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- Title
The Measurement of Democracy: Towards a New Paradigm.
- Authors
Ringen, Stein
- Abstract
Mainstream political science on democracy has been criticised for 'regime bias'. This has led political scientists to draw on a narrow range of democratic theory that considers democratic potential only at the cost of ignoring democratic purpose, to ignore other units of observation than the regime, notably the individual citizen, and to overlook advances in measurement theory. A robust normative account of democratic quality, it is argued, should rest on three foundations. First, measurement should start with observations of the regime. No account of democratic quality should be considered valid without an account of the degree of democracy in the regime. This analysis should be grounded in standard democratic theory. Secondly, the measurement effort should follow through to observations of how the potential in the regime is manifested in the lives of citizens. No account of democratic quality should be considered valid without an account of how well the system delivers for citizens. This analysis should be grounded in a theory of the purpose of democracy. Thirdly, pronouncements on democratic quality should finally be made only from some combination or index of information from both systems analysis and individual analysis. That combined analysis should be grounded in measurement theory, specifically the law of methodological individualism and the principle of double book-keeping.
- Subjects
DEMOCRACY; PARADIGMS (Social sciences); MEASUREMENT; CITIZENS; POLITICAL philosophy; SYSTEM analysis; INDIVIDUALISM
- Publication
Society, 2011, Vol 48, Issue 1, p12
- ISSN
0147-2011
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s12115-010-9382-7