Measuring Democracy

In Canada

In Errol Mendes piece entitled “Dollars and Democracy“, the author uses the term “one-sided democracy” to describe the potential state of Canadian politics if the Harper ends up cutting public funding from elections. Basically, if the funding was cut, it would make Harper’s party the only viable party for office in Canada, thus eliminating the possibility of other parties gaining control of the government.

In this case, the use of the adjective is to show how Canada could possibly slip into a “diminished subtype” of democracy. Harper could essentially make it so his party would be the only one to afford a reuptable campaign in the next election, thus eliminating the “full contestation” attribute of the minimal definition of democracy.

In China

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I know little about Chinese politics. But considering the amount of current debate Chinese political issues, I am going to learn as much as I can about it this term. From what I gathered this weekend, seems like the Communist party pretty much locks down the whole country. Although there are elections at various levels of the government, the Communist’s block out other parties and make it so there is no other party to vote for.

I found an article called “China’s Tentative Steps Toward Democracy“. The author uses two different adjectives: “deliberative democracy” and “representative democracy”. Particularly interesting was this idea of “deliberative democracy”, by which the author evidently means town hall type decision making with an infusion of technology to tally votes an and participants opinions on a wide range of issues. He contemplates “China evolving into some sort of innovative democratic experiment, combining tricameralism with all the high-tech features of deliberative democracy methods to mold a new type of political accountability, as well as separation of powers”.

In this instance, the author is going down Levitsky and Collier’s ladder towards increasing differentiation. It does serve the article well though, as this type of technologically infused democracy is a concept foreign to me, and it helps to separate the author’s view of the potential democracy in China from others.