Democracy: Theory and Practice

No matter what, the American political culture takes democracy as the supreme goal that no one can challenge. It is that democracy emerges as an exclusively western miracle that one is suppose to take as given. However, it is not the only thing that the west has in a miraculous way been able to accomplish. The west verses the rest is an equation that encompasses most if not all aspects of the world’s modern life. There has always been a link, a very strange and strong one that lumps together the Mediterranean area with the northern part of Europe. Greece and Rome in particular after their Europeanization are fully established as the source of a continuous line that gives birth to the (great/exceptional) European civilization that also gives birth among other things to the miracle of democracy. Nearly no book on democracy fails to address the issues of direct Greek democracy and the representative and the liberal modern form of it. In this sense the study of democracy in the last few years has witnessed no serious development. There is continuity in the American political science literature that repeats the same kind of narratives about the “story” of democracy. The direct democracy and the representative liberal one are contrasted and compared as forms of one genre of a European –or probably one should say western- political accomplishment in theory and practice. Some people around the world had had democratic ideas and practices. Some of them had their versions of egalitarian/democratic ideas and practices. However, the American political literature with its range of variety that guarantees a good extent of unity just ignores others. Actually nowhere has it been possible for anybody or people to do more than the imitation of the miracle.
But democracy of course has its limits. And one should not think that it is absolutely above criticism. But that is one of the deep implications of democracy, it allows one to criticize it as a project and elaborate on it. It is an ever progressing project that marches forward no matter what. To criticize democracy does mean nothing like thinking of overcoming it or like trying to figure out some alternative. In fact this last remark is also applicable to the post modernist and post structuralist phenomena, which insist on the deconstruction of modernity, with out thinking of a possibility to go beyond it. At the heart of the accomplishment –or the failures from the post’s position- is democracy. Another important thing to remember when discussing democracy is that the liberal democracy goes hand in hand with the market economy –and probably the market ideology- and hence we would be enforced by a logical necessity to defend “the market” if we believe in democracy. And unfortunately the market and democracy all the time fortify each other. In the name of democracy the “freedoms” of the market are defended, including the right of capital to flow out and in rich countries and poor. An author like Partha Chatterjee thinks that the wars in the name of democracy could discredit democracy by making it lose its charm for many people because of being more associated with violent imperialism.(Chatterjee,2004.cf.pp104-108) Alas no extra evidence is needed for this because it is as evident as a main stream political scientist (who is regarded by many the “dean” of the American political science) like Dahl remarks how strange it is that the U.S had been involved several times in toppling democratic elected regimes when their politics and policies contradict the America’s interests.
At any rate this tension has recently been a key issue in reading the limits and prospects of democracy. Some authors think that being a democracy gives a state the right (some mixture of a moral and pragmatic rights) to go for war against other state/s in order to enforce democracy or even to do some preventive war to protect the democratic world. This same practice is used by other authors as evidence of the deterioration of the democratic practice both domestically and globally.
The analysis of the quality of democracy and drawing on the Western-American perspective towards the theory and practice of democracy is going to be the major theme of this review. The quality of democracy has become a theme since the collapse of the Eastern European communist bloc when the real and ideological threat has some how disappeared that “strategic” war against that enemy has lost it urgent nature and some criticism –especially after what has happened since that historic transformation- would not be so harmful. Probably they would help to show that democracy means fair judgment and search for the truth that differentiates democracy from other political regimes that cannot provide for that flexibility in the sphere of speech freedoms.
It appears there is some shift in the study of democracy in comparative politics towards the study of its quality. In “Assessing the quality of Democracy” the author wonders if the study of democracy should include thing like the economic performance and the rate of crimes and the like, should be part of the appraisal of democracy, or should democracy be evaluated aside from good governance being a way for choosing those who occupy office through election instead of other undemocratic ways that may include coercive forms like military coups.
What is democracy: Ronal Axtmann finds a new challenge for the concept of democracy. For if it had been as Abraham Lincoln says “the rule of people by people and for people,” it is not very clear today that liberal democracies can make similar claims. In cases like white settler’s countries like Canada, New Zealand, and the U.S the issue of multiple ethnicities seeking some rights including the indigenous people complicates the situation because they seek some rights that fluctuate between receding from the larger political unit and having some autonomy or at least some communal cultural rights.(Axtmann, cf.pp197-199).
