‘Good’ and ‘bad’ democracies: how to conduct research into the quality of democracy

Abstract

The analysis of the quality of democracy requires a joint definition of democratic quality – that is, a definition of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ democracies. Its complex nature necessitates the introduction of five principal dimensions – the rule of law, accountability, responsiveness, freedom and equality/solidarity – for empirical definition of the democratic quality and, more importantly, for the identification of the factors that subvert the democratic balance in old and new regimes. This analytical framework differs from other studies by advancing the importance of combining both quantitative and qualitative measures in studying the quality of democracy.

Defining democracy

What is a ‘good’ democracy?

The analysis of the quality of democracy – that is, an empirical scrutiny of what ‘good’ democracy is about – requires not only that we have a definition of democracy, but also that we establish a clear notion of quality.

The minimal definition of democracy1 suggests that such a regime has at least universal, adult suffrage; recurring, free, competitive and fair elections; more than one political party; and more than one source of information. In addition, democratic institutions, existing rights and also the decision making process should not be constrained by non-elected elites or external powers.2 Among the countries that meet these minimal criteria, further empirical analysis is still necessary to detect the degree to which they have achieved the two main objectives of an ideal democracy: freedom and equality.

Thus, the analysis of a ‘good democracy’ should theoretically set alongside those regimes that are to varying degrees deficient in principal democratic features. Amongst them are hybrid regimes,3 whose failure to ensure free and fair electoral competition and a minimum level of civil rights keeps them below the minimum threshold to be classified as democratic. Likewise, the defective democracies 4 should also be left out of the analysis. This category includes ‘exclusive’ democracies, which offer only limited guarantees for political rights; ‘dominated’ democracies, in which powerful groups use their influence to condition and limit the autonomy of elected leaders; and ‘illiberal’ democracies, which offer only partial guarantees of civil rights. In reality, the last three models may also be seen as institutional hybrids, and thus fall short of the minimum threshold specified above.

Deficient democracy is a recurrent expression used to depict East European regimes, but it often bears a different meaning. These are regimes that have just overcome the minimal democratic threshold, but still experience problems of consolidation. By displaying minimal requirements for democracy, they differ from hybrid regimes (see above) and can be included in the analysis here.

Delegative democracy, sometimes referred to as populist democracy, also falls well within the scope of this analysis, having overcome the necessary threshold. These regimes are usually based on a majority system, and host relatively ‘clean’ elections; parties, parliament and the press are usually free to express their criticisms, and the courts block unconstitutional policies.5 In practice, however, citizens of these democracies, which O'Donnell finds in Latin America, for example, ‘delegate others to make decisions on their behalf’, such that they no longer have the opportunity to check and evaluate the performance of their officials once they are elected. Other bodies of government, even those meant for this purpose, neglect or fail to carry out their watchdog functions, and consequently the rule of law is only partially or minimally respected.6

The second step in evaluating ‘good’ and ‘bad’ democracies requires a clear definition of ‘quality’. The use of the term in the industrial and marketing sectors suggests three different meanings of quality. First, quality is defined by the established procedural aspects associated with each product – a ‘quality’ product is the result of an exact, controlled process carried out according to precise, recurring methods and timing: here the emphasis is on the procedure. Second, quality consists of the structural characteristics of a product, be it the design, materials or functioning of the good, or other details that it features: here the emphasis is on the contents. Finally, the quality of a product or service is indirectly derived from the satisfaction expressed by the customer, by their requesting again the same product or service, regardless of either how it is produced or what the actual contents are, or how the consumer goes about acquiring the product or service: such an interpretation suggests that the quality is based simply on result.

The three different notions of quality are thus grounded in either procedures, contents or results. Each has different implications for the empirical research. Importantly, even with all the adjustments demanded by the complexity of the ‘object’ under examination – namely, democracy – it is still necessary to keep these conceptualizations of quality in mind as we elaborate definitions and models of democratic quality.

Moving from these premises, a definition of democratic quality will be suggested in the following section. Furthermore, the principal dimensions of democratic quality will be evaluated with a particular emphasis on the betrayal and circumvention of quality goals. In the final section a comparative conclusion will be drawn and a few issues will be pointed out for further discussion.

What is the ‘quality’ of democracy?

Starting from the definition above, and from the prevailing notions of quality, a quality or ‘good’ democracy may be considered to be one presenting a stable institutional structure that realizes the liberty and equality of citizens through the legitimate and correct functioning of its institutions and mechanisms. A good democracy is thus first and foremost a broadly legitimated regime that completely satisfies citizens (‘quality’ in terms of ‘result’). When institutions have the full backing of civil society, they can pursue the values of the democratic regime. If, in contrast, the institutions must postpone their objectives and expend energy and resources on consolidating and maintaining their legitimacy, crossing even the minimum threshold for democracy becomes a remarkable feat. Second, a good democracy is one in which the citizens, associations and communities enjoy liberty and equality (‘quality’ in terms of ‘content’). Third, in a good democracy the citizens themselves have the power to check and evaluate whether the government pursues the objectives of liberty and equality according to the rule of law. They monitor the efficiency of the application of the laws in force, the efficacy of the decisions made by government, and the political responsibility and accountability of elected officials in relation to the demands expressed by civil society (‘quality’ in terms of ‘procedure’).

With the above in mind, five possible dimensions can be indicated here, along which good democracies may vary. The first two are procedural dimensions. Although related to the contents, these dimensions mainly concern the rules. The first procedural dimension is the rule of law; the second is accountability.7 The third dimension concerns the responsiveness or correspondence of the political decisions to the desires of the citizens and civil society in general. The final two dimensions are substantive in nature: the penultimate one refers to civil rights expanded through the achievement of certain freedoms; and the final one refers the progressive implementation of greater political, social and economic equality. These five dimensions will be further elaborated in three sections below. Before undertaking this, several general considerations will be emphasized.

