The Quality of Democracy

Theory and Applications

Guillermo O'Donnell, Jorge Vargas Cullell, Osvaldo M. Iazzetta, Guillermo O'Donnell, Jorge Vargas Cullell

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780268160678
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Democrazia

In 1996, Guillermo O'Donnell taught a seminar at the University of Notre Dame on democratic theory. One of the questions explored in this class was whether it is possible to define and determine the "quality" of democracy. Jorge Vargas Cullell, a student in this course, returned to his native country of Costa Rica, formed a small research team, and secured funding for undertaking a "citizen audit" of the quality of democracy in Costa Rica. This pathbreaking volume contains O'Donnell's qualitative theoretical study of the quality of democracy and Vargas Cullell's description and analysis of the empirical data he gathered on the quality of democracy in Costa Rica. It also includes twelve short, scholarly reflections on the O'Donnell and Cullell essays.

The primary goal of this collection is to present the rationale and methodology for implementing a citizen audit of democracy. This book is an expression of a growing concern among policy experts and academics that the recent emergence of numerous democratic regimes, particularly in Latin America, cannot conceal the sobering fact that the efficacy and impact of these new governments vary widely. These variations, which range from acceptable to dismal, have serious consequences for the people of Latin America, many of whom have received few if any benefits from democratization. Attempts to gauge the quality of particular democracies are therefore not only fascinating intellectual exercises but may also be useful practical guides for improving both old and new democracies.

This book will make important strides in addressing the increasing practical and academic concerns about the quality of democracy. It will be required reading for political scientists, policy analysts, and Latin Americanists.

part I

Theoretical and Empirical Foundations

chapter 1

Human Development, Human Rights, and Democracy

GUILLERMO O’DONNELL

This chapter is based on a central argument: a democratic regime (to be defined below) is a fundamental component of democracy, but it is insufficient for adequately conceptualizing what democracy is. This is true everywhere, but it has been made particularly evident by the study of new (and some not so new) democracies in the South and the East. Generally, mainstream political science limits itself to the study of the regime. This limitation offers the safe harbor of an obviously important and apparently well-defined field of study. Going beyond the regime is a risky enterprise; it could lead to a slippery slope that ends with equating democracy with everything one happens to like. One way to avoid this risk is to tie a strong rope onto a relatively firm foundation—the regime—and with its help cautiously descend into the abyss. Of course, not any rope will do. The one I have chosen comes from an often neglected but important aspect of democracy that is already present at the level of the democratic regime: a particular conception of the human being cum citizen as an agent. This is the grounding factor, the thread that we will follow. The hope is that it will help us provide a better understanding of democracy in Latin America and elsewhere.

Thus, what follows is democratic theory with a comparative intent. It is a first exploration. It relies on contributions from several disciplines, but it sees some phenomena from angles that are largely unexplored. For this reason this chapter is an incomplete piece of democratic theory. I basically argue about foundations and some of its consequences. I say little about other extremely important topics, such as who are the real political actors—individual and collective—in a given circumstance; or how governments and states exercise their power; or the domestic consequences of various dimensions of globalization.¹ Furthermore, even though the state occupies a central place in my analysis, because of space and time limitations my discussion of the state is rather elementary. I hope, however, that even at the cost of some parsimony the present incursion beyond the regime opens topics and angles of inquiry that are not only intellectually challenging but also useful for enhancing the quality and impact of democracies in the East and South.

When reflecting on the grounding factor of democracy—agency—I found that there are intimate connections between democracy, human development, and human rights.² In addition to highlighting these connections, I argue that they lead us to assess the differential quality of existing democracies, and I propose some criteria for dealing with this matter. My main point is that democracy, human development, and human rights are based on a similar (moral and, in democracies, legally enacted) conception of the human being as an agent. I also note that this same view can be found in several international and regional covenants and treaties, as well as in the United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP) Human Development Reports. I further argue that this conception traces a perpetually moving horizon that prohibits considering human development, human rights, and democracy as static or unilinear phenomena, such as seeing human development as merely the increase in the availability of material resources or of aggregate utility; or reducing human rights to protection against physical violence; or, indeed, restricting democracy to the regime.

