In What Way Can Crises Impact on the Qualities of Democracies? Towards an Analytical Framework

This paper will propose a coherent framework for a systematic assessment of the effects of different forms of crises, e.g. economic crises, socio-cultural frictions or the threat of terrorism, on the qualities of established democracies. Proposals to empirically capture the concept of crisis rarely go beyond broad conceptions such as differentiating between acute and latent crises which are insufficient for a systematic evaluation. Thus, it is the aim of this paper to develop a more coherent framework. The first layer of the framework consists of a crisis typology with two dimensions: (1) causes vs. effects and (2) short-term vs. long-term. This generates a 2x2 matrix in which we can sort different forms of crisis, their causes and effects. On the second layer of the framework a categorization of deficiencies is developed. The most obvious defect is the decrease in democratic quality on a certain (sub)dimension, such as electoral participation. But this is certainly not the only kind of flaws and defects that can occur in a democratic polity. Other forms are, e.g., subversions of democratic components, trade-offs between (sub)dimensions, or the imbalance of (sub)dimensions over others. These types of deficiencies can occur in three arenas: (1) the rights that constitute a certain democratic (sub)dimension, (2) the functions which they fulfill, or (3) the institutions which perform these functions. As an empirical example, the framework will be briefly applied to the democratic qualities of the United States. It will be demonstrated that the proposed framework is not only able to structure the assessment of crises and flaws in democratic qualities; it also helps us to think systemically about the kind of reforms and democratic innovations we should develop to tackle these deficiencies in advanced democracies.