The analytical framework proposed here differs somewhat from other studies on the quality of democracy, such as those of Altman and Perez-Linan8 and of Lijphart.9 Both of these develop a quantitative comparative strategy. Here we stress the virtuous combination of qualitative and quantitative measures in the empirical analysis of the phenomenon. The differences also emerge in the definition of a good democracy, the dimensions of variation and related indicators of quality proposed above. Altman and Perez-Linan draw on Dahl's concept of polyarchy (civil rights, participation and competition) and may fit into the first substantive dimension indicated above as well as into the procedural dimensions. Conversely, Lijphart's inclusion into the analysis of the quality of democracy of such dimensions as female representation, electoral participation, satisfaction with the democracy, and corruption, coincide closely with the five dimensions mentioned.

The institutions and mechanisms of representative democracies are the main objects of the analysis of the quality of democracy. This is not to ignore direct democracy as the highest expression of democratic quality, but to acknowledge the secular experience of representative democracies and their actual potential for improvement. If the analysis has to be focused on representative democracies, then accountability – a core feature in the experience of representative democracy – becomes a truly central dimension in so far as it grants citizens and civil society in general an effective means of control over political institutions. This feature attenuates the difficulties that exist objectively when there is a shift from direct to representative democracy.

Accountability is implicitly based on two assumptions from the liberal tradition that highlight the interconnected nature of all of the dimensions explained above. The first assumption is that, if citizens are genuinely given the opportunity to evaluate the responsibility of government in terms of the satisfaction of their own needs and requests, they are in fact capable of doing so, possessing above all a relatively accurate perception of their own needs. The second assumption is that citizens, either alone or as part of a group, are the only possible judges of their own needs: no third party can decide those needs. To leave these assumptions unmentioned is mistaken; they should instead be stated and taken into account from the outset. It is also erroneous to consider each of them as a mere ideological choice. It is instead important to acknowledge that Western democracies have followed a liberal-democratic trajectory and that any concrete analysis of the quality of democracy must take this into account, and also the shift in a direction marked by more egalitarian choices. Those assumptions refer only to vertical accountability, however, and will be further examined in the next section.

Freedom and equality, however they are understood, are necessarily linked to accountability and responsiveness. Indeed, a higher implementation of freedom and equality for citizens and civil society lies in the sphere of representative mechanisms. In addition, effective rule of law is also indispensable for a good democracy. The rule of law is intertwined with freedom in the respect for all those laws that directly or indirectly sanction those rights and their concrete realization. As the next section will explain, freedom, equality and even accountability are actually unobtainable if respect for law is ineffective or the government and the administration do not grant decisional efficacy. These are fundamental preconditions necessary for deciding and carrying out policies to achieve a better democratic quality.

The main subjects of such a democracy are the citizen-individuals, the territorial communities, and the various formal and informal associations with common values, traditions or aims. In this sense, the possibility of good democracy exists not only in the case of a defined territory with a specific population controlled by state institutions under a democratic government, but also of broader entities such as the European Union. The main point is that the above-named subjects are at the heart of a democracy in which the most important processes are those that work ‘bottom-up’ rather than ‘top-down’. In this way, the transfer of analytical dimensions from the national level to the supranational level – although not uncomplicated and without difficulty – is possible. The key is to hold constant the same elements characteristic of each dimension.

The necessity of capturing the empirical complexity of the notion of ‘quality’ democracy motivates the employment of the five dimensions elaborated above. This elaboration pinpoints two aspects of each dimension: each might vary from the others in terms of a form and of a degree of development. That being the case, the analysis calls for indicators, certain measures that reveal how and to what degree each dimension is present not only in different countries, but also in various models of good democracy. These empirical data should also enable the eventual tracking of the growth of quality democracies.

Moreover, such a multidimensional analysis is also justified by the possibility of accepting in this way a pluralist notion of quality. That is, the contents, the procedure and the result also correspond to three different conceptions of quality. And each conception has its own ground in terms of values and ideals. In other words, if the notion of democratic quality is to come out of the realm of utopia and become a legitimate topic of empirical research, then multidimensionality is essential to capture it empirically, as is the related acknowledgement that different, equally possible, notions of quality are likewise necessary in order to proceed in that direction. The different policy implications of such pluralism should not be ignored.

The procedural dimensions

Rule of law

The line of reasoning set out above brings us to a closer analysis of the constituent dimensions of democratic quality, the essential conditions for their existence, and the numerous and related problems associated with the empirical study. The procedural dimensions are considered in this section. The first procedural dimension encompasses decisional output and its implementation, and is constituted by the rule of law. The second concerns the relationship between input and output and refers to accountability. A large body of literature already exists that discusses these two dimensions.10 Here, each dimension will be analysed with reference to four aspects: the empirical definition, the main indicators, the attempts and practice of its subversion, and the central condition or conditions.

The rule of law is not only the enforcement of legal norms. Rather, it connotes the principle of the supremacy of law, and entails at least the capacity, even if limited, to make the authorities respect the laws, and to have laws that are not retroactive, and are available to the public, universal, stable and unambiguous.11 These characteristics are fundamental for any civil order and constitute a primary requirement for democratic consolidation,12 along with other basic qualities such as civilian control over the military.

With regard to the rule of law and its enforcement we can identify a number of key features for a ‘good democracy’. These include the following:

1.	the equal enforcement of law towards everyone, including all state officials: that is to say, all individuals are equal under the law and no one is above the law, also at supranational level;
2.	the supremacy of the legal state, meaning that no areas are dominated by organized crime, even at a local level;
3.	no corruption in the political, administrative and judicial branches;
4.	the existence of a local, centralized civil bureaucracy that competently, efficiently and universally applies the laws and assumes responsibility in the event of an error;
5.	the existence of an efficient police force that respects the individual rights and freedoms guaranteed by law;
6.	equal, unhindered access of citizens to the judicial system in case of lawsuits between private citizens or between private citizens and public institutions;
7.	reasonably swift resolution of criminal inquiries and of civil and administrative lawsuits;
8.	independence of the judiciary from any political influence;
9.	ability of the courts to have their rulings enforced;
10.	supremacy of the Constitution, interpreted and defended by a Constitutional Court.

