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Making Trade-Offs Visible: Theoretical and Methodological Considerations about the Relationship between Dimensions and Institutions of Democracy and Empirical Findings

[journal article]

Lauth, Hans-Joachim
Schlenkrich, Oliver

Abstract

Whereas the measurement of the quality of democracy focused on the rough differentiation of democracies and autocracies in the beginning (e.g. Vanhanen, Polity, Freedom House), the focal point of newer instruments is the assessment of the quality of established democracies. In this context, tensions... view more

Whereas the measurement of the quality of democracy focused on the rough differentiation of democracies and autocracies in the beginning (e.g. Vanhanen, Polity, Freedom House), the focal point of newer instruments is the assessment of the quality of established democracies. In this context, tensions resp. trade-offs between dimensions of democracy are discussed as well (e.g. Democracy Barometer, Varieties of Democracy). However, these approaches lack a systematic discussion of trade-offs and they are not able to show trade-offs empirically. We address this research desideratum in a three-step process: Firstly, we propose a new conceptual approach, which distinguishes between two different modes of relationships between dimensions: mutual reinforcing effects and a give-and-take relationship (trade-offs) between dimensions. By introducing our measurement tool, Democracy Matrix, we finally locate mutually reinforcing effects as well as trade-offs. Secondly, we provide a new methodological approach to measure trade-offs. While one measuring strategy captures the mutual reinforcing effects, the other strategy employs indicators, which serve to gauge trade-offs. Thirdly, we demonstrate empirical findings of our measurement drawing on the Varieties of Democracy dataset. Incorporating trade-offs into the measurement enables us to identify various profiles of democracy (libertarian, egalitarian and control-focused democracy) via the quality of its dimensions.... view less

Keywords
democracy; quality; measurement; methodology

Classification
Basic Research, General Concepts and History of Political Science

Free Keywords
control-focused democracy; Democracy Matrix; egalitarian democracy; libertarian democracy; profile of democracy; trade-off; Varieties of Democracy

Document language
English

Publication Year
2018

Page/Pages
p. 78-91

Journal
Politics and Governance, 6 (2018) 1

Issue topic
Why Choice Matters: Revisiting and Comparing Measures of Democracy

ISSN
2183-2463

Status
Published Version; peer reviewed

Licence
Creative Commons - Attribution 4.0


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© 2007 - 2025 Social Science Open Access Repository (SSOAR).
Based on DSpace, Copyright (c) 2002-2022, DuraSpace. All rights reserved.