Democracy

A Comparative Approach

Svante Ersson, Jan-Erik Lane

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415265874
• eBook ISBN: 9781135136499
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Democracy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

What is democracy? Under what conditions does it thrive? What are the consequences of democracy?This book aims to answer these questions and more by exploring different varieties of democracies around the world. It starts with definitions of democracy and then divides the concept into three dimensions, which provide a framework for the study of democracy in all its forms. These dimensions form the three main sections of the book: *constitutional democracy which explores political rights
*participatory democracy which focuses on participation of citizens
*egalitarian democracy which examines outcomes of democracy in terms of equality. Democracy concludes by surveying the findings of this empirical study and a discussion on the meanings and consequences of democracy in a globalizing world.

Part I
Methodology

Analysing democracy can be done in several ways. We need to decide what aspects of democracy we will study, as well as outline what methodology we will employ in the conduct of our enquiries. Part I is made up of two chapters seeking to answer a few key methodological questions concerning the study of democracy. Chapter 1 looks at the factual and normative questions about democracy, whereas Chapter 2 presents the methodology that will be applied in the empirical enquiry into democracy as a macro regime in many of the countries of the world.

Since the emphasis is oil causality - the conditions and consequences of democracy - we argue that methodological positivism is the most suitable framework for investigating the degree of democracy in the countries of the world. A number of models of democracy will be derived from the literature and tested on a broad-based database comprising information about most countries that have a population of more than 1 million people. We classify the key models as either exogenous or endogenous models of democracy.

1 Democracy

Ideal or real?

Introduction

Democracy has been as well researched as capitalism. It is one of the two great institutional achievements of mankind, the second being the market economy (Fukuyama, 1992). The literature on democracy is so immense that we cannot make a complete overview of it here. In the 1950s, the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess published an overview of the concept of democracy as used in the social sciences for UNESCO, which run into hundreds of pages (Naess, et al. 1956). Books and articles on democracy have continued to pour out over the last few decades.

Our focus on democracy is limited to the study of this political regime as a phenomenon that exists in space and time: real democracy. There is a cluster of questions that are always raised in relation to real-life democracy relating to stability, longevity, causes and consequences. However, it must be emphasized that the discourse on democracy is also normative. Thus, a large part of the literature discusses the pros and cons of democracy as an ideal. In the theories of justice, democracy has a significant place. We will not cover the normative debate pro et contra democracy. This is, though, an important scientific debate with implications for political reforms of existing democracies. We are thinking about the debate about communicative democracy (Habermas, 1984), deliberative democracy (Elster, 1998) and associative democracy (Hirst, 1994).

Our perspective is positivistic, meaning that we examine theories enquiring into real democracy and not ideal democracy. Thus, we are interested in understanding and predicting democracy as a macro political regime, dealing especially with its causes and effects. The purpose of this chapter is to indicate what questions the empirical enquiry into democracy entails.

Democracy and causality

Schematically speaking, the huge literature on democracy deals with two general questions, besides providing for numerous case studies of democracy in individual countries. Theorizing democracy concerns one or the other of these two general questions, as any answer to them requires a theory, that is, a set of interlinked hypotheses. The two key general questions are:

• Q1 what, are the conditions for democratic stability?
• Q2 what are the outcomes of a democratic regime?

Q1 entails a search for the socio-economic and political conditions which enhance the longevity of a democratic system of government. The basic idea is that economic, social and political factors either increase or decrease the probability that a country has a stable democratic regime. Why is it the case that countries differ so much in their capacity to sustain democracy? A number of theories of democracy have suggested a list of factors which impact on how democratic a country's political system actually is.

Q2 looks at democracy from the other side of the coin, namely the effects from the operation of a democratic regime on society and the economy. Whether a country is democratic or not is of extreme importance for its citizens, as well as foreigners and the international community in general. It would be difficult to imagine that a country could offer liberty and the rule of law without acknowledging formally that it endorses democracy. Yet, the theories about the impact of democracy deal with the relationship between democracy and socio-economic outcomes. Does democracy promote affluence and quality of life? A set of such outcome hypotheses would comprise both allocation and distribution.

