Jan 25 2011
Week 3 Reading: Contemporary Perspectives on Defining Democracy
I found this week’s articles profoundly interesting to read because they were both straightforward and aimed to define what democracy really is. Today, it’s difficult to decipher the true meaning of this word because it’s being thrown around more often without the realization of consequences that come with the proliferation of the term.
Although, both Schmitter & Karl and Collier & Levitsky use minimal conditions to define the fundamental aspects of democracy, I found that the latter approach the subject with a more persuasive goal.
Collier & Levitsky try to explain and analyze the various strategies of conceptual innovation. After reading their article it’s clear that scholars have been trying to “standardize” the meaning of democracy for quite a while but has the proliferation of the concept compromised the basic meaning of democracy? The authors suggest that there are strategies that attempt to increase analytic differentiation while still avoiding damaging the conceptual validity. However, the pessimist in me is not convinced and the long list of concepts that have evolved out of “democracy” is not making me any more of a believer.
My main concern is how can we know when a democracy is really a democracy? Or when is term being used in an attempt to justify a regime as such, without realistically being a democracy? Although the authors suggest the “diminished subtypes” as a strategy that can both increase analytic differentiation and avoid conceptual stretching, the validity of the claim is undermined by the mere confusion that adding adjectives to democracy creates. It seems as if adding adjectives to the minimal definition of democracy cannot avoid conceptual stretching as more and more words are added to accommodate regimes that may be incomplete democracies.
It seems as it these strategies for conceptual innovation are no longer aiming to standardize democracy or make it a goal or end to strive towards, but rather allowing the conditions to slowly evolve so that it can fit more cases. However, this creates the problem that now almost every regime can be labeled as some sort of stretched out concept of a democracy.