2.2 Democracy in political science As we saw in the previous chapter, political scientists strive to use empirical evidence to measure and test ideas. So if we hope to do this for democracy, then we need a more specific definition than we have discussed so far. We need to know what is required to classify a country as being democratic or non-democratic. In political science, there are two main types of definitions of democracy: what we shall call ‘procedural’ and ‘substantive’ definitions. Robert Dahl’s (1971) starting point in his definition of democracy was that democracy was about political equality and giving everyone an equal voice in saying how a state should be governed. He then specified what procedures or institutions were required to deliver democratic political equality. According to Dahl’s definition, if any one of these features is absent, then that society is a non-democracy: • free and fair elections • universal suffrage • the policies a government passes depend on the election result • citizens have the right to stand as candidates • freedom of expression and information • freedom of association. A similar approach to defining democracy had come earlier from Karl Popper. He also placed the emphasis on the procedures required to underpin democracy and he gave a very minimal definition. For Popper, the only thing that is required for a state to be considered a democracy is that its citizens are able to remove a government from power. Dahl and Popper were interested in refining a procedural definition of democracy, or a definition that classified systems of government according to whether or not certain procedures and institutions are in place. This appealed to them because they felt that it would help political scientists to find real world examples of democracy and to know very easily if a state is democratic or not. In contrast, some scholars support more substantive definitions of democracy and they argue that specifying the procedural elements of democracy is not enough. Rather, definitions of democracy also need to take into account the substance of what democracy is about and what it aims to achieve. Under a procedural definition, it is possible to find states that have all of these features in place, but without actually being a democracy. For example, Singapore today, it could be argued, has all of these procedures in place but many people do not tend to think of Singapore as a democracy because it does not actually have competitive elections. In an attempt to build the substance of democracy into his definition, Schumpeter drew attention to the importance of political elites competing among each other to win the votes of citizens. He defined democracy as a system in which ‘individuals acquire the power to decide [political decisions] by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote’ (1942, p.50). According to his definition, democracy is characterised by rival groups of elites competing to govern and the people choosing between these rival groups. A similar emphasis can be detected in one of the most prominent definitions of measuring democracy in political science by Przeworski et al. (2000). The authors’ definition emphasises four different aspects that must be present in order for a state to be classified as democratic. These are as follows: 1. The chief executive is elected. 2. The legislature is elected. 3. There is more than one party competing in elections. 4. An alteration in power under identical electoral rules has taken place. In this definition, Przeworski et al. acknowledge the importance of having elections, but they also realise that elections alone are not enough for a country to be described as democratic. They argue that there must also be at least two parties competing in the elections and, crucially, there must be a turnover of power. These features are crucial to ensure that the substance of democracy is present. The distinction between procedural and substantive definitions of democracy can be seen by looking at two particular cases. independence from Britain in 1966 until the present day, Botswana has been ruled by representatives from the Botswana Democratic Party. During this time all the procedures identified by Dahl have been in place and under a procedural definition it would qualify as a strong democracy. However, without any test of the willingness of the governing party to step down from power upon losing an election, it could not be considered a democracy under Przeworski et al.’s substantive definition. Similarly, in Mexico the Institutional Revolutionary Party held power, including the presidency, from its formation in 1929 until 1997 when it lost its majority in the Congress and 2000 when it lost the presidency. Once again, during this time there were certainly free and fair elections held on a regular basis, but without any alternation in power Mexico was not considered to be a democracy by many scholars until 2000.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 13:26:14 +0000
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