How To Do Democracy: A Thought Experiment
Image: By @cottonbro https://www.pexels.com/
I teach comparative politics to undergraduate students. One of the early units in the course focuses on Democracy. While all my students have a cursory understanding of democracy in practice, they have less of a grasp on Democracy as a concept. As an exercise, I ask them to tackle this thought experiment, “what is Democracy, and do we have it?” Responses come flying in like darts, circling around the bullseye, some closer than others, but none landing squarely on it. Why? Because Democracy is a concept, and a concept is like the wind; they cannot be measured, quantified, or explored directly. We must look around the physical world and try to find evidence of whether a concept is present. Democracy is a particularly elusive concept for political scientists to definitively measure. Each of us individually thinks we know what it is, but to really nail it down proves challenging.
Academics working in this area have spent a great deal of effort to define and measure Democracy. Early conceptualizations of Democracy revolved around two primary things: contestation and inclusion. In other words, are elections competitive, and do most (or ideally all) citizens get to participate in the process? Nowadays, there are two leadings operationalizations of Democracy that move beyond this early contestation and inclusivity frame. The first school of thought argues that we should measure Democracy by focusing on inputs. Inputs are institutional features that suggest that country has a democratic process. Inputs include things like free and fair elections, executive constraints, an independent judiciary, an open press, etc. This measure is called Polity, and it is the most common measure of democracy used in political science. The second school of thought is that we should measure democracy by its outputs. Here scholars argue that if Democracy is present, we will be able to observe it in the way the citizens live their lives. This measure is called Freedom House. In order to score countries, Freedom House examines civil liberties and the types of freedoms that are outlined for Americans in the first amendment (freedom of speech, press, religion, petition, and assembly).
During this election season, I would urge all voters to engage in this thought experiment, “What is Democracy, and do we have it?” Considering the early paradigm of the dual facets of democracy, contestation and inclusion, do we check both boxes? One might consider the number of disenfranchised voters or the nature of our limited two-party system as prohibiting factors. Moving to Polity, or the measure that considers the inputs of democracy, do we have a truly free press? Is our judicial branch becoming increasingly less independent? Is the executive branch overstepping constraints in new ways (considering this administration but also prior administrations)? Are there ways to make our institutions more representative? Moving to Freedom House, or the outputs of democracy, are our First Amendment rights still as protected as they ought to be? Are civil liberties being upheld for all groups? Are there ways to secure more freedoms for more groups?
As we go to the polls soon, or the envelope for a mail in ballot, I hope that we take a pause to consider which candidate will move us closer to Democracy. There is still a wide gap to close between our practicing democracy and Democracy as a concept. We must reflect on the reality of this gap during election season.
Resources and Readings:
Polity VI Measure: https://www.systemicpeace.org/polityproject.html
Freedom House Measure: https://freedomhouse.org/
Jaclyn Johnson, PhD is a political scientist. Her research and teaching interests relate to International and Civil Conflict, Coup D’états, State Failure, Protests and Civil Unrest. Her experience includes teaching at small liberal arts colleges and large research universities, and working as a Research Assistant at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Nuclear Nonproliferation and Safeguards group.