Kate's Blog

I’m sure that many restaurant goers have visited a dine-out review website at least once before going to a new place. For Vancouverites, two of the more popular restaurant review websites are Dinehere and Urbanspoon so I wanted to compare how each site awards a given restaurant its respective score.

Urbanspoon.com uses a dichotomous scale where voters can say they either like a restaurant or not. The site then provides the reader with a percentage of the voters who have “liked” a the restaurant. Dinehere.ca on the other hand provides a much more comprehensive review. Each restaurant is given an overall score out of 5 stars. However this score is comprised of 4 subscales that are also 5 stars each, though they each measure a separate aspect: food, service, value and ambiance. Furthermore, the website allows you to view every individual person’s full review.

Here are reviews from both sites for 5 restaurants:

The Foundation – DH: 3/5, US: 78%
The Eatery – DH: 3/5 , US: 73%
Stepho’s Greek Taverna – DH: 3/5, US: 77%
Pho Central – DH: 3/5, US: 91%
The Fringe Café – DH: 3.5/5, US: 57%

The dichotomous nature of Urbanspoon gives us a continuous range of scores but these scores are based on only one criteria making it difficult to know what the measurement is based on. However, Dinehere allows you to get a more complete idea of why the restaurant is rated the way it is and allows for a higher degree of differentiation.

“So what is democracy, anyway?”

I guess the easy way out would be to open a dictionary and look it up but unfortunately “democracy” is not just a 4 syllable noun derived from the Greek work demokratia meaning -dēmos ‘the people’ + -kratia ‘power, rule.’ Democracy is not a word that resonates the same meaning whenever and wherever it is said because it is an abstract idea that has taken many forms over the years.

Political scientists have been trying to standardize ‘democracy’ for a long time. However, this has in reality created various ideas and ideals. Schumpeter strives for a minimalist definition of democracy based on free elections. Dahl creates an idealistic concept of democracy that includes 8 variables that must be met (all the while accepting that this definition is unattainable). Sartori proposes a ladder of generality having forms of democracy move up or down from the root meaning and there is also the idea of diminished subtypes that refer to what is missing from a regime being fully democratic. Finally, there’s either the question of whether democracy conceptualization should be dichotomous or graded?

My definition of democracy is somewhere between Schumpeter and Dahl. I think that there should be an attainable target of a few variables (fair elections, suffrage and protection of civil liberties) that defines countries that are democracies from ones that are not. These regimes labeled “democracies” can then be graded based on how democratic they are. This flexibility of describing democracies based on how democratic they are (opposed to yes or no), allows for changes to be observed while the democracy develops or deteriorates.

An article titled “Attack ads hurt democracy” on thestar.com has Green party leader Elizabeth May urging other

“party leaders not to further suppress the voter turnout by resorting to mean-spirited ads that do not deal with policies and priorities but rather personalities”.

May argues that political attack ads like the ones used by the Conservatives to question the patriotism of Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff are contributing to lower voter turnout as it paints a negative picture of politics. May also suggests that the vicious ads are a cynical strategy used by parties aiming for a lower voter turnout that could potentially be especially beneficial for the Conservatives.

Although the article only briefly refers to the subject of democracy when May is quoted saying that the cynicism of the party machines “is devaluing the whole business of democracy at a very fundamental level”, it does resonate a feeling of apprehensiveness with the talk of a spring election. Have voters been swayed since the emergence of the attack-style campaigning to not only vote for the party being attacked but to not vote at all?

Polling done after the 2008 elections suggest that 11% of respondents did not vote for any candidate due to the Conservative campaign ads attacking Liberal leader Stéphane Dion. More Canadians are becoming reluctant to go to the polls suggesting that attack ads lower voter turnout and ultimately lower voter participation in the democratic process. An ethical overhaul of campaigning strategies is needed to promote a more democratic process in Canada.

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.

There has been much talk about what will happen to Tunisia’s government after the protests that led the president to resign. A few articles have mentioned the demand for a “genuine democracy” by Tunisians. This article suggests that Tunisian protesters want a new and genuine democracy.

I think, in this case the word “genuine” being used with democracy could be a diminished subtype, one of the strategies Collier & Levitsky touch upon. Diminished subtypes identify attributes that are missing and perhaps in the case of Tunisia, “genuine” refers to an honest, uncorrupt democracy.