To my knowledge, the detection of this common grounding and the exploration of its consequences is close to terra incognita. One danger of entering largely uncharted territory is the possibility of getting lost in the many ramifications that appear. Although I have not fully avoided this danger, my inquiry is guided by the following questions: What is the common grounding of these currents? Why should we be concerned, aside from instrumental reasons (such as, for example, its presumable contribution to economic growth) with democracy and its quality? What are the conceptual parameters under which the question of the quality of democracy may be fruitfully posed? How can we establish a conversation among these three currents so that they might nourish each other and thereby foster in theory and practice the view of agency that the three of them share?

It may be helpful if I summarize at the outset the main lines of my reasoning.

1. Human development, human rights, and democracy share a common, morally grounded, view of human agency.

2. The enacting of agency requires the universalistic attainment of at least some basic rights and capabilities.

3. Because of their common grounding in a shared view of agency, the rights and capabilities postulated by these three currents overlap quite extensively.

4. It is theoretically impossible to identify precisely the set of rights and capabilities that would be necessary and jointly sufficient for generating an “adequate” level of human development, human rights, or political rights.

5. The above fact does not prevent—quite the contrary, it challenges us—to be as specific as possible concerning the rights and capabilities involved, as well as their mutual relationships.

6. The processes aimed at inscribing need-claims as legally enacted and backed rights are eminently political (and, consequently, conflictive).

7. Given the indeterminacy and historical variability of these processes, democracy is not only very important per se but also as an enabling institutional milieu for the struggles usually needed in order to inscribe need-claims as effective rights.

A corollary of these considerations is that we have good reasons for assessing differences and changes in the quality of existing democracies. In order to help the reader follow my arguments, I have included propositions that highlight the main conclusions reached as I develop my argument. I also include suggestions concerning the empirical assessment (or auditing) of the quality of democracy.

1. Preliminaries

The concept of human development that has been proposed and widely diffused by UNDP’s Reports and the work of Amartya Sen was a reversal of prevailing views about development. Instead of focusing on aggregate measures of economic performance or utility, human development as conceived by UNDP and Sen begins and ends with human beings. The concept asks how every individual is doing in relation to the achievement of “the most elementary capabilities, such as living a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable, and enjoying a decent standard of living” (UNDP 2000a: 20). These are deemed basic conditions necessary “so that each person can lead a life of respect and value.” From this point of view, not only is “human development … a process of enhancing human capabilities” (UNDP 2000a: 2); it also becomes the yardstick with which other aspects of development are assessed.

Throughout its Human Development Reports, UNDP has become increasingly assertive in drawing an important corollary of this approach. The achievement of basic capabilities and their expansion is not just something to which human beings have a moral claim, or a goal that well-meaning individuals may posit. More consequentially, achievement of basic capabilities is deemed to be a right of all who suffer, at least, deprivation of primary (or basic) capabilities. This is a human interest, the satisfaction of which can be legitimately claimed to be the responsibility of others, especially the state.

The assertion of these rights strikes me as a quite radical and, indeed, institutionally courageous move. To begin with, the existence of such rights is disputed, in and of themselves or because of their alleged impracticability, by influential currents in philosophy, ethical theory, and jurisprudence and is plainly ignored by most of political science. Furthermore, in the Human Development Report I have been quoting, this assertion comes together with a discussion of human rights, including their similarities and differences with the concept of human development. This convergence is not accidental. Once the achievement of some basic capabilities is defined as a right (say, to some basic standards of nutrition and health), then some of the human interests obviously entailed (say, to physical integrity) tend to be defined as no less than basic human rights.

These perspectives have some crucial elements in common: both begin and end with human beings, and both ask for what may be, at least, a minimum set of conditions, or capabilities, that enable human beings to function in ways appropriate to their condition as such beings. True, in its origins the concept of human development focused mostly on the social and economic context, while the concept of human rights focused mostly on the legal system and on the prevention and redress of state violence. Yet the 2000 Human Development Report’s discussion of human rights, on one side, and the increasing attention of human rights scholars and practitioners to (broadly understood) social factors, on the other,³ reveals an important convergence: both currents deal with bundles of rights and capabilities that, in Sen’s terms, are valuable insofar as they allow individuals to freely choose functionings (what they actually do and are) appropriate to their condition as human beings—as agents, as I argue below.

