Exploring Global Democracies
An Introduction to Civic Way’s Global Democracy Series – Part 1
Welcome to the Civic Way’s series on global democracies. The authors, Bruce Anderson and Bob Melville, have worked together for over 40 years, first in local government and then at Price Waterhouse (now PWC). Bob is the founder of Civic Way, a nonprofit dedicated to good government, and a management consultant with over 45 years of experience. Bruce Anderson, an advisor to Civic Way, served in the Peace Corps and has over 45 years of experience with a variety of entities, including utilities, colleges, schools, cities and counties.
“This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and … government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” – Abraham Lincoln
A New Perspective
What is a democracy?
We Americans used to know but seem less certain these days. Hyperbole and misinformation about democracy thrive in our fragmented, heat-seeking media environment. Pummeled by histrionic conspiracies about election fraud and dire warnings about autocracy, we have become disoriented about democracy’s meaning—and its indispensability to the American Idea.
Now more than ever, we need to step back and renew our perspective. We need to take a sober look at democracy, one that considers other nations and views our own democracy through a broader lens. That is the driving rationale for Civic Way’s new series on comparing global democracies.
Defining Democracies
Democracy is easily misunderstood. From the Greek words demos (citizen) and kratos (power), it gives citizens a pivotal role in shaping the politics and laws under which they live.
At its core, democracy formalizes Lincoln’s notion of a "government of the people, by the people, for the people.” At its best, it promotes majority rule, political pluralism and free, fair and competitive elections, yet guarantees minority rights, due process and the rule of law for all citizens (however citizenship may be granted).
Within these broad parameters, differences abound from one nation to the next. The attributes that distinguish nations give their democracies different hues. These variations often reflect factors unique to each nation—its history, location, geography, culture, ethnicity, religion and economy. There is simply no one universally-accepted template for democracy.
So, it is not surprising that academicians use a lot of words to classify democracies. Pure democracies, like the mythical New England town hall, enable citizens to directly exercise their power through voting. Representative democracies, far more practical (and common) in our modern world, enable citizens to indirectly exercise their sovereignty through their elected representatives.
Representative democracies, the dominant model, have scores of iterations. Liberal democracies, like America’s, offer strong protections for individual liberties and the rule of law. Illiberal democracies, like Hungary’s, place few limits on government authority. Presidential democracies have a strong chief executive elected separately from the legislative branch while parliamentary democracies link the chief executive’s legitimacy to the legislative body. Constitutional democracies embed the government’s distinctive features in a foundational charter.
These aren’t the only labels used to define the world’s democracies, but they illustrate their diversity. Moreover, they underscore the challenge of comparing global democracies and finding those practices that strengthen or weaken them.
Rating Democracies
It is hard to evaluate the world’s democracies and even harder to compare them. Fortunately, there are some established systems for assessing and ranking democracies.
Freedom House, a nonprofit based in DC since 1941, and largely funded by the US government, is perhaps the best-known and oldest system. Freedom House conducts research on democracy and produces annual reports on press freedom (Press Freedom Survey) and countries on the precipice of democracy (Countries at the Crossroads).
Since 1972, Freedom House has published an annual report, Freedom in the World, on the democratic freedoms of the world’s nations and territories. This report measures each nation’s political and civil liberties on a scale from 1 (most free) to 7 (least free). The political liberty measure includes ten indicators (e.g., elections, pluralism, governance and civic participation). The civil liberty measure includes 15 indicators. Its focus is more on political and civil liberties than electoral democracy, civic participation and governance.
Another system is the Democracy Index. Launched in 2006 by The Economist’s publisher, this system monitors democracy’s status in 167 countries and territories. It employs 60 indicators across five interrelated categories: electoral, governance, political participation, political culture and civil liberties. Its criteria for measuring electoral democracy are more extensive than those used by Freedom House.
Here is a snapshot of the Democracy Index criteria and indicators:
Electoral democracy – 12 indicators, including universal suffrage, free, secure, fair and competitive elections, viable opposition parties and citizen access to political processes
Governance – 13 indicators, including independent, credible and effective government, the ability to implement voter-approved policies, effective checks and balances among governmental branches, rigorous accountability mechanisms and public confidence
Political participation – 12 indicators, including high voter turnout, informed, engaged citizenry, full female and minority representation and effective government mobilization efforts
Political culture – seven indicators, including stable societal cohesion, a strong democratic consensus, a low tolerance for authoritarianism and the widespread acceptance of election results
Civil liberties – 16 indicators, including majority rule, minority rights, and fundamental personal rights (e.g., speech, protest, assembly, association and religion), independent media, unlimited internet access, due process, equal protection under the law, citizen security and property rights
The Democracy Index assigns a numeric democracy score (zero to ten with ten being the most democratic) to every nation by averaging the indicators (with each indicator weighted the same). Using the scores, the index assigns each country to one of four categories: full democracies (over 8), flawed democracies (6 to 8), hybrid regimes (4 to 6) and authoritarian regimes (4 or under).
Closing Thoughts
If we care about our own democracy, then we should seek its continual improvement. Fortunately, there are innumerable ideas for strengthening our democracy. We believe that some of those ideas could very well come from an objective survey of other democracies around the world.
In our next essay (Part 2 of our introduction to our global democracy series), we will provide a brief status report on global democracies and the headwinds they have encountered. Democracies are fragile, vulnerable to local events, demagogues and voter whims. In an era of complicated (and often intractable) problems, simple solutions and autocratic impulses can be intoxicating.
The remedy? Our reason, curiosity and ability to think for ourselves.
In Part 2, we will introduce a framework for assessing the electoral democracy of a nation or state. Based on the premise that electoral democracy is as vital to a democracy as civil liberties, the Civic Way framework will offer a structured way to assess such criteria as civic engagement, political pluralism, elections and governance.
More importantly, it will help us identify specific ways to strengthen our democracy.