On the other hand there is the conflict between national citizenship and a supposedly emerging international one. (Ibid, p201). Actually some people speak of a post-national citizenship. (p.203) this idea also brings the idea of the responsibility of the international community and especially the liberal democratic countries for the defense of democracy in the rest of the world. In this sense it looks that liberal democracies have a decent moral right to intervene in all possible ways to the extent that that intervention may undermine the sovereignty of those countries which violate liberal governance. (cf. p211)
Dahl is a basic name in the literature on democracy. He started his research on this topic almost more than half a century ago. Despite his (self-evident) thought development, he kept his youth faith in democracy which asserts that it is the best that we could have. In Democracy and its Critics (1989) he is still convinced that although democracy has its limits and the polyarchal democracy is not above critcism, this does not justify throwing the kid with bath water. One would notice with some ease that his arguments are rich in spite of his obvious blindness to some serious flaws in democratic theory and practice. For example when he rightly critiques Lenin (p.26) for the latter’s idea that the party has special knowledge (a vanguard party) that puts it above people as some sort of a guardian that would remind us of Plato’s philosopher’s, Dahl fails to notice that this may very easily backlash since the polyarchal democracy has turned in practice-if not also in theory- into some elitist politics when some part of the society forms some vanguard political class that does seriously all the “governing” when the people only vote and choose vaguely their representatives. Dahl proposes some five points criterion for good democracies that no “realistic” democracy has ever been able to achieve. (See p.26) However, this is not going to push him to discredit the existing democracies which may not help the reader think to tackle them as more than some wishful thinking or some theoretical model that does need necessarily to be applicable to any real situation. However, it looks that nothing can mount to the absolute undermining of a liberal democracy, not to mention an old well-established one like the U.S democracy. For instance Dahl would say that when the blacks were excluded in the American South, then only that part of the U.S was undemocratic. The country in general could still be a democracy. This is of course very apologetic and it can allow for any thing to take place in a country with out having the capacity to undermine democracy in general. However, one should remain cautious when judging Dahl because actually he is deeply aware of the limits of the real democratic regime which is merely a polyarchy that stops being so basically if it basically fails the test of free and competitive elections. Dahl’s critique of the American constitution is instructive in showing his deep sensitivity to the need for improving the quality of democracy on the one hand and the limits and constrains of reality on the other.
Dahl develops his position gradually to become more and more critical of the American democracy in particular and the performance of a polyarchy in general. He asserts (Dahl, 2001, cf. pp.52-53) that the system of representation especially in the American senate has favored many times the interests of the privileged. A very overt case is how it had favored the slave-owners instead of the slaves. In general, in the 19th century the Senate had been the graveyard of any legislation against slavery. The legislation could be ratified by the house only to be killed by the Senate. Dahl concludes his book by trying to explain what happened in the moment of the producing of the constitution. For him it looks that “Madison … leaned somewhat more toward aristocracy, limited suffrage, concern for property rights, and fear of the populace than toward a broadly based popular government more dependent on “the will of the people.””(Ibid, p. 160)Dahl is by all means aware of the social structure that had limited the democratic project of the founding fathers. However, he does not see that a similar social reality explains the prolonged life of that same constituting. He does not -despite the long and fruitful march that he makes between the 1950s and the 2000’s- find the underlining social reality of the current moment. I’ll visit Dahl’s arguments later when I discuss Saward’s book. In fact Dahl’s effect is present in the majority of the books that tackle this topic is a way or another.
Almost twenty years after Dahl’s Democracy and its Critics, O’Donnell revisits the Schumpeter’s democratic theory. He reproduces the very same features of democracy as a means for changing those who occupy office and the ability of repeating elections which implies a degree of freedom. However, this does not tackle the design of elections or questions whether it favors some social groups or interests at the expense of others. (cf, O’Donnel 2007, p.6) He keeps loyal to the long tradition that associates democracy with capitalism and liberalism (cfp.17-24) Drawing on a similar literature like that of Dahl he pays some serious attention to the need of democratic inclusion. And in this context he looks shying away from the Schumpeterian elitist position.
This by no means a claim that the ghost of Schumpeter –though through Dahl- is not there but I’ll go back to Schumpeter in a while. For what is related to O’Donnell himself, he thinks that a state is democratic if it adopts democracy (probably in this context there is a begging question fallacy but this is beside the point). So even if there is some violation of certain civil and social rights a state remains a democracy when it has elections (that is when it is a democracy?) according to his definition which basically comes from the realm of polyarchies. The definitions of a democracy require a state with some territory to determine who citizens are. In fact O’Donnell adopts the satisfaction of Dahl’s (seven) conditions as necessary for having political democracy or polyarchy but he adds some three conditions including not to be “arbitrarily” terminated before the end of their terms and also he adds a relatively vague condition that the territory of the voting population should not be contested. (O’Donnell2007p70).
