Making trade-offs visible: Theoretical und methodological considerations about the relationship between dimensions and institutions of democracy and empirical findings

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 not only the assessment of the quality of established democracies but identifying tensions resp. trade-offs between dimensions of democracy as well (e.g. Democracy Barometer). However, their approaches lack a systematic discussion about trade-offs and they are not able to demonstrate trade-offs empirically, which is very astonishing. These considerations demonstrate a significant research gap and the need for further research. We address this research desideratum in a two-step process: First, we present theoretical explications about the relationship between dimensions and institutions of democracy using the 15-Field-Matrix (Lauth 2015) as a baseline concept which distinguishes between essential democratic institutions (procedures of decision, regulation of the intermediate sphere, public communication, guarantee of rights and rules settlement/implementation) and three dimensions (political freedom, political equality and political and judicial control). By condensing these considerations into specific trade-offs, we underscore and exemplify our analytical arguments. Second, we identify basic methodological problems of the current approaches and develop a new strategy of evaluating indicators at the measurement stage. This methodological proposal allows to measure the theoretical suggested trade-offs. Linking the 15-Field-Matrix with the new Varieties-of-Democracy-Dataset, we make trade-offs in the empirical research visible and are able to provide evidence for profiles of democracies. This provides a reasonable database for the analysis of various processes of democratization.