Challenges of Democracy in the 21st Century : Concepts, Methods, Causality and the Quality of Democracy

"The effectiveness and capacity of survival of democratic regimes has been recently and widely questioned in the public and political debate. Both democratic institutions and political actors are increasingly confronted with rapid economic and societal transformations that, at least according to some observers and commentators, they not seem to be ready nor equipped to manage effectively. This book evaluates and challenges recent scholarly literature on the quality of democracy. It provides a critical assessment of the current state of the studies on the subject, identifying the key questions and discussing open issues, alternative approaches, problems and future developments. Bringing together some of the most prominent and distinguished scholars who have developed and discussed the topic of the quality of democracy during the last decade, it deals with a highly relevant topic in political science and extremely sensitive subject for our democratic societies. This text will be of key interest to scholars of democracy and democratization and more broadly to comparative politics, electoral studies, political theory, power and comparative political institutions."--Provided by publisher Cover Page Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents List of Figures List of Tables List of Contributors The quality of democracy: Towards a new research agenda Taking stock of an established literature ... and moving ahead The aim and content of the volume The structure of the book Notes References Part I: Concepts and methods Chapter 1: Some critical thoughts on researching the quality of democracy Introduction The grounds for academic intrusion The lower left cell The upper right cell Three strategies for comparative research of quality of democracy Conclusion Notes References Chapter 2: Aggregating a multi-dimensional concept: The quality of democracy Introduction Calibrating and aggregating the Human Development Index Assessment of measures of democracy Calibrating and aggregating indices of democracy: the “Democracy Barometer” Calibrating and aggregating World Bank democracy and governance indicators Conclusions Notes References Part II: Causality and the quality of democracy Chapter 3: Accountability through stages of democratization: A causal explanation of quality of democracy Introduction Accountability and democratization Accountability in Poland Accountability in Hungary The causal connections between underlying dimensions of democratization Notes References Chapter 4: Democratic quality and democratic survival Introduction Democratic quality and democratic survival Horizontal accountability Effective competition Effective participation Rule of Law Illustrative evidence from Latin America The dependent variable Estimation Results Discussion and conclusions Notes References Chapter 5: Economic crisis and democracy: How to analyse the impact of the former on the latter Introduction What democratic dimensions to look at and why Background conditions and the catalysing mechanism Conclusion Notes References Chapter 6: The cornerstone of quality of democracy: Electoral accountability in EU member states Introduction Data and methods Economic crisis and governments in the EU country members Economic crisis and emergence of anti-party parties Towards a causal analysis: first steps Conclusion Notes References Part III: Beyond the state: Territorial dimensions of the quality of democracy Chapter 7: Patterns of regional democracy: Government forms and performance in federal and decentralized West European countries Introduction The quality of democracy at sub-national level Regions in existing democracy measures Lijphart’s model Conclusion: methodological challenges and research perspectives Notes References Chapter 8: Protecting the rule of law and the state of democracy at the supranational level: Political dilemmas and institutional struggles in strengthening EU’s input, output and throughput legitimacy Introduction Governing through values at the supranational level Political dilemmas on how to safeguard common values at the supranational level The instrumental use of European values in the adoption of sanctions against Austria (2000) The weak anchors of EU’s input, output and throughput legitimacy to safeguard its common principles Anchoring throughput legitimacy to safeguard the rule of law at the supranational level: the EU justice scoreboard, the rule of law framework and the European Semester The divergent discourses of EU institutional actors The European Commission’s discourse – anchoring throughput legitimacy The European Parliament – guardian of input legitimacy and ‘défenseur’ of ideas to anchor throughput legitimacy The Council’s discourses – maintaining the control and sovereignty of member states intact Conclusions Notes References List of documents The European Commission The European Parliament The Council of the European Union Treaties Index