The scholarly debate on these two questions has resulted in a huge literature involving lots of disagreement and contentious opinions. One of the first important contributions to this discussion was made by Lipset (1959), who focussed on factors which were conducive for the rise of democracy. Some time later, the first serious studies on the impact democracy may have on economic and social development were published, including Adelman and Morris (1967) who were working within the quantitative research tradition. This was typical of a large part of the research literature addressing these two issues, and it is mainly this tradition that will be addressed in this survey of the research literature. Only in a few instances, and also less systematically, will case studies be approached.

This chapter sets out to examine the two central concepts in this debate, namely democracy and development. The chapter attempts to clarify the meanings of these concepts as well as to review various ways of measuring them empirically. Here we also map the variation over time and in space of democracy and development. Moreover, this chapter aims to survey the research literature dealing with both the issue of to what extent socioeconomic conditions determines the variation in democracy and the issue of what impact democracy may have on various dimensions of development. Let us start with the classical problem of defining 'democracy'.

Definitions of `democracy'

The meaning of the word 'democracy' and its usage has varied over time (Lively, 1975; Baechler, 1995; Cunningham, 2002). What was understood as democracy in classical Athens differs from what may be understood as democracy today. Not only the concept of democracy has changed, but there have also been differences in the valuation of democracy as well as differences in the conceptions of democracy. In this section we will briefly review the major concepts of democracy. Furthermore, some of the more frequently used indices constructed to measure democracy will be presented, and these will be employed to map the variation in the occurrence of democracy over time as well as in space.

Literally 'democracy' comes from the Greek words 'demos' and 'cratein', meaning 'rule by the people'. Thus, the concept of democracy comprises of at least two components: 'rule' and 'people'. The crux of the matter is that what should be meant by 'rule' and by 'people' may be interpreted in many different ways. One may therefore distinguish between at least two approaches to democracy: one based on the meanings of 'rule' and another on what may be included in 'people'. We will mainly focus on democracy as rule and only briefly deal with the inclusion problem.

When considering democracy as rule, one may identify two basic conceptions: one narrow, focussing on democracy as a system of government, and a broad conception suggesting that democracy is something more than just a system of government. In ancient Greece, democracy was understood to be a system of government. When Aristotle in his Politics presented an overview of current political constitutions, a democratic constitution was one of those identified. The two criteria he applied for characterizing democracy were number of rulers and the ends of ruling. Democracy was not the kind of system he preferred, but for him it was basically a system of government.

Yet, 'democracy' has for a long time been associated with demands for economic and social equality. And at the time of the French Revolution one may say that economic equality became 'a permanent part of the democratic creed' (Laski, 1931: 77). There are even claims that, up until the mid nineteenth century, democracy 'first of all implied social equality' (Naess et al., 1956: 130). Prominent among theoreticians identifying democracy with social equality was Tocqueville. His use of basic concepts like democracy and equality was often ambiguous (Lively, 1962: 49), but there is no doubt that, for him, democracy was something more than a system of government. Particularly before 1848, one may find a 'rather strong association and even identification of social equality with what was called "democracy" and "democratic"' (Christophersen, 1968: 86).

This broader conception of democracy as equality is to be found more frequently in radical analyses of democracy. Thus, John Dewey noted that a 'democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience' (1966: 87). This is also the gist of the concluding section of the overview of democracy written by Laski:

That is why [the new democratic theory] refuses to confine the ideal of democracy to the purely political sphere. It believes that for the average man constitutional government is not less important in industry than in politics or any other sphere.