All the above concern the effective implementation of the law and the fair resolution of lawsuits within the legal system. Various indicators can represent each one and the relevant data can be analysed on a case-by-case basis using both qualitative and quantitative techniques. The main characteristics, and the degree to which the rule of law is respected, can be reconstructed for each case in each country.13

It should be emphasized, even if only in passing, that the analysis implicitly proposed here would be extremely expensive and practically impossible to apply to a high number of cases. The level of detail and thoroughness built into the investigation is meant for a limited number of cases, yielding the best results for a project aimed at examining few countries. Additional cases would require a reduction in the number of variables and the elimination of some dimensions. Those that should necessarily be kept in the empirical analysis, even in a quantitative analysis involving many cases, include the detection of (i) the possible presence of mafias that become a territorial limitation to the rule of law; (ii) the civilian control of military and police; (iii) the level of corruption, with whatever data are available on the phenomenon; (iv) the access of citizens to the court system; and finally (v) the duration of legal proceedings using the pertinent judiciary statistics.

It is clear, however, that these indicators can provide only an incomplete illustration of the phenomenon.

A closer look at the specific problems of implementation should be accompanied by certain awareness of some opposing forces, which here can be defined as forces subverting the quality of democracy. Within a well-established democratic regime none would dare to challenge the democratic dimensions openly, but the political elite and other actors may try to circumvent, betray or subvert these dimensions or their aspects.

Thus, a rigorous application of laws, or, in certain cases, the relationship with a superficially efficient bureaucracy, can have particularly negative consequences for socially weak and vulnerable members of society.14 Then, there is the possible use of the law as a genuine ‘political weapon’.15 Here we see a persistent temptation for politicians to use the law against their adversaries. Politicians are also tempted to use judicial acts to reinforce their own positions against the opposition. In other cases, when there is collusion among politicians, the judges themselves, with the support of the media, are tempted to turn to the judiciary in retaliation for certain political decisions that they consider unacceptable. On a different level, there is also a growing tendency among individual citizens or economic groups to resort to the law to assert their own interests: some scholars label this phenomenon a ‘juridification’ of contemporary democracy. Finally, and not altogether different, is the popular cultural attitude that interprets the law as a severe impediment to realizing one's own interests that should be circumvented in any way possible. This attitude, common in various countries throughout the world, from Southern Europe to Latin America and also Eastern Europe, extends from the popular to the entrepreneurial classes. The Italians often say ‘fatta la legge, trovato l'inganno’ suggesting that ‘fraud goes hand in hand with law’.

In summary, the empirical analysis of the democratic rule of law should be done carefully, with attention to the attempts and practice of its subversion that powerfully work against its actual realization. Rule of law remains an essential feature of democratic quality, and it plays a very important role for the existence and development of the other dimensions. What, then, are the fundamental conditions that allow for at least a moderate development of the rule of law? Research on various dimensions of this theme suggests that the diffusion of liberal and democratic values among both the people and, especially, the elite, complemented by the existence of the bureaucratic traditions and by the legislative and economic means essential for its full implementation, are the necessary conditions for the democratic rule of law.

However, these conditions exist in very few countries, and they are very difficult to create. Consequently, it is also difficult to cultivate this dimension of democratic quality. The most reasonable strategy would be to proceed incrementally, following the lines and objectives that have been set out above. This strategy is inherently critical of Putnam's conclusion that the institutional contours of a specific democratic regime are fixed in the oldest civic traditions of that country, and that national institutions change slowly.16

Accountability

The second dimension of democratic quality is the obligation of elected political leaders to answer for their political decisions when asked by citizen-electors or other constitutional bodies. Schedler suggests that accountability has three main features: information, justification, and punishment or compensation.17 The first element – information on a political act or series of acts by a politician or political body (the government, parliament and so on) – is indispensable for attributing responsibility. The second – justification – refers to the reasons furnished by the governing leaders for their actions and decisions. The third, punishment or compensation, is the consequence drawn by the elector or some other person or body following an evaluation of the information, justifications and other aspects and interests behind the political act. All three of these elements require the existence of a public dimension characterized by pluralism and independence and the real participation of a range of individual and collective actors.

Accountability can be either vertical or horizontal.18 Vertical accountability is when electors can make their elected official responsible for their actions. This first type of accountability has a periodic nature, and is dependent on the various national, local and (if they exist) supranational election dates. The voter decides and either awards the incumbent candidate or slate of candidates with a vote in their favour, or else punishes them by voting for another candidate, abstaining from the vote, or spoiling the ballot. The actors involved in vertical accountability are the governors and the governed, and thus they are politically unequal. This dimension of democratic quality can become less intermittent only if one considers the various electoral occasions at the local, national and, for European citizens, supranational levels. Continuity is also supported when citizens can vote in referendums on issues regarding activity of the central government.

Horizontal accountability holds when governors are responsible to other institutions or collective actors that possess the expertise and power to control the behaviour of the governors. In contrast to vertical accountability, the actors are for the most part political equals. Horizontal accountability is relatively continuous, being formally or substantially formalized by law. In practice, it is usually manifest in the monitoring exercised by the governmental opposition in parliament, by the various assessments and rulings emitted by the court system, if activated, and by constitutional courts, agencies of auditing, central banks and other bodies of a similar purpose that exist in democracies. Political parties outside parliament also exercise this kind of control, as do the media and other intermediary associations, such as unions and employers' associations.19

Certain underlying conditions must exist to ensure that the two forms of accountability can be fully claimed. For vertical accountability, political competition and the distribution of power must at least be fair enough to allow for genuine electoral alternatives at the various levels of government. Altman and Perez-Linan's focus on competition and their development of an indicator that measures the ‘balanced presence of opposition in parliament’ should be mentioned here. This indicator has a negative value when the governing party dominates the legislature in terms of seats or when the opposition is so strong that it poses problems for the decision-making efficacy of the government. The absence of alternation and bipolarism between two parties, or between party lines or coalitions, diminishes the importance and force of vertical accountability. If it exists, it is relevant only at the level of individual candidates.

The presence of horizontal accountability instead hinges on a legal system that, as mentioned above, provides for the exertion of checks and balances by other public entities that are independent of the government, and not competing as an alternative to it. This form of accountability demands strong and well-established intermediary structures (such as parties); a responsible, vigilant political opposition; independent media that are conscious of their civil function; and a well-developed network of active, informed organizations and associations that share democratic values.

