There is general agreement in the field that the United States, France, Australia, India, and countless other countries are democracies. In the same vein, political scientists are not wasting their breath arguing that China, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea are not democracies. But, between these obvious examples are countless examples of countries that fall somewhere in between. For political scientists, it is often impossible to distinguish which nations are democracies, which are autocracies, and where the line falls. There is no one agreed upon definition of a democracy, and no agreed upon set of traits of a democracy. Some, such as those used by Dahl (What Political Institutions… 8) are dichotomous, while others like the Freedom …show more content…
One common trait looked for within a democracy is turnover of leadership positions. If control over the legislature or the executive positions changes, it shows that the elections were competitive, that the old party was willing to leave office, and that a new, different party was able to take control (Gilbert 275). Elections must be fair, often meaning they are monitored by an independent third party. However, they must also be respected, meaning an incumbent who loses must leave office.
So, what traits are necessary for a regime to hold competitive elections? Dahl describes several traits of a liberal democracy, with several notable traits being that the regime is responsible to the will of the people, there is freedom of expression, independent news sources, and inclusive citizenship (Dahl Institutions Necessary for… 6-7). Serval of these are self-evident. What is the point of an election if it does not affect the agenda of the government? Others traits require further examination.
It is obvious that sources of information not under the control of the incumbent. However, the lines between free and unfree press are often blurry. Democracies can be considered illiberal as members of the opposition can be denied air time or media coverage (Levitsky 53) or private journalists can be harassed (Levitsky 54). These violations would skew the information available to the
Democracy, as a word, has many interpretations. Communist countries define themselves as economic democracies. Clearly the opposite is true due to the definition that the Founding Fathers of The United States used. Democracy is defined as having five key characteristics. These principles are the following: majority rule, equality, liberty, necessity of compromise, and individual worth. Majority rule, principle number one, can be broken down into two distinct categories, popular majority and representative majority. Popular majority, in its root definition, means that the majority of all the citizens or all voters are taken into account in the election of governmental offices. The second type of majority rule is representative majority. This
_party incontives and sanctions for or against loyla and disloyal party members appears to be central to the control of the lefislature by the excutive in emerging democracies.
Many countries that claim to be a democracy are quasi democracies because they fail to promote active participation, political efficacy and activism, free/fair/frequent elections, and an independent and pluralistic media. These countries instead choose to promote subject mindset and chauvinistic attitudes, which is a major red flag. Elections that aren’t free, fair, or frequent is a threat to the foundations of democracy because it takes away the people’s right to vote and pick proper representation. The media either promote subject or participant mindset depending on if it is government controlled or influenced. A controlled media is a red flag because it prevents the citizens from getting multiple perspectives on government issues and
This classification comes from the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index, a report issued annually which analyzes the “electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, democratic political culture and civil liberties” of governments throughout the world (“Declining trust in government” 1). Each country is rated according to these categories, and given a score ranging from 0-10 (“Democracy Index” 53). This score places them in one of four groups: full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid regime, and authoritarian regime (54). The major differences between a full democracy and flawed democracy fall within issues of functioning, political participation, and political culture (54). Normally, the United States has held the title of full democracy, and although it’s change in numerical score is minimal, the change in category is of large
Free and Fair Elections: elected officials are actually chosen and peacefully remove relatively frequent, fair and free elections in which coercion is very constrained.
All together for their agent parts to work agreeably, democracies need general decisions. Albeit there exists an expansive accord on the need of holding free, democracies that have sensible qualification prerequisites for competitors and systems for ensuring general suffrage and also anticipating extortion, there is less agreement on the instruments that perform these targets. In any case, despite the fact that a widespread recipe for arranging honest to goodness races does not exist, the nature of decisions can be agreeably assessed a posteriori. After a race has been held, acknowledgment of the outcomes by both champs and failures is the best proof of the authenticity of the appointive
“The health of a democracy depends on the choice of representatives and leaders, which in turn is directly linked to the way political parties function and elections are conducted”.
The fourth condition for stability of democracies is multiple political debates on the best ways to move forward and to progress the country. Democracies must allow conflicting ideas from various parties on how to deal with problems that the nation is facing (Schofield 68). For example, when the country begins to have Agency problems or the agency costs begin to spiral out of control, the incumbent leaders must allow for free debates about the underlying factors affecting the country.
Democracy varies in every country depending on the type of government or regime they have. There is the liberal democracy, which is all about giving people their rights and liberties; everything is done through fair voting and electing. The people are aware of everything that happens in their government. Illiberal democracies are basically the same as liberal, but the people in power are more secretive of their activities, and there is less civil liberty. It is essentially a partial democracy. Now Authoritarian regimes designate any political system that concentrates power in the hands of one leader or a small elite. There are no free elections and very little regard for the law. Political institutions, social structures, and the democratic rule of law all affect liberal, illiberal, and authoritarian regimes democratic quality differently.
According to Andrew Janos, “the price of economic progress has been political turmoil”. (Janos, pg. 21) If the Modernization Theory holds that countries tend to become more democratic the more they modernize, then political turmoil is to be expected in democracies. Certainly this can occur in both parliamentary and presidential systems: as Linz argues, the presidential system concentrates too much power on the president, resulting in “winner-take-all” politics (Linz, pg. 56) and the polarization of political parties. This is evident in the United States, where the president is elected separately and Congress is divided between the opposing Democrats and Republicans. Conversely, the parliamentary system in Britain, as well as that adapted by the former British colonies of Sri Lanka and Nigeria, has had its fair share of single-party hegemony and political abuse. (Horowitz, pg. 78) Democracy is therefore not a perfect form of government when put in practice, and much of its
Arend Lljphart wrote Patterns of Democracy. It examines the forms and performance of governments in thirty six countries. Seventeen chapters have been written in the book. Below, there will be a critical review of a claim or a particular theory in each of the first seven chapters on its merits.
Moreover, instating the right to choose also facilitates the incentive for people to speak out against an unruly leader. When a large mass of civilians disagrees or is concerned with a party’s implementation of policies, they can extract their title from them. Just because a party is elected, does not mean that they will remain in power for the entire duration originally allotted to them. The presence of foreseeable change is crucial to a societies degree of satisfaction associated with their current governmental system. Alteration gives democracy the upper hand. For example, in Spain in 1982, when Prime Minister Leopolodo Calvo Sotelo completely terminated the party that supported what the people wanted, the people in office forcibly made him resign.
Mr. Arend Lljphart is an author of a book called Patterns of Democracy. The book examines the forms and performance of governments in thirty-six countries. Patterns of Democracy is seventeen chapters long. Below, there will be a critical analysis of a claim or a particular theory in the first seven chapters on the merits of the claim or theory.
Another significance that the elections have in a democratic society is that it made people
* Necessary but by no means sufficient condition for the completion of a democratic transition is the holding of free and contested elections (on the basis of broadly inclusive voter eligibility) that meet the seven institutional requirements for elections in a polyarchy that Robert A. Dahl has set forth