Where to draw the line? From degree to dichotomy in measures of democracy.
With over 90% of the worlds population living in a nation which declares itself democratic it can sometimes be difficult to determine whether or not a country is indeed a democracy. This article discusses the difficulty that even international democracy watch dog Freedom house sometimes have when determining whether a country is democratic or not. With over 38 measures used where is the line drawn between calling a country democratic or not? Are there different levels of democracy? Can a country be totally democratic where another may be “kind of democratic” and at what level of “kind of democratic” does a country then become undemocratic? Its interesting especially considering the amount of countries out there claiming to be run democratically when in cases like Russia it is dubious at best. Even within countries which are democratic there is still debate to the legitimacy of that democracy such as within the electoral college of the United States… One might think democracy = majority rules but its not always the case, is that still democracy? Discuss.
Hi Tom - do you have a link to the article?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13510347.2011.613563?needAccess=true That should be it, it was on the list of recommended readings.
ReplyDeleteThanks Tom.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think of your own question - do you think there's a good way of drawing this line?
ReplyDeleteBeing able to determine whether state is completely democratic or simply appears democratic in order to not bring attention to itself is often very difficult, and often depends on ones definition or understanding of "democracy" An article from the Washington Post discuses some of the underlying issues of determining a country's level of democracy.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/06/23/how-do-you-measure-democracy/?utm_term=.d8cd2b6854af Also a good place to look at for levels of democracy is the Democracy level index. http://www.eiu.com/topic/democracy-index
ReplyDeleteI agree with Chris in saying that it is difficult to determine if a country is democratic or not. Despite the obvious factors of free/fair elections and the ability for citizens to express their political preferences. In an article by Our World In Data, we see the word Anocracy being thrown around. An Anocracy is a state that is sort of in the middle ground between autocracies and democracies. This term Anocracy could perhaps reinforce the idea that it is difficult to determine whether a country is democratic or not as this middle ground can make the distinction quite fuzzy. https://ourworldindata.org/democracy
DeleteThanks for the link, Liam. Anocracy puts together different kinds of non-democracies, though; are there better terms to talk about this middle range?
DeleteI think this topic is really interesting, it begs the questions, who decides whether a country is democratic, kind of democratic or not democratic. What happens when a country who sees itself as democratic is seen by other countries as kind of democratic. For example Burma has recently had a free and fair election but 25% of the seats in government are non-democratically allocated by military personnel, they will choose two vice presidents who will also be from the military and key government ministers will be also be serving soldiers. Does this make the country 75% democratic? This hybrid form of democracy has been called "democracy on a leash". The Burmese Army has been known to commit serious crimes against its citizens, so how does this kind of democracy work when some of the power is distributed by the people and the rest is still held by a terrifying military and the constitution allows for the military to take back control at any point. Burma will be one to watch.
ReplyDeleteSEE: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-farmaner/burma-election-democracy_b_8505384.html
Hi Eden - good question. As we'll see in class, some people speak of competitive authoritarian regimes, etc.
DeleteRe the question of "who decides" - again, this is always controversial. But countries as whole do not necessarily see themselves as democratic. The Burmese army may claim that Myanmar is fully democratic; it does not necessarily mean everybody in Myanmar/Burma agrees. And Political scientists have particular definitions of democracy that do not necessarily correspond to what the Burmese army says, because they are trying to capture something very specific about how the political system works.