Given the opacity and complexity of political processes, politicians have ample opportunity to manipulate their contexts in such a way as to absolve themselves of any tangible responsibility. Subversion of accountability can become a frequent practice of established democracies. In this vein, accountability frequently becomes a catchphrase more connected to the image of a politician than to any decisions he or she may have made or results he or she may have achieved. Negative outcomes are easily justified by making reference to unforeseen events, or by taking advantage of favoured press to influence public opinion. At the same time, good results obtained by careful leadership may have negative or punitive consequences for the incumbent leader at the time of the next elections if either uncertainties of the moment or better management of image by the competing political elite become dominant aspects of the electoral campaign.

The very action, often ideological and instrumental, of parties or other components of the political opposition, or even of media actors that are in a position to conduct public processes, sometimes on inconsistent grounds, again confirms the difficulty of implementing accountability. The lack of clear distinctions between incumbent leaders and party leaders – the head of government often also controls the governing party – means that parties, be they of the opposition or of the majority, are hindered in carrying out their role as watchdogs for their constituents. At the parliamentary level, party discipline is considered more important than accountability towards the electors and, in practice, the parliamentary majority supports the government without controlling it. Furthermore, there should also be a clear distinction between the responsible leader, either of the government or of the opposition, and the intermediate layers of party actors that range from militants to sympathizers. The latter should trigger a bottom-up process that gives direction for how parties should control the government or organize their opposition. Recent research on party organization in some advanced democracies20 indicates the existence of an opposite trend characterized by strong, oligarchic leaders who act in collusion – rather than in competition – with other parties. The most extreme hypothesis related to this phenomenon is that parties, supported by public financing, shape what are in fact ‘cartels’.

As Maravall21 has elaborated, the ways in which government leaders can avoid accountability are numerous. At the same time, if the horizontal accountability is lacking or extremely weak, vertical accountability remains the only instrument for guaranteeing this dimension of quality democracy. The opportunities to exercise vertical accountability are only periodic, however, and in some cases citizens must wait several years before the next elections. The result is that we obtain a sort of ‘delegative democracy’22 – a democracy of poor quality in which the citizen casts his or her vote and is subsequently ignored until the next election. Citizens are left without any means of controlling corruption and poorly performing government, and there are no other institutions really capable of guaranteeing horizontal accountability.

The central conditions for ensuring accountability are fairly obvious, and are already more or less clear from the above discussion. A few, however, should be explicitly mentioned. First of all, in addition to genuine electoral alternatives and bipolarism among political parties, for one form of accountability to exist to any effective degree, the other must be present as well, with each thereby reinforcing the other. Second, judiciary and other public institutions that are independent of the executive and legislature and capable of concretely exercising the checks provided for by law are also necessary. Third, it is also essential that interested, educated and informed citizens who have internalized the fundamental values of democracy remain involved in the political process. A key, basic element for effective accountability, be it vertical or even horizontal, is a good level of citizen participation. The fourth condition is the presence of independent sources of information – a requirement that is in many ways related to the previous one. Last but not least, vertical and horizontal accountability are both supported when a range of active intermediary actors of various dimensions, such as parties and associations, are organizationally rooted in civil society.

The outcome

Responsiveness

In analysing democratic quality, it is fairly common to refer to the responsiveness of government, that is, the capacity to satisfy the governed by executing the policies that correspond to their demands. This dimension is analytically related to accountability. Indeed, judgements on responsibility imply that there is some awareness of the actual demands, and that the evaluation of the government's response is related to how its actions either conform to or diverge from the interests of its electors. Responsiveness, therefore, should be treated in connection with accountability.23

This dimension of democratic quality is not particularly difficult to define. Eulau and Karps24 in their work demonstrate how responsiveness is connected to representation ‘in action’. They also show how this dimension is manifested through four main components in relation to (i) the policies at the centre of public interest; (ii) the services that are guaranteed to the individuals and groups represented by the government; (iii) the distribution of material goods to their constituents through the public administration and other entities; and finally (iv) the extension of symbolic goods that create, reinforce or reproduce a sense of loyalty and support towards the government.

The empirical study of responsiveness, however, is more complicated. In fact, the idea that even educated, informed and politically engaged citizens always know their own needs and desires is at best an assumption, which is especially tenuous in situations when citizens are just learning how to attend to their needs. Empirical measures of citizens' satisfaction, as an outcome of perceived responsiveness, can be found in the surveys that have been regularly conducted for many years, especially in the United States and Western Europe, but also in Latin America, Eastern Europe and other countries around the world.25 Some scholars have also indirectly obtained a second measure of responsiveness by gauging the distance between the governors and the governed on certain policies, and not just in terms of left-right divisions.26

Perhaps the most effective method for measuring the responsiveness dimension is to examine the legitimacy of government – that is, the citizens' perception of responsiveness, rather than the reality. This brings us back to the process of democratic consolidation,27 but from a slightly different perspective. In fact, certain dynamics that open the door for democratic consolidation in many countries, such as uncritical acceptance of the institutions in place, simple obedience for a lack of better alternatives, or negative memories of the past, may no longer be relevant for measuring legitimacy but are relevant for analysing responsiveness.

Here, the key element is the support for democratic institutions, and the belief that these institutions are the only real guarantors of freedom and equality, and that this understanding reaches every societal level, from the most restricted elite to the general masses.28 The diffusion of attitudes favourable to the existing democratic institutions and the approval of their activities would suggest satisfaction and, indirectly, that civil society perceives a certain level of responsiveness. In countries associated with high levels of legitimacy, one should also see a full range of interests and forms of political participation.

Analyses of this type, however, bring to light a number of problems and limitations. The end of the twentieth century was accompanied by various challenges to legitimacy. These challenges prompted Kaase and Newton29 to speak of the ‘crisis of democracy’, with particular reference, for example, to the distancing of citizens from political parties, the emergence of anti-party attitudes, and the growing incidence of more general dissatisfaction and anti-establishment attitudes. In their analysis, Pharr and Putnam30 do not hesitate to use the term ‘dissatisfied democracy’, and they, together with Dalton,31 emphasize the decline of ‘the capacity of political actors to act according to the interests and desires of citizens’ that in this analysis indicates a decline in responsiveness. On the whole, the three authors observe a decline of confidence in public institutions. Newton and Norris corroborate this with a specific reference to parliament, the legal system, the armed and police forces, and public administration.32 In her analysis of corruption, Della Porta also notes the growing lack of confidence in government, the scanty application of law and, more related to this author's perspective, the resulting inadequate responsiveness.33 Moreover, one can see the connection between the rule of law (or the lack of it), weak accountability and the incapacity of governments to respond to the demands of their citizens, for whom the guarantee of law takes precedence over other needs.34

There are at least two directions of the objective limits of responsiveness. First of all, elected leaders do not always seek to understand and respond to the perceptions and positions of the citizens. They instead work to maximize their own autonomy and influence citizens' perceptions and understandings of what the most important issues are. Politicians take advantage of the complexity of problems and, evidently, of the shifts in political priority that occur over the course of their governance.

