Between "democracy" and "non-democracy": measuring the quality of democracy

Abstract

When discussing the decline of democracy and the democratization of states, scholars often make a subjective distinction between democracy and non-democracy, specifically democracy and autocracy (authoritarian regimes). As democracy is an "essentially contested concept," there is no objective way to differentiate between democracy and non-democracy. Despite this, such a division is used in empirical research to analyse the democratic quality of states by categorizing them as democratic or not. Although this division is useful when attempting to understand complex issues, it is important to note that each distinction is by nature exclusive and could reduce our perspective. In the literature on democratization, there is a tendency to assume that establishing liberal democratic institutions is sufficient to democratize countries. This argument was also advanced by the proponents of the democratic peace thesis (claiming that liberal democracies do not wage war with each other). However, this specific understanding of democracy anchored in the Western liberal tradition not only prevents us from conceiving democracy in different terms but also damagingly categorizes whole societies that do not adhere to specific standards as nondemocratic. This ultimately places inquiries into democratic repair in a deadlock between (primarily liberal) democracy and autocracy, where a stance needs to be taken to defend democracy and a clear theoretical distinction needs to be made to legitimise a practical functioning political system as democratic. In consequence, this may lead to ignoring instances of democracy in non-democratic environments. Considering the above, this panel seeks papers that analyse and discuss how the quality of democracy should be conceptualized today, both in academia and beyond, in relation to the need to establish what is democracy and non-democracy. We encourage contributions that focus on novel ways of measuring the quality of democracy that would include, but are not limited to: ▪️ justifying the employment of the democracy vs non-democracy distinction; ▪️ problematising and/or transcending the distinction, for example in relation to States; ▪️ engaging in measuring the quality of democracy beyond (or below) the State.