Abstract
In recent years, several measurements of the quality of democracy have been developed (e.g. Democracy Barometer, Varieties of Democracy Project). These objective measurements focus on institutional and procedural characteristics of democracy. This article starts from the premise that in order to fully understand the quality of democracy such objective measurements have to be complemented by subjective measurements based on the perspective of citizens. The aim of the article is to conceptualize and measure the subjective quality of democracy. First, a conceptualization of the subjective quality of democracy is developed consisting of citizens’ support for three normative models of democracy (electoral, liberal, and direct democracy). Second, based on the World Values Survey 2005–2007, an instrument measuring these different dimensions of the subjective quality of democracy is suggested. Third, distributions for different models of democracy are presented for some European and non-European liberal democracies. They reveal significant differences regarding the subjective quality of democracies. Fourth, the subjective quality of democracy of these countries is compared with the objective quality of democracy based on three indices (electoral democracy, liberal democracy and direct popular vote) developed by the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project. Finally, further research questions are discussed.
Highlights
In recent years, several measurements of the quality of democracy have been developed
It starts from the premise that in order to fully understand the quality of a democracy, objective measurements have to be complemented by subjective measurements at the level of the citizens
Before conceptualizing the subjective quality of democracy, we present arguments for why it is reasonable to complement objective measurements of the quality of democracy with subjective ones and propose a general strategy for how to do this
Summary
Several measurements of the quality of democracy have been developed. Focussing on political regimes classified as democracies they examine differences in the quality of these democracies. These measurements include the Democracy Barometer (Bühlmann, Merkel, Müller, & Weßels, 2012) and the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project Politics and Governance, 2018, Volume 6, Issue 1, Pages 22–32 berg, Skaaning, & Teorell, 2016). As these measurements focus on institutional and procedural characteristics of democracy, they can be called objective measurements. It starts from the premise that in order to fully understand the quality of a democracy, objective measurements have to be complemented by subjective measurements at the level of the citizens. It is possible that objective measurements of the democratic structure and processes are of high quality whereas subjective measurements of these objects are of low quality and vice versa
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