The resources which government has available to respond to the needs of civil society shape the second direction of limits. Poor resources and economic constraints on public spending affect the responsiveness of even the wealthiest countries. For example, a population cannot enjoy increasing revenues of pensions and health care when government is burdened with budgetary limitations. Likewise, the persistent problems posed by unemployment and immigration are also illustrative of the difficulty of finding satisfactory, legitimate and responsive solutions in contemporary democracies. Indeed, the situation now becomes associated more with discontent, dissatisfaction, fear of poverty and general democratic malaise. Such conditions contribute to a de-legitimization of democratic systems and encourage the type of populism mentioned by Korosteleva elsewhere in this collection when referring to demagogical democracies.

The contextual conditions that favour responsiveness are similar to those that support accountability. They include well-established, independent, informed and engaged civil society, with the concurrent presence of strong and active intermediary structures. It is fairly obvious why these factors are essential. Civil society and intermediary organizations are crucial for explaining at least one facet of responsiveness – the perception of needs. Government output, or the actual response of government to its electors, is the other facet of responsiveness. The potential for this form of responsiveness is only possible – with all of the difficulties mentioned above – in richer and more developed democracies and societies. In summary, the economic factor, so central to the explanation of democratic consolidation, also plays an important role in the capacity of governments to respond to the needs of their citizens and general populations.

At this point, one can draw at least three partial conclusions from the above discussions on the rule of law, accountability and responsiveness. From the empirical definitions of each dimension, one can deduce the reciprocal relationships that exist among them. While the various aspects of the rule of law provide the grounds for citizens' and other entities' demands for accountability, the presence of genuine accountability promotes improvements in the legal system and in respect for law. The rule of law is also an essential premise for responsiveness that, in turn, can be an important condition for evaluating accountability. Besides, the implementation of some accountability helps very much in having a stronger responsiveness, which may bring about a better implementation of the rule of law. The actions of these three dimensions compose a sort of triangle, with each side bearing different weight and meaning. Figure 1 illustrates the relationships among these dimensions of democratic quality. This analysis brings one to address openly another question. That is, are the connections between those three dimensions so strong that the two notions of quality in terms of procedure and of result are not alternative, but rather, in the best case, complementary?

Figure 1 Democratic quality: Connections between procedural dimensions and result

If not for all of the issues raised above, one could construct a fairly optimistic scenario for the future implementation of these three dimensions. Solutions to some of these problems have emerged, but other elements, ranging from international and supranational events to the transformation and weakening of party structures, continue to pose further obstacles to the full development of the rule of law, accountability and responsiveness.

Finally, a reflection on the chief dynamics surrounding these dimensions indicates that the bulk of responsibility for achieving them now falls on democratic, participatory civil society, assumed to be gifted with rich cultural and economic resources. This same civil society, however, might feel threatened by a number of new phenomena such as immigration and the associated presence of profoundly different cultures. This, in turn, might lead to greater pressure for self-protective measures that limit the rights of non-citizens, thereby placing the substantive dimensions of democratic quality in jeopardy as well.35

The content

Freedom and equality

These are the two main recurrent democratic ideals. Consequently, they are central to a normative definition of quality democracy. About the second democratic value, equality, a specification is in order: for a lot of people, and scholars, equality has to be seen as solidarity rather as equality in its more literal meaning. It is the social solidarity that has to be seen in a society, rather than an utopian equality that raises several problems even in its different meaning.36 Dahl, Marshall and numerous other scholars have provided a number of suggestions as to how essential rights should be promoted within a democracy to achieve freedom and equality/solidarity.37 Chiefly, these rights can be grouped under political rights, civil rights and social rights.

Political rights include the right to vote, the right for political leaders to compete for electoral support, and the right to be elected to public office (‘passive electorate’). But in a good democracy, the political right par excellence, that is, the right to vote, can be strengthened and extended if the electoral mechanisms are such that the voter gains the possibility or right to elect the government either directly (elections for head of state or prime minister who also fills the office of the head of government), or else de facto (when the leader of the winning party or coalition in a bipolar context is elected prime minister). An even richer version of this right is achieved when citizens can influence or choose the electoral candidates in intra-party or primary elections. One problem to resolve on this theme is the extension of political citizenship to adult residents in a given territory so that immigrants can also participate in this part of the political process.

Essential civil rights include personal liberty; the right to legal defence; the right to privacy; the freedom to choose one's place of residence; freedom of movement and residence; the right to expatriate or emigrate; freedom and secrecy of correspondence; freedom of thought and expression; the right to information and a free press; and the freedoms of assembly, association and organization, including political organizations unrelated to trade unions. In addition, from the broader category of civil rights the so-called civil-economic rights should receive their own mention. Elaborated by Giddens,38 these include not only the rights to private property and entrepreneurship, constrained as they are within the social limits fixed by law, but also the rights associated with employment and connected with how the work is carried out, the right to fair pay and time off, and the right to collective bargaining.

As the overwhelming majority of democratic legal systems have established this collection of civil rights, there are two primary dimensions that appear to be important for a good democracy. The first pertains to the capacity to enrich the legacy of rights and freedoms enjoyed by citizens without limiting or damaging others. The second concerns the actual procedures by which these rights are granted to all residents in a certain area. This latter takes us back to the issues of efficiency that were raised in the discussion on the rule of law. As stated in the preceding section, for example, the right to a legal defence entails the right to due process, to a speedy trial, and to legal assistance regardless of one's economic means. Although the overlapping of such rights appears messy and less than elegant from a theoretical point of view, this is inevitable if one wishes to demonstrate how rights and freedoms are the ‘contents’ of democracy.

