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Democratic Performance (democratic + performance)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences100%

Selected Abstracts

Differentiating the democratic performance of the West

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 3 2003
JOE FOWERAKER
It is a commonplace of comparative politics that the democratic performance of the established democracies of the West is both uniform and superior to that of other democracies across the globe. This commonplace both reflects and reinforces the mainstream measures of democracy, like those of Freedom House or Polity III, that fail to differentiate the democratic performance of the West. This article examines this commonplace by deploying the measures of democratic performance contained in the newly constructed Database of Liberal Democratic Performance, and uses descriptive statistics (means and variance) to compare the performance of individual Western democracies, as well as the West overall with the ,rest'. The Database is designed to capture a wider normative range of performance than the mainstream measures, and shows that the performance of the West is neither uniform nor superior in every respect, especially with regard to civil and minority rights. These findings are explored and confirmed by comparative case studies of minorities in the criminal justice systems of those Western democracies that tend to perform worst in this respect. In conclusion, it is suggested that the findings may begin to change the way we view the relationships between economic growth and democracy, political culture and democracy, and even constitutional design and democracy. [source]

The Uneven Performance of Third Wave Democracies: Electoral Politics and the Imperfect Rule of Law in Latin America

LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 3 2002
Joe Foweraker
ABSTRACT This article investigates the performance of the new democracies of the third wave by developing a conceptual model of the core elements of liberal democratic government and by constructing a new Database of Liberal Democratic Performance. The performance is shown to be uneven in two main ways. First, the institutional attributes of democratic government advance while individual and minority rights languish. Second, particular institutional attributes coexist uncomfortably, as do particular rights. A comparison of Brazil, Colombia, and Guatemala complements the big picture drawn from the database and focuses on the specific contextual conditions that can create the general political contours of the wave. The uneven democratic performance of these cases is mainly explained by the combination of persistent oligarchic power and a largely unaccountable military. Yet uneven performance, and the imperfect rule of law in particular, does not necessarily prevent democratic survival. [source]

Differentiating the democratic performance of the West

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 3 2003
JOE FOWERAKER
It is a commonplace of comparative politics that the democratic performance of the established democracies of the West is both uniform and superior to that of other democracies across the globe. This commonplace both reflects and reinforces the mainstream measures of democracy, like those of Freedom House or Polity III, that fail to differentiate the democratic performance of the West. This article examines this commonplace by deploying the measures of democratic performance contained in the newly constructed Database of Liberal Democratic Performance, and uses descriptive statistics (means and variance) to compare the performance of individual Western democracies, as well as the West overall with the ,rest'. The Database is designed to capture a wider normative range of performance than the mainstream measures, and shows that the performance of the West is neither uniform nor superior in every respect, especially with regard to civil and minority rights. These findings are explored and confirmed by comparative case studies of minorities in the criminal justice systems of those Western democracies that tend to perform worst in this respect. In conclusion, it is suggested that the findings may begin to change the way we view the relationships between economic growth and democracy, political culture and democracy, and even constitutional design and democracy. [source]

Assessing Democracy in a Contested Polity

JCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 4 2001
Christopher Lord
After reviewing difficulties with the literature on the democratic deficit, this article concludes that a method is needed for assessing democracy in a political system where there is fundamental agreement on what would constitute adequately democratic institutions. It then goes on to explore two suggestions for such a method: the development of well-specified indicators of democratic performance for contrasting ideal-types of Euro-democracy; and the attribution of self- and peer assessments to institutional actors with competing perspectives on democratic standards in the EU. [source]