Aside from O’Donnell definition of democracy which draw much on Dahl’s, the main contribution that O’Donnell makes is his differentiation between the horizontal and vertical accountability of a polyarchy.
The vertical accountability is the one that allows for a state’s regime to be recognized as a polyarchy. Here the case needs to satisfy Dahl’s criterion for polyarchies; mainly the fair elections and the coverage by media of the basic misdeeds that the pubic authorities may do. However, very few polyarchies in reality go beyond this. When it comes to the horizontal accountability very few countries meet the requirements. Actually some countries with relatively old democratic regimes like India (the world’s biggest democracy) do not fit in the horizontal accountability. So what makes this too difficult to be achieved? Let’s start by introducing O’Donnell’s definition of horizontal accountability which is the “… existence of state institutions that are legally enabled and empowered, and factually willing and able, to take actions that span from routine oversight to criminal sanctions or impeachment in relation to actions or omissions by other institutions of the state that may be qualified as unlawful.” (p.60) I have chosen to cite this –relatively long- definition in the author’s words to make it speak for it self. There is probably very little need to fight against this straw man for it is self-evident that there in no way what so ever to guarantee the willingness and ability of the state’s institution “to take actions”. The writer is by no means unaware of this impossibility even if he pays some lip service to trying to suggest ways to enhance horizontal accountability. He keeps warning the reader in every and each suggestion that there are some possible ways to bypass it and preserve the corrupt or whatever undesirable situation.(cf.pp67-69) Probably the author needs to revise his position to see that democracy in the way he looks for needs more elections. It probably needs some changes in the social structure that allows for some more egalitarian economic life. When the economic privileges of the elites in a polyarchy are threatened, I think not only in Latin America or even newly democratized countries, but probably in all polyarchies to use the author’s favorite word. It is not only that horizontal accountability is not possible in states like those in Latin America, but also the “vertical” democratic process its self will be held the moment some social powers would tries to manipulate the “democratic” situation to push for more rights, like say more economic egalitarianism. That is why the issue of enlarging the boundaries of vertical democratic practice remains to say the least highly doubtful.
In almost what might look like a response to O’Donnell horizontal accountability, Marc F. Plattner (in Diamond & Morlino, ed.2005, p.80) criticizes those who focus on the “quality of results” of democracy in the sense of economic growth or curtailing crime and corruption. He thinks that there are two different things that should not be confused, one is “democraticness” and the other is good governance. His approach-almost fits easily in the Schumpeterian tradition- allows for, seeing democracy as a pure political regime for harnessing some one in office. It is not about necessarily being more successful in issues like development or industrialization or economic performance than other regimes. However, the book in general tries to define the essential elements that distinguish democracy but actually do go beyond the realm of democratic elections. In five separate chapters various authors study the rule of law, accountability, freedom, addressing inequality, and responsiveness. I have no intention to claim that these studies are irrelevant to democracy. However, they fail to address to what extent these elements are empirical or normative ideas. If they are normative then they would be always contested by other scholars coming from other theoretical perspectives. And if they are empirical they should derive their criteria from the history and reality of democracies (=polyarchies) which actually they fail to meet. In Sumit Ganguly comparative study on India and Bangladesh the impression that the reader would be under is that the writer tends to simplify difficult questions by referring them to some factual events that would mount to begging the question. For example, India embraced the rule of law because it had done so from the beginning. This argument goes like India looks this way in the present because it looked this same way in the past. It is pretty clear that the question remains unanswered. (cf.p167)
Michael Saward (2003) discusses the quality of democracy in his book that has the same title, Democracy. He questions the idea and practice of democracy. And he finds it difficult to consider some country a democracy just because it has elections. Because he finds issues of money and its influence would definitely affect the process. He also thinks that the idea of the majority rule is misleading especially when it is a majority of a minority of the voices. Elections’ mechanism and rules in countries like the U.S make it some how questionable to trust the “democratic” processes to provide for something that represent the will of the people. (cf.p.8) In this sense he does not add nothing to Dahl’s reservations and his position remains favorable of some form of democracy no matter what.