Equality or solidarity has been realistically achieved through the implementation of social rights. In a democracy these include the right to health or to mental and physical well-being; the right to assistance and social security; the right to work; the right to human dignity; the right to strike; the right to study and to an education; the right to healthy surroundings and, more generally, to the protection of the environment; and the right to housing. There is not much variation on these rights from country to country, though all face obstacles to full realization and all can have greater potential for improvement than do political or civil rights.

The greatest problem associated with the social rights resides in the cost that they impose on the community. Consequently, there have been several attempts to redesign policies that support social rights in a way either to alleviate the economic burden they place on society or to change the allocation of that burden. It is also well known, however, that a broad application of social rights is the best available path for diminishing inequality and, therefore, at least partially attaining the other democratic ideal. Despite this, many democratic countries demonstrate serious deficiencies in social rights, which are often more precarious than civil or political rights.

The main prerequisites for the further consolidation of social rights, therefore, (beyond political will) include sufficient affluence of society to furnish the means for the realization of the policies of cohesion for less well-to-do individuals, and, at the same time, unified, organized unions that represent a broad range of employees and are capable of obtaining the recognition and eventual expansion of those rights.39

The implementation of equality is closer to utopian objectives, and is not always advocated by all supporters of democracy. In this sense one can distinguish at least two phases in affirmation of this value. The first is widely accepted and concerns formal equality. It infers both equality before the law, and the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of sex, race, language, religion, opinions and social and personal conditions.40 The second is more problematic, and pertains to the pursuit of substantive equality. It concerns the lifting of barriers that limit social and economic equality, and therefore ‘the full development of the human person and the effective participation of all workers in the political, economic, and social organization of a country’.41 In a culture with a dominant Catholic component, the second notion of equality has been translated into solidarity and the related actions for guaranteeing to everyone at least minimal social rights.

It is necessary to underline how the problem of legitimacy has to be recast. In terms of democratic consolidation, legitimacy concerns the acceptance and support of democratic rules and institutions.42 In terms of responsiveness, legitimacy is related to the presence of attitudes and behaviours that confirm satisfaction with the existing democracy. For the substantive dimensions of democratic quality, legitimacy connotes broad support for a regime that implements the values indicated above. In effect, this happens in extremely rare cases in some European countries, since the aspect of efficiency or even of accountability is deeply entrenched in various conceptualizations of democracy; but in the best of cases, one sees an affirmation of freedom limited only to basic rights, and an affirmation of equality incorporated only in the most important social rights.43 In this sense, the concrete assurance of these values meets with resistance and opposition for reasons unrelated to economic constraints that many people see as perfectly justifiable. The explanation, then, for the diffusion of these political conceptions, that largely or partially mute equality, can easily be traced back to the cultural traditions of a country as well as individual choices.

The numerous, thick relationships between the dimensions of quality democracy in terms of procedure, result and contents should by now be quite evident. One recalls again how the affirmation of the democratic values emerges through their transformation into formalized rules, institutions, or at least routines or recurring patterns, which then become elements of the legal system and of the rule of law. But the assessment of the accountability is based on the values of those who make the assessment and the related political decisions can – and should – be assessed in relation to how successfully they implement those beliefs. The substantive dimensions would not make sense without the procedural dimensions: this is a well-known principle of democratic regimes. For quality democracy, however, the substantive dimensions are even more important than the procedural dimensions. As will be shown in the next section, differences remain in how the various dimensions are implemented in relation to the specific conditions found in each country.

‘Bad’ democracies and tools of subversion

The two procedural dimensions, the result dimension, and the two substantive ones complement each other to produce various possibilities of quality democracy. The procedural dimensions are mainly substantiated in the efficient application of the legal system, in the fair resolution of legal disputes, and in the political responsibility demanded by the voters, intermediary structures, associations and other organs that make up a democratic regime. The responsiveness is related to the actual largely perceived satisfaction of civil society. The two substantive dimensions identify the extent to which freedom and equality are implemented.

Democracies can thus vary according to the greater or lesser realization of each of the main dimensions, sometimes driven by various combinations of choices and concrete opportunities. The variation across regimes resides mainly in the major or minor presence of each dimension, with obvious, ample possibilities for diverse combinations. For example, a more effective democracy might be the result of real guarantees of freedom, and when the implementation of equality closely adheres to the strong rule of law. A more responsible democracy is one that is also characterized by levels of freedom and equality that meet the minimum threshold, but that also exhibits a comprehensive respect for accountability. A fully responsive democracy is characterized by the strong and diffuse support of a satisfied society that provides firm testimony to that regime's responsiveness. Free or egalitarian democracies might vary in terms of their procedural characteristics, but each exhibits a strong affirmation of one of the two values. It could also be hypothesized that a full-fledged democracy is such regime, in which all the above dimensions are present to a very high degree. Moreover, the expression ‘to a very high degree’ draws attention to the partial empirical indeterminacy of each dimension. Leaders and citizens with different values can differently understand the meaning of each dimension, and such an understanding can vary over time.

The problem of democratic quality can also be handled in a different way. In fact, despite the connections mentioned above and in the previous section, two clearly different models of quality democracy can be sketched among the different dimensions. They are effective democracy and responsive democracy, which cover two basically different visions of democracy. In the first, rule of law and accountability are a priori guarantees of quality; in the second, the citizens are able to assess how the regime actually works on the basis of its results. In the effective democracy the core aspects lie in the rules and the possibility that those rules are capable of making the governing leaders politically responsible for their actions; in the responsive democracy, the assessment of the citizens is what counts. The former is in the final analysis a vision from above of a quality democracy; the latter is a vision from below. But the key point is to understand empirically which one of these two models can be implemented to a greater extent, and better empirically analysed as well. For the reasons implicit in the descriptions both of the related dimensions and of the two models, the effective democracy may be a quality democracy with lower possibility of subversion.

In fact, the actual inquiry should address the question, ‘How possible would it be to avoid some of the recurrent tools of subversion for each dimension?’ Here, it may be useful to sum up the main tools of subversion that are recurrent in the various dimensions of the quality of democracy. They are presented in Figure 2, and major dangers of subversion of the responsiveness can immediately be singled out.

