Contestation and participation: Concepts, measurement, and inference

Abstract

Contestation and participation are commonly viewed as two main constituent dimensions of electoral democracy. How exactly have these two dimensions been conceptualized and measured in the literature? Are they empirically observable and do they matter for democratic development and stability? This article answers the first of these questions and considers their implications for the second by reviewing the literature on these two dimensions. We discuss three issues that affect conclusions about dimensions of democracy and their relevance for understanding democratic development: First, conceptual ambiguities—substantive overlap between the two concepts—obscure the meanings of each of the two dimensions. Such ambiguities led to a second issue, which is a concept-measurement mismatch. The conceptual contributions were never really met with an empirical equivalent that would allow us to properly measure the two dimensions. Scholars continue to invoke theoretical understandings from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, but represent them using measures that were not explicitly concerned with measuring them, which presents the third issue of concept reification. As a result of these three issues, inferences about how democracy has developed and its relevance for democratic stability or for transitions to democratic rule is potentially obscured. Based on these issues, we provide three suggestions for future research concerning the concepts of contestation and participation.