Saward quotes Amartya Sen who thinks that the ball is in the court of those who dislike democracy to provide some argument for the rejection of democracy. So it looks as though democracy is the approved regime which does not need any support. On the contrary you need to make you case against democracy and struggle to discredit it. The writer is making use of Hobsbawm to support the issue that the case for democracy is almost always negative. And as Churchill used to say, democracy is bad except for that everything else is worse. (cf.p27) Hobsbawm position is by no means a mainstream one, for he asserts that market sovereignty is in reality an alternative to liberal democracy. They are not complimentary. And in this sense the limits of democracy is to be perceived of in the light of the contradiction between the two. (p.27)However, the writer wishes to find some positive argument in favor of democracy. But to do this one first needs to have her own interpretation of democracy since there is no one understanding of this contested word. (Same page).
In Saward’s search for a definition he draws on Joseph Schumpeter who defines democracy basically as a state in which people get the power by means of a competitive struggle for votes. Democracy then stands for merely a method. It has very little to do with ideals or ends. So the means and not the ends are at the heart of the issue of democracy. (Cf.p38-39). When it comes to the role of people, it is only that they vote for some individual or party, and then they leave it all to the elected elite. (cf.p41)
According to Saward three important writers on democracy Anthony Downs, Robert A. Dahl, and Arend Lijphart come from the Schumpeterian tradition. I’ll introduce the latter two, for the special effects and the strong voices that distinguish them and make their ideas still resonant in the literature. Dahl’s “polyarchy” is a very prominent concept that represents the standards of the “realist” position on democracy. He understands it as a historical outcome of a process of democratization and liberalization which resulted in a system that encourages the adaptation of those seeking office to the requirements of winning elections. (p.48)Saward discusses the seven-point institutions of polyarchy and compares them to the early 1956 book on the theory of democracy. He thinks that the older one was more focused on elections and voting in its formal sense. At that moment Dahl was interested in using the “descriptive method” that depends on studying the democracies in the real world. In this sense the idea of polyarchy is as Saward –and rightly I think – considers has description as its heart. Saward fails to notice that this simply means that what is called democracy in such a theory is what some political scientist takes it to be so. (Cfpp50-51)Probably some more skeptical scholar may find this a reflection of some ideological dominance of a main stream position. But to be fair to both of them Dahl moves forward in his later works. He starts –probably before Democracy and its Critics- to be more critical of the entrenched democracies especially the U.S liberal democracy.
Competitive elections and measurability and realism, besides the idea of description are the most important features of the post Schumpeterian political science themes on democracy. No wonder. It is the heyday of Nicholas Bourbaka, and the world of science was trying to fit within its criterion even if to some extent.
Lijpart pushes the discussion forward with his differentiation between the majoritarian and the consensus models of democracy. He includes the European Union in his list of democracies which is a new step because it is not a country or a nation. (cf.p.55).
But the Gramscian critiques lumps all previous authors and visions in one and only rhetoric claiming that it fails to see the unity behind the diversity. “Marxists argue that underneath the apparent competition and pluralism that authors such as Schumpeter and Dahl … emphasized, there is a unity of purpose which revolves around a ruling class defending its privileges.” (p.79) I do agree with Saward that Dahl –compared to the mainstream politics science-had grown a representative of a more radical position and started criticizing western polyarchy as being insufficient. He wonders how democracy could fit with governing states but not economic enterprises. That actually brought him significantly closer to the Marxian critique which focuses on the class content of democratic politics and the subtle ways of coercion and consent used to reproduce and perpetuate the economic and social inequalities.
Saward also sketches the feminist position which criticizes the public/private dichotomy in which women disappear from the public political life and are confined to the domestic life. In this context it looks according to feminism that the state and the civil society resemble the “sphere of culture, of men, of independence, of rationality and of citizen ship through civil and political rights. The private or domestic sphere, by contrast, is defined in terms of nature, women, dependence, instinct, uncertain citizenship status and social rights.” (p.81)The goal of women’s movement is no less than putting women equally on the political and social map of the society and the state.
The rise of women movements and other movements in response to new development in world’s politics and economy marks an era of increasing change in the effect and importance of governments that look -as Dahl might say- as local government. (p.96). The world political actors are so fragmented but also as Saward thinks the global order is very much less democratic.(same page)One of the things that gradually and increasingly threatening democracy is the rise of the role of the expertise in managing the government. This is a point that Dahl brings to attention in the 1980s and especially in Democracy and its Critics. Obviously Saward takes these very seriously. Another contemporary challenge is Islam. However, it is sad that a critical writer like Saward would address a worn out ideological issue like the fitness of Islam to democracy. (Cf.111-112).