While this adjective is wishy-washy as it’s already difficult enough to summarize an undisputed definition for democracy, it does avoid conceptual stretching as it’s not claiming to be a complete democracy therefore also moving down the ladder of differentiation and away from the root of “democracy”. However, the authors also suggest “for countries that are less than fully democratic … the questions arises as to whether it would be better to avoid identifying them as subtypes of democracy” (p.441).

Another example I found is about Western-style democracy in Cote d’Ivoire. Here Western-style democracy (characterized by multi-party elections) is being used to create a concept that moves down the ladder of differentiation and would probably fit closely to parliamentary democracy. Here, the concept has more conceptual differentiation and can be applied to less cases therefore giving it more defined attributes.

From here, Western-style democracies can be considered “classical” subtypes of democracies that are also considered as “full instances of the root definition of democracy” (p.435). Therefore Western-style democracy would be considered definitely democratic which could create problems. A perfect example is this case of Cote d’Ivoire which has yet to witness the results of multi-party elections. Cote d’Ivoire still lacks well-founded rules concerning presidential elections or other political dealings and there are still possibilities for elections to be rigged and powerful conflicts based on ethic, religious and regional differences.

The Vancouver Sun, being one of the many news sources reporting on the recent demonstrations in Lebanon over a Hezbollah-backed prime minister-designate.

The U.S. is discontented with the news as they consider Hezbollah a terrorist group that acted with coercion, intimidation and threats of violence to bring down prime minister Saad Hariri’s government on January 12th.

Hezbollah, a militant party backed by Syria and Iran had been “pressing Hariri to disavow the [Special Tribunal for Lebanon], which it worries will implicate Hezbollah members. However, the U.S. claims that the tribunal will continue as its vital to the security and justice in Lebanon.

The coup staged by Hezbollah worries the Sunni population of Lebanon as the Shiite militant group’s dominance has increased in the already deeply divided country. A militant group who has managed to get many seats and support in parliament is plaguing Lebanon, which is considered a parliamentary democracy. If we subject Lebanese democracy to Schmitter & Karl’s conditions that make democracy possible, it would be tricky to measure the concept. The authors propose that a polity must be “self-governing; it must be able to act independently of constraints imposed by some other overarching political system”. Although Lebanon’s parliamentary system is there to keep the government in check, it seems as if Hezbollah is playing the part of an over-arching structure that could harm the government’s legitimacy.

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.

Reading everyone’s introductions, I’ve noticed that we have some things in common. The love of traveling, music and great films are amongst the many that stand out.

Traveling. This is kind of a double-feature since traveling and phtotgraphy go hand in hand. I’ve been addicted to Trey Ratcliff’s travel blog for quite a while now. He takes amazing HDR photos during his travels to places like China and New Zealand. Stuck In Customs is a great blog to follow if you want to see great travel photos made even better in HDR.

This is for Merrin, Jon and Alex.

Music. I love music and one of my favorite pastimes is searching for new music.

Thomas, I read that you like The Decemberists so I’m assuming you’re just as excited as I am to get The King is Dead. Another album that’s released tomorrow is Cape Dory by Tennis. I think you would like them, so this link is for you.

Films. I love great movies, especially those ones that make you laugh and sob. Jocelyn, here are a few of my favorite movie that you can enjoy once you have some free time.

1. The Darjeeling Limited(or any other film directed by Wes Anderson)
2. Marie Antoinette
3. 500 Days of Summer

The BBC reports that after 23 years in power Tunisia’s president has resigned and dissolved parliament. Since the country declared independence from France in 1956, Mr. Ben Ali has only been the second president.

The article states that Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, now 74, has fled the country after student-led protests over economic matters led him to resign. The protests turned grotesque when the police tried to calm the crowds with tear gas and open fire. Aljazeera reports that

“The Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights has tallied 66 deaths since the protests began after a 26-year-old unemployed university graduate set himself on fire in protest in the town of Sidi Bouzid on December 17″.

A Toronto Star writer has suggested “Democracy as a fix” for the Tunisian crisis. The article suggests that “Tunisians deserve better: Genuine democracy, not the tightly managed kind they have grown used to”.

It goes without saying that Tunisia is need of not only a new government that meets the needs and demands of the citizens (such as lowering food prices and restructuring the economy in hopes of creating jobs for graduates) but also a reworking of their government structure. It seems that the protests have lead the people of Tunisia to not settle for subtle changes. Clearly the cries for change have been loud enough to make a president resign and now that the people of Tunisia have seen that change is within reach, they will most likely not settle for another corrupt government ran by authoritarians like Mr. Ben Ali.

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.