democracy! or democracy?

This weeks articles raise a number of important points in respect to the measurement of democracy. Moreover, each makes a number of valid points regarding gradation and dichotomy approaches. In Collier& Adcock’s article, three important points are brought up:

(a) The absence of one attribute does not invalidate or diminish the meaning of other attributes in relation to the concept of democracy

 (b) The practice of giving explicit names to categories that group together similar cases is also a means of pinpointing and differentiating crucial attributes of regimes

( c) Decisions about gradations versus dichotomies are often built into the framing of research questions.

Something that I have been struggling with over the last two weeks has been the question of how to account for inconsistencies within “democracies”, especially in relation to the more inclusive definition of democracy given in the last readings. To give an example, Venezuela can, at least on a local level, be understood as far more democratic than Canada should participatory involvement in government decision making and fair elections be seen as the core of democracy- Hugo Chavez has until recently been exceedingly popular and won elections with an overwhelming majority. By the same account, executive power is absolute, there is little separation of military and state powers, freedom of speech or opposition is very limited, and there has been some attempt to limit judicial independence. Moreover, considering Chavez’s anti-elite rhetoric, he is a career-military man with almost no formal education, we could even say that within Venezuela rule by the many and minimization of the elite-minority is currently in effect.

In this regard, I agree with the article. A definition must clearly be given and context stated before either approach is adapted.