"Least Bad" is Better than Perfect: Shifting the Democracy Paradigm

A wide range of evidence points to an ongoing decline in the quality of democracy around the world. As popular satisfaction with and support for democracy also wanes, it is clear that democracy has not "triumphed" and that the surge of democratic openings in the late 1990s did not mark the "end of history." As declines have become more clear, including in long-standing democracies, there has been growing concern about the future of democratic institutions and the legitimacy of the democratic model. Two problems with the current paradigm that defines democracy and democratization are its linear orientation and its description of democracy as a wholly positive destination. It is often assumed that models of governance progress on a straight path toward "democracy" and that the destination is "all things bright and beautiful" (Beetham 2005). In reality, however, democratization is rarely straight-forward, and it is not uncommon for countries to both experience simultaneous advances and declines and to fall back for a period along a longer term positive trajectory. Additionally, given the lack of consensus about what defines a democracy, it can be unclear how to determine when a country has achieved this status, and such a determination can even be contentious. Considerations from postcolonial studies are instructive. For example, "orientalism" describes how western scholars contemptuously described, exoticized and over-generalized the East in ways that justified and propagated imperialism (Said 1978). Similarly, the current paradigm of studying democracy idealizes and reifies the concept, stripping it of its nuance and delegitimizing alternative ideas that stray from the dominant liberal model. In many cases, this allows western countries to remain models and makes it easy to overlook or neglect the problems that plague them. A more useful paradigm may be one in which democracy is understood not as an ideal but as the "least bad" option available, full of its own faults and weaknesses but a model nonetheless worth using. In this paradigm, issues like democracy’s foundational inequalities (Greek democracy, often seen as the origin of this model of governance, excluded women and slaves) and what has often become an over-institutionalization of democratic mechanisms (such as oligarchic media ownership, opaque or non-existent campaign finance rules, systematic disenfranchisement of minority groups) are recognized and interrogated. Such an approach is useful for a number of reasons. First, by valuing the path of democratization instead of just the end goal, it opens useful research pathways related to non-linear democratization. Such research could yield important lessons for countries that are situated all along the spectrum of democratization. Second, it breaks down the taboo associated with criticizing certain aspects of democracy, which allows for a deeper understanding of why and how democracy can cause harm. Such an understanding can lead to mitigation strategies and ultimately to stronger democracies. Third, it breaks down the assumption that western countries are model democracies, opening up important discussions about the flaws that stand in the way of further democratization.