Of the assigned readings this week, I found Paxton’s article to be most interest and most empirically compelling. The historical variation in the term ‘universal suffrage’ is not new to any of us. I still recall the political theory course I took in which we discussed the evolution of suffrage from the Ancient Greek, male, non-slave, property owner to what is considered the ‘healthy democratic’ standard today (anyone of ‘voting’ age). Paxton focuses particularly on the inclusion (or, rather, exclusion) of women and the misappropriation of the term ‘universal suffrage.’ In doing so, she finds fault with a number of previous measures of democracy, outlining the discrepancies between the definition and measurement of democracy, and the resulting theoretical and practical consequences.

Interestingly enough, I have read this piece before, but for its contributions to a feminist strand of political thought. Revisiting it as a critique of measurement flaws, instead, has actually given me a greater appreciation of Paxton’s work. She thoroughly and bravely explicates the misalignment between the operationalization and conceptualization of suffrage and, consequently, democracy in some of the most seminal works in political science literature (i.e. Huntington (1991), Rueschemeyer, Stephens and Stephens (1992), Bollen (1980), Lipset (1959)). Paxton’s own argument is a compelling one: “the decision to exclude women’s suffrage from measurements of democracy can affect three areas of research: (1) scoring dates of democratic transitions, (2) descriptions of the emergence of democracy, and (3) research on understading the causes of democratization.

The suggestion she provides to address this problem relate back to our discussions of dichotomous vs. gradated measures of democracy. She notes that dire oversights like the exclusion of women in ‘universal suffrage,’ are more likely to occur when democracy is measured as a dichotomously, or even categorically. Thus, Paxton concludes that, in order to capture a fuller view of democracy, it should be measured on a gradated scale.