But even these countries are experiencing strong pressure toward democratiza-
tion from both home and abroad. Globalized mass media constantly put rich people
on display as examples of “ordinary” citizens of the United States, Japan, or West-
ern Europe, thereby associating democracy with wealth, privilege, and power. Inter-
national humanitarian agencies often associate democracy with freedom and condemn
autocracies as necessarily oppressive. The only way to resist the pressure is to strictly
censor outside media, thereby transforming the state into a totalitarian regime.
Because every state, even the most authoritarian, claims to be democratic, it may
be useful to look not at official government structures but at how the government
actually works. Even when the democratic institutions are functioning properly, the
egalitarian ideals of democracy often fall short. In illiberal democraciessuch as
Singapore, officials are elected by the people, but they pay so little attention to the
constitution and other laws and to the opinions of their constituents that the coun-
try might as well be an oligarchy (Zakaria, 2004). But even the most scrupulously
observed democratic ideals can sometimes fall prey to corruption, bureaucracy,
marginalization of minority groups, and exclusion of the poor.
Problems of Political Systems
Democracies are messier than authoritarian systems; populations in open societies are
more difficult to control. But both authoritarian and democratic systems are prone
to the same types of problems.
POLITICAL SYSTEMS 463We generally
agree that
democracy is a
“good thing”
and that the more democratic a society
is, the better life is. But we don’t really
agree about how to measure democracy.
After all, a society in which the majority
rules could be one with no tolerance for
anyone not in the majority or one with
lots of tolerance. Social scientists have
developed three different methods to
measure democracy:
- Survey-based data identify public
perceptions of democracy. These
surveys ask questions related to
democracy, human rights, and
responsive government. Two
surveys that use these surveys are
the Global Barometer Surveys and
World Values Surveys, which now
contain data on 43 countries (see
Inglehart, 1997).- Standards-based data use specific
political ideals as their basis and
measure the extent to which those
ideals have been realized. These
ideals might include the constraints
on executive behavior, the extent of
“polyarchy” or rule by many different
people, competitiveness of the nomi-
nation process, or the extent of vio-
lations of individual rights (torture,
terror, political imprisonment, disap-
pearances). Freedom House offers a
seven-point scale of political and
social liberties that have measured
different countries since 1972.
Measuring Democracy
How do we know
what we know
Another standards-based measure
was offered by Finnish researcher
Tatu Vanhanen, who measures con-
testation and participation. Contes-
tation is measured by the smallest
political parties’ share of the vote,
and participation is measured by
voter turnout. These are multiplied
together and divided by 100 to
yield an “index of democratization”
for 187 countries (Vanhanen,
2000).- Events-based data count specific
events that promote or impede
democracy. These might include both
negative acts of discrimination, such
as corruption and violations of
human rights, and positive events,
like voter turnout and free and fair
elections. Events can be tallied from
newspapers or magazines or from
NGO networks and human rights
testimonies.
(Source:Landman, 2003)