the quality of the indices. Owing to the absence of a standardised framework that is both suitable for the evaluation of contested concepts and that includes explicit coding rules so as to be directly applicable, this article seeks to fill this gap. The application of our framework is demonstrated by an evaluation of the Sustainable Governance Indicators, the Global Democracy Ranking and the Democracy Barometer. As indicated by our evaluation, the framework is a practical tool that helps to assess the conceptual foundation, validity, reliability and replicability of indices. In addition, it can be used to study the quality of indices in a comparable manner.