You may have noticed that I have twice used the exceedingly vague term “appropriate.” The only way to specify this term is to come up with a certain conception of the human being in terms of which the attribute of appropriateness is predicated. Following the argument I have developed up to this point, I have jumped into deep waters. In the first place, in terms of the logic of their arguments both the proponents of human development and of human rights must be unabashed universalists, at least in terms of the “basic” rights and capabilities they posit. Proponents of slavery, the inferiority of certain races, the innate inferiority of women, and the irreducible uniqueness of cultures, cynics of various sorts, governments that do not want to be assessed in terms of their records on human development and human rights, and the like strenuously deny this universalism. In contrast, human development and human rights authors and practitioners ask, What are the basic conditions applicable to every human being, irrespective of social, cultural, and biological conditions?⁴

Secondly, it is the job of the universalists to delineate—and face the sharp discussions that will inevitably follow—the conception that underlies their claim that at least a basic set of capabilities and human rights should be generally achieved. Later in this chapter I argue that this underlying element is a moral conception of the human being as an agent; that is, someone who is normally endowed with sufficient autonomy for deciding what kind of life she wants to live; has the cognitive ability to reasonably detect the options available to her; and feels herself to be, and is construed by others, as responsible for the courses of action she takes. Of course, an individual can abdicate these characteristics, or may choose courses of action (functionings) that are useless or even self-destructive, or, unfortunately, may be born, say, with a severe cognitive impairment. These are important issues, but not the ones that mainly concern human development and human rights.⁵ The central issue, because it affects hundreds of millions of people, refers to situations that objectively (that is, well beyond the presumable preferences of those concerned) and severely hinder the probability of an individual becoming, after the biologically determined heteronomy of infancy, an agent. The problem, of course, is how to arrive, and by whom, at criteria that will allow us to gauge these matters.

Now I recapitulate my argument thus far with some propositions.

— 1. The concepts of human development and human rights share an underlying, universalistic vision of the human being as an agent.

— 2. This vision leads to the question of what may be the basic conditions that normally enable an individual to function as an agent.

I mentioned how difficult and, indeed, disputable is the first issue; the second one, although more practical and empirical, is no less complex. Yet before tackling these matters we need to add another dimension to our discussion—democracy.

2. Components of a Democratic Regime, or Political Democracy

After the preceding prolegomena, we must focus on the rock to which we will, later on, tie our rope. In a democratic regime elections are competitive, free, egalitarian, decisive, and inclusive, and those who vote also have the right to be elected—they are political citizens. If elections are competitive, individuals face at least six options: vote for party A; vote for party B; do not vote; vote in blank; cast an invalid vote; or adopt some random procedure that determines which of the preceding options is effectuated. Furthermore, the (at least two) competing parties must have a reasonable chance to make their views known to all (potential and actual) voters. In order to be a real choice, the election must also be free, in that citizens are not coerced when making their voting decisions and when voting. In order for the election to be egalitarian, each vote (or nonvote) should count equally and be counted as such without fraud, irrespective of the social position, party affiliation, or other characteristics of each.⁶ Finally, elections must be decisive in several senses: (a) those who turn out to be the winners gain incumbency of the respective governmental roles; (b) elected officials, based on the authority assigned to these roles, can actually make the binding decisions that a democratic legal/constitutional framework normally authorizes; and (c) elected officials end their mandates in the terms and/or under the conditions stipulated by this same framework.

Notice that these attributes of democratic elections say nothing about the composition of the electorate. There have been oligarchic democracies—those with restricted suffrage—that satisfied the above conditions. But as a consequence of the historical processes of democratization in the originating countries⁷ and of its diffusion to other countries, democracy has acquired another characteristic: inclusiveness, meaning that the right to vote and to be elected is assigned, with few exceptions, to all adult members of a given country. For...