To conclude Saward, his major theoretical suggestion is the need for reinventing democracy. People are growing more and more apathetic towards elections and voting and the like. Democracy is being largely discredited and there is a need for doing something to defend it. Being himself an advocate of direct democracy he looks forward to a future that may have a democracy with more room for deliberation and “reason-giving to shaping government” (p.142). The detachment of democracy from the nation-state and other elements like political ecology may appear in a more effective way. In one word he thinks that the building of democracy is far from being accomplished. However, his basic position is obviously very optimistic despite all the reservations that he proposes.
One of the harshest critiques of democracy is conducted by the Australian young philosopher Daniel Ross who thinks (Ross, 2004) that violence is an integral aspect of democracy. His idea is that “Violent means were always relative to and justified on the grounds of democratic ends, even when democracy perpetrated deadly violence.”(p.1) He thinks that there is some newness in the phenomenon of changing the state into a machine that deals basically with security. Besides that the state in the name of democracy does everything including the undermining of democracy itself. (cf.p2)
Ross’s position is some how far from being a dominant one. When we search other names we find that a pessimist vision is more European. In the American scholarship the heritage of Schumpeter through Dahl remains strong. Renske Doorenspleet is another political scientist who (2005) studies democracy and adopts a Dahl’s definition. (Doorenspleet, 2005, p14) He studies in a systematic way the modernization theory and the dependency and world system theories (cfpp87-130). The historical-structural approaches are also addressed with concentration on Barrington More and his best known work Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. He reminds us how Barrington study’s claim that capitalism lead to democracy under particular class structure is flawed by his neglecance of the working class. (p.75)At the end of his analytical and descriptive reading of various theories and approaches he concludes that a synthesis is to be done so as to capture how democracy and democratization work. He suggests that first the democracy’s theorists should apply a consistent definition of democracy-naturally he favors Dahl’s- and they should be strict when applying it. So he criticizes Huntington (p.164) for applying only the first condition of Dahl, that is competition, and ignoring inclusiveness and civil liberties. On the other hand he finds that three approaches altogether synthesized can explain democracy. They are the diffusion factor which works best when the neighbors are democratic countries. Second a certain level of development should be achieved. And third the position of a state in the world system has some indirect effect: if a state has more of a periphery position, then its democracy’s prospects are less. (cf.p169) The main conclusion here is that actually democracy cannot live in each and every soil. A more serious conclusion is that the field of comparative politics cannot claim any leverage when it comes to reading the future. The explanation of the existent reality with some “law-like” propositions is what a political scientist should aspire to achieve. (p.170)
It looks that –as I have said above- on the other side of the Atlantic people are more pessimistic even if they share the same language and similar traditions. Colin Crouch the British political scientist thinks that one should think that it is high time for perceiving the moment a post-democratic one. He thinks that democracy is weekend by the deterioration of the working class. He draws an analogy with early 20th century era when democracy was no more than the rule of some wealthy people. At that period, it worked for the interest of some parts of wealthy people.
Crouch starts by discussing the U.S literature on democracy since the cold war. He thinks that the democratic definitions starting from the reality of the U.S and U.K were more of an ideology than of science. The efforts of scientist like Almond and Verba are exemplary in this context. The contemporary study of democracy is no better. It is still ideological in the sense that it defines democracy as basically liberal. Crouch thinks that this copes with the U.S needs because that is the “type” of democracy prevailing in America at the moment. It is basically about electoral participation and freedom for lobbying which means more power for the business sector. Citizen involvement is so limited and the regime does nothing to encourage –if indeed there is any interest in so doing- people to be more involved. (Crouch, 2004, cfp.3) “Satisfaction with the un ambitious democratic expectations of liberal democracy produces complacency about the rise of what I call post democracy” (p.4)In this new situation while democracy is formally still there and even strengthened by new waves of democratization, the real economic and political powers are sinking almost like the pre-democratic times in the hands of some privileged elites. The story started in the 1980 with the shift towards the stock liberalization and gradually the share of the lower classes in the wealth has grown smaller and smaller. He thinks that marks a decline in both the economic and political democracy. (Cf.pp9-11)With the rise of Reaganism all these syndromes exacerbates and the “U.S concepts of democracy increasingly equated it with limited government within an unrestrained capitalist economy and reduced the democratic component to the holding of the elections.”(p.11).