(1931: 84)

A similar position is taken by MacPherson, who stated: 'Democracy in the broad sense requires not just equality but also freedom from starvation, ignorance, and early diseased death' (1966: 53). In political theory one often encounters the interpretation of democracy as equality. Let us quote again from MacPherson:

As soon as democracy is seen as a kind of society, not merely a mechanism of choosing and authorizing governments, the egalitarian principle inherent in democracy requires not only 'one man, one vote' but also 'one man, one equal effective right to live as fully humanly as he may wish'.

(1973: 51; see also Cunningham, 1987)

A similar standpoint may also be deduced from Rawls in his deliberations about democratic equality (cf. Anglade, 1994: 234). It is obvious that most feminist and Marxist accounts of democracy adhere to this broad conception of democracy (Pateman, 1989; Doveton, 1994; see also Luckham et al., 2000).

Yet, within mainstream political science, at least since the late nineteenth century, democracy has been understood as a system of government. In his survey of democracies Lord Bryce notes:

Democracy - which is merely a form of government, not a consideration of the purposes to which government may be turned - has nothing to do with Economic Equality, which might exist under any form of government, and might possibly work more smoothly under some other form.

(Bryce, 1921: 76)

Ernest Baker wrote, in a similar vein:

Democracy does not mean the well being or prosperity of the people, but a method of government of the people; and a democratic measure is a measure which originates from, or tends to promote, such a method of government - not a measure which tends to increase the amount or to rectify the distribution of prosperity or well-being.

(Barker, 1942: 315)

A more recent statement of a similar position is taken by Brian Barry who maintains that democracy is to be understood in procedural terms:

I reject the notion that one should build into 'democracy' any constraints on the content of the outcomes produced, such as substantive equality, respect for human rights, and concern for the general welfare, personal liberty, or the rule of law.

(Barry, 1989: 25)

Varsheney argues that, from an analytical point of view, it is necessary to distinguish between democracy as a procedure and economic equality as an outcome. If not, 'it ends up conflating the explanandum and explanans, or to put it differently, the independent and dependent variables' (1999: 12). Przeworksi proposes a similar minimalist conception of democracy (1999: 23-4).

Let us now turn to the inclusion problem. What is to constitute the people or the 'demos'? Here we also find different opinions and practices over time. In classical Greece, only the free men were allowed to be included into the 'demos'. In most political systems, the inclusion of women occurred later than was the case for men. Today we have on the agenda the question of the inclusion of migrants and young people into the 'demos'. Robert Dahl is the political scientist who has dealt with this issue most systematically and, in his opinion, one may formulate the following categorical principle:

Every adult subject to a government and its laws must be presumed to be qualified as, and has an unqualified right to be, a member of the demos.

(Dahl, 1989: 127)

Dahl states that there are two difficulties with this principle. One has to do with the boundary between childhood and adulthood, and a second one with the presence of foreigners in a country - which of them to include or not include. And these difficulties may be treated differently in various contexts.

We have so far identified two conceptions of democracy, one broader and one narrower. There are pros and cons for each of these conceptions. It may indeed be attractive to associate democracy with the good society. But from a pragmatic point of view it may yet be more reasonable to characterize the political sphere as more or less democratic and let it be an empirical issue whether the good society is associated with a democratic government or not. This means that we adhere to the narrow conception of democracy, although we will research whether democracy as a set of procedures enhances affluence and equality.

Democratic procedures

Maintaining that democracy refers to a method of government where adult people are to be included into the demos has only vaguely delimited what may be meant by democracy. To arrive at a more precise understanding of what democracy stands for, there are a number of further issues concerning procedures that have to be dealt with. It is generally acknowledged that the concept of democracy is both diffuse and multi-faceted (Sartori, 1987: 1). Even if this is the case, most participants discussing democracy have attempted to contribute with their own version of what a concept of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• Introduction: Tocqueville's question
• PART I Methodology
• PART II Exogeneity
• PART III Endogeneity
• PART IV Outcomes of democracy
• PART V Conclusions
• Appendix A1 Variable list for the sample of the countries of the world (at most N = 150)
• Appendix A2 Variable list for the sample of Central and East European countries, and the CIS countries
• Bibliography
• Index