Figure 2 RECURRENT TOOLS OF QUALITY SUBVERSION

Figure 2 indirectly suggests how one might define a democracy with lower or without quality: that is, a democratic regime where subversion is frequently practised, even up to the point of developing de-legitimation and related problems of consolidation.44 Within this perspective a ‘bad’ democracy can be particularly inadequate in each one of the dimensions analysed above. Thus, such a democracy can be characterized by legal systems that do not conform to democratic values where there is widespread corruption or organized crime; limited independence of the judiciary; lengthy delays in the resolution of legal disputes; and expensive (and thus exclusive) access to the court system. O'Donnell's concept of delegative democracies would correspond to such a democracy, with widespread corruption, the absence of horizontal accountability, and weakness of vertical accountability.45 In some analyses, populist democracies are party-less regimes in which the fragmentation of political identities and both ideological and organizational confusion characterizes the decline of representative mechanisms.46 Consequently, these regimes see weaker enforcement of accountability and a greater presence of movements and the ‘masses’ in direct relation with political leaders.47

Moreover, a ‘bad’ democracy can be characterized by the absence of electoral alternatives, little competition among the dominant political forces and weak intermediary structures.

A third kind of ‘bad’ quality democracy is distinguished by the degree of legitimacy or illegitimacy of diffuse discontent. Such a democracy often experiences multiple challenges to its institutions by organized groups that launch protests, strikes and demonstrations on a more or less regular basis. The result is that governments, in reaction to these challenges, often defend themselves by cracking down on other freedoms. The experience with terrorist movements in Italy and Germany, and the reactions of these countries' respective democratic regimes, are very good examples of this dynamic. The new legislation approved in the United States after the terrorist attack of 11 September 2001 tends in the same direction.

There is a ‘bad’ democracy when civil rights are barely guaranteed, and the political right par excellence – the vote – is limited to diktat by the oligarchy. In such a hypothesis a single media mogul – or the state – may monopolize information, with the expected results in terms of exaggerated influence over public opinion and restricted alternatives for other forms and sources of information.

There is another kind of ‘bad’ democracy where social and economic differences are particularly accentuated. It may emerge in the presence of deep economic problems, when the economic policies pursued by the government are rooted in strong conceptions of the market and competition, but are not attenuated by the presence of welfare institutions to create forms of solidarity and social justice. In addition, high levels of immigration of individuals who have no means of subsistence and are willing to take any job can also contribute to the development of this type of regime. In these democracies, social and economic distances between sub-groups of the population steadily increase, rather than decline.

Finally, one could think of a ‘bad’ democracy characterized by all problems illustrated above with regard to the lack of rule of law, accountability, responsiveness, freedom and equality, where most of the tools of subversion in the different dimensions are often used.

Unsolved problems; open questions

These introductory remarks have aimed at shaping a research strategy to develop a better analysis and understanding of democratic quality in old and especially new democracies. These may be applied to East European countries and to any other country in the world, although no explicit case was illustrated here.48

Unsolved problems and open questions for conducting research into the quality of democracy are plentiful. Some of them can be summarized in conclusion as a way of highlighting the key aspects, which will be addressed in the remaining contributions to this collection.

First, what are the explanations and the consequences of the different dimensions of democratic quality? In particular, what are the explanations and the consequences of such dimensions as political participation associated with public withdrawal from politics and low levels of public awareness in post-communist Europe?

Second, to what degree are different levels and facets of public distrust for democratic institutions relevant to the government responsiveness and, consequently, how could this improve or subvert the quality of democracy in post-communist Europe?

Finally, how and in what ways do low levels of social capital and weak civil society impinge upon the quality of democracy, or some aspects of it?

These and other questions are the challenges for the authors of this issue, as well as for every scholar who follows the general direction of this research.

Notes

See Robert Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1971).

Philippe Schmitter and Terry Karl, ‘What Democracy Is … and Is Not’, in Larry Diamond and Marc Plattner (eds.), The Global Resurgence of Democracy (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), pp.39–52 (pp.45–6).

Larry Diamond, ‘Thinking About Hybrid Regimes’, Journal of Democracy, Vol.13, No.2 (2002), pp.21–35.

Wolfgang Merkel and Aurel Croissant, ‘Formal Institutions and Informal Rules of Defective Democracies’, Central European Political Science Review, Vol.1, No.2 (2000), pp.31–47.

Guillermo O'Donnell, ‘Delegative Democracy’, Journal of Democracy, Vol.5, No.1 (1994), pp.55–69.

Ibid., pp.60–62.

Kitschelt and his associates consider ‘accountability’ to be a ‘procedural’ dimension: see Herbert Kitschelt, Zdenka Mansfeldova, Radosław Markowski and Gábor Tóka, Post-Communist Party Systems: Competition, Representation and Inter-Party Cooperation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

David Altman and Anibal Perez-Linan, ‘Assessing the Quality of Democracy: Freedom, Competitiveness, and Participation in 18 Latin American Countries’, Democratization, Vol.9, No.2 (2002), pp.85–100.

Arend Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999).

See, for example, Juan Mendez, Guillermo O'Donnell and Paulo Sergio Pinheiro (eds.), The Rule of Law and the Underprivileged in Latin America (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999); Jose Maravall and Adam Przeworski (eds.), Democracy and the Rule of Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Andreas Schedler, Larry Diamond and Marc Plattner (eds.), The Self-Restraining State: Power and Accountability in New Democracies (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1999); Mark Bowens, The Quest for Responsibility: Accountability and Citizenship in Complex Organizations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

The minimal definition of the rule of law, suggested by Maravall, refers to the implementation of laws that (i) were enacted and approved following pre-established procedures; (ii) that are not retroactive … but general, stable, clear, and hierarchically ordered; and (iii) applied to particular cases by courts free from political influence and accessible to all, the decisions of which follow procedural requirements, and that establish guilt through ordinary means. See Maravall and Przeworski, Democracy and the Rule of Law, p.2.

See Leonardo Morlino, Democracy Between Consolidation and Crisis: Parties, Groups and Citizens in Southern Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

See, for example, the analysis of the Italian case in Donatella Della Porta and Leonardo Morlino, Rights and the Quality of Democracy in Italy: A Research Report (Stockholm: IDEA, 2001).

