“Liberal democracy” as “real democracy”
In this article, the author talks about the future of democracy in Tunisia. He seems to have a gradated vision of democracy where liberal democracy is the “best-case scenario”. We can see here that his root definition does not include the respect of civil liberties as it is the case for example for Collier and Levitsky for whom “fully contested elections with full suffrage and the absence of massive fraud” is combined with “effective guarantees of civil liberties, including freedom of speech, assembly, and association”(434). Therefore, in this article, the adjective is used to precise the definition of democracy by adding defining attributes. On one hand, we can consider it useful in the sense that there is no consensus on the inclusion of the guarantee of civil liberties among the authors yet. On the other hand it is also confusing because it is used in a way that suggests that liberal democracy is the “real” democracy.
“To best support the Tunisian people and protect Western interests in a durable way, the West should stand firm with the Tunisian people and ensure that the country moves toward a liberal democracy.
Only a real democracy can ensure that the people of Tunisia will be satisfied with the results of their uprising, and only then can the West ensure that theocrats or autocrats do not wrest control of the country.”
In that case, by adding the adjective “liberal”, the author actually raises the standard of democracy, stating that the new root definition of democracy should be the liberal one. Thereby he modifies the definition itself. All other types of democracy are incomplete ones. In that case it would be more effective in my opinion to state that liberal democracy = democracy and that the rest is not and to have a dichotomic vision of the concept instead of having a very long ladder of definitions where only the higher level is actually considered as democracy. However, considering that the audience cannot know what his root definition is then it is understandable that he specifies what kind of democracy he wishes to have. By doing so he strongly emphasizes what democracy is not and avoid what the authors call “electoralism”.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/01/21/abaza.tunisia.military/
“Celebrity-led democracy”
Why would someone use this expression?
A japanese minister uses this expression to talk about newly created political parties founded by local government heads. I found this quote very interesting to understand what he meant to achieve with this expression:
“These parties have raised important questions, but there are many impure factors, such as celebrity-led democracy”
I do not know that much about japanese politics, and the professor will tell me if I am misunderstanding this. According to me, the expression is used as a diminished subtype of democracy. By saying that celebrity-led democracy is an “impure factor” I assume that the adjective is meant to show a qualitatively inferior type of democracy. That is for the normative aspect of the expression. Concerning its content I would say that following Sartori’s strategy we are here moving down the ladder of generality, adding more defining attributes, which makes the concept applicable to fewer cases. However, in this case my impression is that it is more a ‘stylistic effect’ used to depreciate the value of those parties as being democratic than a useful conceptual innovation to assess those parties in an academic debate. This is pretty understandable because it is said by a politician whose intention was not academic but rhetorical.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/perspectives/news/20110117p2a00m0na001000c.htmlParliamentary democracy
In both cases, I realized how adjectives can be used not only in a descriptive way but also in a normative way, thereby adding the opinion of the authors on what democracy should be which is probably not what we are looking for when we try to define democracy in an academic manner.