Democracy Flashcards
(27 cards)
What was Robert Dahl’s (1971) view of democracy?
He took a minimalist view of democracy. He envisaged inclusion and contestation as lying on two axis like a Cartesian plane. He was willing to drop the term democracy in favour of polyarchy which represented high levels of inclusion and contestation.
What is contestation?
Contestation captures the extent to which citizens are free to organise themelselves into competing blocs in order to press for the policies and outcomes they desire.
What is inclusion?
Inclusion has to do with who gets to participate in the political process.
Who came originally came up with the Democracy/Dictatorship measure of democracy?
Adam Przeworski
What is the DD measure?
- The chief executive is elected.
- The legislature is elected.
- There is more than one party competing in the elections.
- An alternation in power under indentical electoral rules has taken place.
What are two differences between the DD measure and Dahl’s polyarchy?
The DD is measure is dichotomous whereas Dahl’s classification is continuous.
There is no notion of inclusion on the DD measure. One potential justification for this is that by 1946, all but a handful of countries which held elections had adopted universal suffrage.
What is the range of Polity 4 scores and at what point is a country typically coded as democratic/dictatorial?
Polity 4 scores range from -10 to 10.
Countries which score less than -6 are typically coded as dictatorships.
Countries which score more than 6 are typically coded as democracies.
What are the five attributes/dimensions that comprise a Polity 4 score?
a) the competitiveness of executive recruitment
b) the openess of executive recruitment
c) the constraints that exist on the executive
d) the regulation of political particpation
e) the competitiveness of political participation
What questionable assumption does using Freedom House as a measure of democracy make?
Freedom and Democracy are synonymous.
What are the two dimensions measured by Freedom House?
i) Political rights
ii) Civil rights
How do scholars often code countries according to their Freedom House score?
1-3 free
3-5.5 partly free
5.5-7 not free
What is the main difference between Freedom House and Polity IV, DD, Dahl?
Polity IV, DD and Dahl are all procedural measures of democracy.
Freedom House is a substantive measure. Though particular institutions are necessary for democracy, they are not sufficient. Freedom House takes into account academic freedom, freedom from war, and freedom from socioeconomic inequalities.
To what extent do Polity IV, DD, Freedom House agree over how democratic countries are?
There is a high degree of correlation- though this is mainly driven by uncontroversial cases, e.g. North America, Europe, Australasia are democracies while the Middle East is home to dictatorships. However, there is much more disagreement when it comes to South America and Africa. The conclusions of empirical studies differs depending upon which measure is used.
Categorise each measure of democracy as either nominal, ordinal, or cardinal.
DD- nominal
Freedom House and Polity IV- ordinal
Define three ways to assess the usefullness of a measure.
Validity- the extent to which our measures correspond to the concepts that they are intended to reflect.
Reliability- the extent to the measurement process repeatedly and consistently produces the same score for a given case.
Replicability- the ability of third-party scholars to reproduce the process through which a measure is created.
How might the aggregation approach of Polity IV and Freedom House be a problem for the validity of the measures?
It is questionable whether it should be possible to acheived the same democracy score through a diverse number of routes. Furthermore, are the weights appropriate? Should academic freedom be weighted equally to an independent judiciary? (Freedom House)
Which democracy measure is likely to be the most reliable and replicable?
DD
What is one approach to dealing with the numerous divergent definitions and measures of democracy?
Choose the measure that most suits the particular research question.
How does Leah Gilbert measure democracy?
She conceives of democracy on a three-dimensional scale, relating to competitiveness, civil liberties and tutelary influence.
Competitiveness: there is always the possibility of serious challenge to incumbents.
Civil liberties: relates to whether citizens have free speech, access to alternate sources of information, right to protest etc.
Tutelary influence: whether unelected bodies (e.g. monarchy, military, religious organisations) exert undue influence over elected bodies.
Gilbert draws a qualititative distinction between each category, either 1 or 0 is scored. (1,1,1) required to be considered a democracy.
What is an advantage of Leah Gilbert’s conceptualisation of democracy?
It avoids conceptual stretching by defining hybrid regimes without having to resort to ‘democracy with adjectives’.
What are some examples of hybrid regimes under Leah Gilbert’s conceptualisation?
Iran (1,0,0) due to the influence of clerical authorities and very limited civil rights.
Sri Lanka (1,0,1) due to its bias towards regime insiders and lack of civil liberties.
Chile in the 1990s (1,1,0) due to the undue influence of the military.
What is a statistic that might suggest the USA is an oligarchy?
The top 0.1% of the country control 11% of the wealth. (Page and Winters)
Why is there concern about the status of the United States of America as a democracy?
Increasing two-party polarisation and the erosion of democratic norms- e.g. lack of peaceful transition of power in 2020.
Where has there been concern about democratic backsliding? (area for further reading)
Turkey, India, Israel, Phillipines, Brazil, Venezuala.