Guillermo O'Donnell, ‘Polyarchies and the (Un)rule of Law in Latin America’, in Mendez, O'Donnell and Pinheiro, The Rule of Law, pp.303–38 (pp.312–13).

See Maravall and Przeworski, Democracy and the Rule of Law.

See Putnam's conclusion in Robert Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), pp.163–85.

Andreas Schedler, ‘Conceptualizing Accountability’, in Schedler, Diamond and Plattner, The Self-Restraining State, pp.13–28 (p.17).

In addition to this distinction there is another, more traditional one between ‘accountability to’ and ‘accountability for’. Vertical and horizontal accountabilities are the forms of ‘accountability to’; the ‘accountability for’ could overlap with some other dimensions analysed here. Consequently, to accept such a traditional legal distinction and to develop further ‘accountability for’ would bring us to a conception of democratic quality grounded in the notion of accountability only. This would hinder the pluralist and multidimensional conception that is proposed here.

See Guillermo O'Donnell, ‘Horizontal Accountability in New Democracies’, and Philippe Schmitter, ‘The Limits of Horizontal Accountability’, in Schedler, Diamond and Plattner, The Self-Restraining State, pp.29–52 and 59–62 respectively.

Richard Katz and Peter Mair, ‘Changing Modes of Party Organization and Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party’, Party Politics, Vol.1, No.1 (1995), pp.5–28.

Jose Maravall, Surviving Accountability, Jean Monnet Chair Paper (Florence: European University Institute, 1997).

See O'Donnell, ‘Delegative Democracy’.

I will not address the theoretical problems associated with the connection between responsibility and responsiveness, which have been widely discussed within the theory of representative democracy. For more information, see Giovanni Sartori, The Theory of Democracy Revisited (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House Publishers, 1987), part II, esp. ch.6, section 9 and n.19.

Heinz Eulau and Paul D. Karps, ‘The Puzzle of Representation: Specifying Components of Responsiveness’, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Vol.3, No.2 (1977), pp.233–54.

A common question, for example, is ‘How satisfied are you with the way in which democracy functions in your country?’: see Morlino, Democracy Between Consolidation and Crisis, ch.7.

See, for example, Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy, pp.286–8. There are a number of quantitative studies that analyse this theme, including Heinz Eulau and Kenneth Prewitt, Labyrinths of Democracy (New York: Bobbs-Merril, 1973); Eulau and Karps, ‘The Puzzle of Representation’; Sidney Verba, Norman Nie and Jae-On Kim, Participation and Political Equality: A Seven-Nation Comparison (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978); more recently, Gary King, ‘Electoral Responsiveness and Partisan Bias in Multiparty Democracies’, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Vol.15, No.2 (1990), p.159ff.; and John Huber and Bingham G. Powell, ‘Congruence Between Citizens and Policy Makers in Two Visions of Liberal Democracy’, World Politics, Vol.46, No.3 (1994), pp.291–326.

See Morlino, Democracy Between Consolidation and Crisis.

Way's and Korosteleva's articles elsewhere in this volume assess the negative consequences of the lack of such understanding and support for democratic values in the new regimes of post-communist Europe.

Max Kaase and Kenneth Newton (eds.), Beliefs in Government (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp.150ff.

Susan Pharr and Robert Putnam (eds.), Disaffected Democracies: What's Troubling the Trilateral Countries? (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000).

Russell Dalton, Susan Pharr and Robert Putnam, ‘What's Troubling the Trilateral Democracies?’, in Pharr and Putman (eds.), Disaffected Democracies, pp.3–31 (p.25).

Kenneth Newton and Pippa Norris, ‘Confidence in Public Institutions: Fate, Culture, or Performance?’, in Pharr and Putnam, Disaffected Democracies, pp.52–74.

Donatella Della Porta, ‘Social Capital, Beliefs in Government and Political Corruption’, in Pharr and Putnam, Disaffected Democracies, pp.202–29; see also Donatella Della Porta and Yves Meny (eds.), Democracy and Corruption in Europe (London and Washington, DC: Pinter, 1997); and Donatella Della Porta and Alberto Vannucci, Corrupt Exchanges: Actors, Resources and Mechanisms of Political Corruption (New York: de Gruyter, 1999).

Similar analysis of citizens' disengagement from politics in Eastern Europe is presented elsewhere in this volume by White and Hutcheson.

The salient issue of non-citizens in the Baltic States can be regarded as a good example, which is mentioned elsewhere in this volume by McManus-Czubińska et al.

See, for example, Sartori, The Theory of Democracy Revisited; Amartya Sen, Inequality Reexamined (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992); and Luciano Gallino (ed.), Disuguaglianze ed equità in Europa (Bari: Laterza, 1993).

Dahl, Polyarchy; Thomas H. Marshall, Sociology at the Crossroads (London: Heinemann, 1963).

Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration (Cambridge: Polity, 1984).

See Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens and John Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy (Cambridge: Polity, 1992).

This equality is also sanctioned by the legal system and is covered in manuals of constitutional rights: see Paolo Caretti, I diritti fondamentali: libertà e diritti sociali (Turin: Giappichelli, 2002), ch.5.

Part of paragraph 2, article 3 of the Italian Constitution: see Caretti, I diritti fondamentali, pp.150–51.

See Morlino, Democracy Between Consolidation and Crisis, ch.3.

For more on the problem of the meaning of democracy at the mass level, see Morlino, Democracy Between Consolidation and Crisis.

Leonardo Morlino, Democrazie e Democratizzazioni (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2003).

See O'Donnell, ‘Delegative Democracy’.

See, for example, Peter Mair, ‘Populist Democracy vs. Party Democracy’, in Yves Mény and Yves Surel (eds.), Democracies and the Populist Challenge (London: Palgrave 2002), pp.81–98.

The populist phenomenon, with its placing of ‘the people’ at the centre of democracy, has recently been analysed as a reaction to tensions, discontent, dissatisfaction and protest – in a word, to the democratic ‘malaise’ that has surfaced in recent years in Western Europe: see Meny and Surel, Democracies and the Populist Challenge.

See, for example, Leonardo Morlino, ‘What is a “Good” Democracy? Theory and the Case of Italy’, South European Society and Politics, Vol.8, No.3 (2003), pp.1–32.