The new liberal thought suggests that the state has lost its importance for people since they can take care of themselves. The welfare state has withered away and so the layman has no more interest in politics since it does not make any difference who occupies office. But as Crouch propose, the big business is not losing its interest in the state and it looks that the “lobbies” are clustering around their milking cow more than ever.(cf.p19) It looks as though the more the state withdraws for the lower classes, the more it becomes available for the higher class. The political and economic spheres are both falling in the hands of the same class.
In almost a world-system theory spirit Crouch warns that the globalization process concentrates capital and big business and fragment other parts of the population which makes all the aspects of social reality including democracy work in favor of increasing inequality and weakening the party that seeks the democratic enhancement of economic life. “The role of the state as policeman and incarcerator returns to prominence…etc” (p23). Actually the taxation starts to favor the rich. It is not that the state does not redistribute. It does but in a biased way that gives more to the haves and gives less to the have-nots.
Another important mechanism that helps in undermining democracy as it has been practiced since the Second World War is the concentration of power and knowledge in the hands of very few business chief executives who are regarded experts in running big firms that they’ve started running the government’s “firm” itself. In this way, in addition to their giant economic power that allows them to lobby the government effectively, they –and most importantly- have started to take over the government’s institution. Thus they directly dominate economy and politics. This applies most obviously to the American regime. (Cf43-44)In this case the private sector is being supported more than ever in a subtle way. For instance, a university or a local theatre is eligible to government funding if it first proves that it can attract the investment or support of some big business. In this mechanism the private sector not only dominates the funded institution by its own money but also it does this by virtue of being the sole gate for any funding including the “public” one. It looks that both the private and public, that is, all the possible sources are put under the domain of the decision makers in the private sector. Hence, one faces the unprecedented power of capital over society and state. (cf.45)A penetrating remark the writer makes is that in pre democratic times the class, which dominates economy, dominates also political life. Now it looks that through the growing dependence of government on the knowledge and expertise of this social elite, things are going to resemble pre democratic days.(pp50-51) A serious change that also has taken place is that party politics is no more an appropriate way to address social and political causes and this means that people should –and they are- shy away from party politics which actually puts the whole body of the idea of modern democracy in question and so brings the post-democratic era. In this new era if parties have to be preserved it would only be one mechanism for egalitarian pressure to change the course of events and to force the concession of big business. Other ways will include the resistance of new movements like feminist and ecological groups and the like. These new movements are still not completely harnessed, but the world is to witness some new spirit despite the mysterious political reality that looks blocking the prospects of the future. After all this was almost the case in the 19th and early 20th century.

Conclusion: In general the field of democracy has not been witnessing deep change in the latest few years. Actually it looks that drawing on Dahl is so prevalent that it is almost true that he is still the most prominent figure in the field. And it looks that basically the same issues are being discussed with some insignificant focus on globalization and its effect on democracy. The questions about the international morality and obligation toward world’s states and the need for their democratization is no new slogan, since the ideology of developing and modernizing the rest of the world has always been at stake as an excuse for intervention or even complete invasion of other countries. In some cases one would find very bizarre ideas like tribal democracy for those underdeveloped countries like Iraqi. A recent suggestion by Rand’s researchers Ghassan Shcbley and Theodore Karasik (washingtonpost.com April, 25, 2008) to establish a House of Tribes for Iraq is spectacular. It is pretty clear that for some, democracy does not have necessarily to mean any thing in particular. It could be anything and deal with any thing. But these issues are not yet settled in the literature, for it looks that a major issue in the study of democracy in the last few years has been how to qualify a state as democratic, and more abstractly how to qualify democracy as democratic.

Works cited:
-Guillermo O’Donnell: Dissonances, Democratic Critiques of Democracy, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, 2007.
-Renske Doorenspleet, Democratic Transitions: Exploring the Structural Sources of the Fourth Wave, Lynne Rinner Publishers, Inc.Boulder, colarado, 2005
-Colin Crouch, Post Democracy. Polity Press Ltd. Cambridge, UK, 2004.
Michael Saward, Democracy. Polity Press, Cambridge, UK, 2003
Partha Chtterjee, The Politics of the Governed, Columbia University Press, New York, 2004.

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