Kate's Blog

Giovanni Carbone’s article “The Consequences of Democratization” looks at democratization as an independent variable. Rather than looking at democracy as an endpoint, he looks at it as a starting point.

In his examination of the consequences of democracy, time is a key factor for the author. He suggests that looking at the short-term effects of democracy (which can be quite different than long-term effects) risks missing the “true” effects of democratization. Carbone assesses the notion that many people believe that democracy has instant positive consequences by looking at the effects on democracy on the political, economic and social spheres over time by looking at democracy as a “stock”. The “stock of democracy” accounts for the extent of experience with democracy that a country has had.

He criticizes the viewpoint that democracy generates many positive effects and looks at some of the downsides of democracy. First he challenges the widely accepted notion that there is a positive relationship between democracy and social welfare by suggesting that democracy simply favours the survival of the worse-off and that it has had a limited success at fighting poverty in low-income countries. He then addresses the relationship between democracy and inequality by suggesting that initially democracies contribute to rising inequality that eventually produced equal outcomes by shrinking the gap between the rich and the poor. Finally, he addresses the enlargement of the public sector. Again he suggests that this is an effect that cannot be observed right away. As democracies become more established “by contrast, governments become more likely to adopt the kind of long-term perspective that favors the creation and execution of better social policy”.

Carbone’s (somewhat) pessimistic analysis of the consequences of democracy is refreshing as democracy is often looked at as endpoint that is the answer to every country’s problems. His look at democracy as a starting point is a necessary viewpoint that prospecting democracies need to take account of. Democracy does not bring all the effects immediately and some effects take a long time to become observable. Thus looking at democracy as a stock rather than measuring democracy at a given point in time, can yield better findings on the consequences of democracy.

Scholars have been engaged in a debate over the choice between using dichotomies or a degree-based approach to define democracy. Many attempt to identify their choice as the “best” but they often fail to justify why that is. In light of many generic justifications by numerous scholars, Collier & Adcock attempt a pragmatic strategy. They maintain that choices between dichotomous or graded approaches to concept formation should be based on the “theoretical framework, analytic goals, and context of research involved in a particular study” (p. 539).

Despite the fact that at some points I felt that Collier & Adcock were leaning towards the justification of dichotomies, they effectively challenged the flaws of general justifications introduced by other scholars. I enjoyed “Democracy and Dichotomies: A Pragmatic Approach to Choices about Concepts” because the authors did not attempt to answer if it’s better to classify or rank but rather acknowledged that the methodological choice of either was dependant on the conditions mentioned above. Collier & Adcock argue that as these change and evolve, conceptualizations of democracy could as well. They argue that achieving sharper differentiation is necessary for conceptualization of democracy and that this can be done with the least room for error by combining a graded approach with dichotomous categories.

I particularly liked the section on “Normative Evaluation” in which Collier & Adcock touched on Dahl’s evaluation of regimes on a graded scale. They take into consideration his arguments on the “dynamics of change, and particularly the direction and rate of change” (p. 557) and argue that his flexible approach is not embedded in a certain historical period. I find this important because it relates back to the purpose of choosing dichotomies vs. gradations. It seems almost arbitrary to promote one approach over the other when the research has different purposes.

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.

In his book A Preface to Democratic Theory, Robert A. Dahl theorizes about a polyarchal democracy. He begins by challenging the Madisonian and populist models of democracy by suggesting two methods that could be used to construct a new theory of democracy. The method of maximization specifies a goal (such as political equality) to be maximized and that democracy can then be defined by which political processes are needed to maximize this goal. The descriptive method is to examine the characteristics of the members of “democratic” political and social organizations and consider the conditions needed for these to exist.

From the populist theory, Dahl deduces three characteristics that could be used to describe democracy: 1) the policy that is most preferred by members will be selected, 2) each member has an equal vote and 3) the option with the most votes wins. Dahl, then develops 8 conditions that could aid in achieving these characteristics but admits that no organization could attain these limits in the real world therefore he interprets them as measurements that could be used to determine how democratic organizations are and “the upper chunk might be called “polyarchies”” (p. 74).

Next, Dahl reinterprets the conditions into norms or rules. I found one particularly interesting:

“Polyarchy is a function of the political activity of the members ” (p.81)

Dahl suggests that variables like income, socioeconomic status and educations are positively correlated with peoples’ political activity and the uneducated masses Madison feared were not an obstacle to democracy. Dahl argues that these people are less inclined due to social obstructions to participate in the political process unlike the wealthy and affluent members of society.