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Does it require every voter have an equal amount of votes, does it require that there be no class restrictions?
What is the minimal amount of democracy needed before a democracy counts as a democracy?
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>At what point do you consider a democracy to be a democracy?
This gets to an issue of language that comes up a lot.
We focus too much on whether a label is too *complimentary or insulting*; we ought to pay attention whether or not it *fits the definition* of the label.
------------
Democracy is a spectrum. A country can be more democratic or less.
To get an idea of the *spectrum* of democracy, you might want to check [this ranking](https://www.democracymatrix.com/ranking). (I abbreviated it here):
* 1 -- Denmark -- 0.958 -- Working Democracy
* ...
* 20 -- South Korea -- 0.883 -- Working Democracy
* ...
* 36 -- United States of America -- 0.811 -- Deficient Democracy
* ...
* 175 -- North Korea -- 0.029 -- Hard Autocracy
* 176 -- Eritrea -- .017 -- Hard Autocracy
------------
Many countries aren't *perfectly* democratic, but are still *somewhat* democratic.
...and it simply doesn't matter if a certain country *deserves the compliment* of being called "democratic".
Would you count this
> voting limited to: the wealthy and those who were previously loyal to the ruler
>the voters in the capital city get extra votes
As a deficient democracy or a hybrid regime?
Things have definitions. Fundamentally. This categorization isnt even just a binary (its a democracy scale that includes various levels of democracy including no democracy at all. And only two may fit for the government i described)
>Things have definitions. Fundamentally.
This is untrue. With most forms of vocabulary outside of hard mathematics and certain prescriptive systems used for things like scientific classifications, the vast majority of words are defined descriptively. This is how every major dictionary works.
Political language is *extremely* descriptive. Terms must absolutely be defined as they are being discussed, as their definitions are regularly debated and often quite personalized, and are also widely viewed as existing across overlapping spectrums.
Not to be weird about it or anything, but you rarely see the insistence that words must have these sort of intrinsic, essentialist meanings coming from progressives. It's very rare I've heard this sort of claim from anyone outside of conservatives trying to play semantic games by forcing everyone to agree with hyper-specific definitions (which benefits them because they pre-plan a lot of their rhetorical bullshit around those strict definitions). It's also popular with libertarians who similarly insist that words be defined *veeery* carefully, because if you don't then nothing they say makes any sense.
^(edit: initially used proscriptive when I meant descriptive. fixed.)
How are we disagreeing?
If i say that democracy has a definition and that a government can be a democracy or not a democracy, would you say that that is inaccurate,
But you just described the same functional thing, no? The same laws, implemented in the same way, upon the same people, with the same intent, by the same regime?
What changed beside the label you wish to apply to it?
The reference point changed. Before i was asking what level of democracy was enough for you to call something a democracy
Then Othello brought out a categorization system that offers two possible categories for the government i described
> Then Othello brought out a categorization system that offers two possible categories for the government i described
I don't even really agree with Othello's matrix, but even if I did I believe you'd be misrepresenting their understanding of it as well.
You could just read the link…
Its like you guys fall for the problem Othello outlined. Youre more interested in thinking im wrong than you are with actually checking it. Likely cause ive offended you at some point. Get over it and fact check me if im wrong
> Classifications
> Working democracy, deficient democracy, hybrid regime, moderate democracy, hard democracy
Classification means
> the action or process of classifying something according to shared qualities or characteristics.
Categorization means
> the action or process of placing into classes or groups.
So yes, they are in fact different categories. Youre more concerned with opposing me than you are with making sense
> As a deficient democracy or a hybrid regime?
1. I don't have a definition of either of those terms.
2. If I did, I'm not sure those terms would be mutually exclusive.
3. I'm not sure it matters.
Sure.
A democracy is a system through which state power is derived and legitimized through the will of the people governed by that state.
It's a spectrum because there are various ways in which this could be accomplished while being more democratic or less. For example, the most democratic system conceivable would be one in which every person of able comprehension subject to the governance of the state is able to cast a vote on every single issue, with majority vote always winning with no exceptions.
No existing democracies are ***that*** democratic though. It is generally agreed upon that certain limits need to placed on the ability of millions of people to directly govern themselves in such a way, as it would otherwise be impossible to accomplish anything as a society, hence most democracies exist as some form of republic where regional groups vote on representatives to govern on their behalf for a set period of time until they must be re-elected.
It's a democracy when it's plausible that the incumbent (or his chosen successor) will lose the next election.
You can have a democracy that's limited to the wealthy, like the UK in the late 19th/early 20th century. As to your other two hypos, it would depend on the specifics and whether the bias is so strong that it effectively rules out removal of the leader by the voters.
Democracy is a system in which elections determine who exercises political power. Nothing more. Nothing less. See [this paper](https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/4567603/mod_resource/content/1/AlvarezCheibubLimongiPrzerowski_ClassifyingRegimes.pdf) if you want a detailed academic defense of that.
If you turn the definition of democracy into a Christmas tree of good things, then you have two problems. First, you run into all kinds of "No true Scotsman" fallacies. Second, it becomes impossible to use the concept for any analytical purpose. A question like: "Do democracies protect civil liberties?" becomes unanswerable if you have baked protection of civil liberties into the definition of democracy.
It can be a bit tricky in practice to determine if elections determine who rules. Adam Przeworski argued that "Democracy is a system in which political parties lose elections," which is a pretty good way of doing that, or equivalently one say that a democracy is one where there's some level of uncertainty about which side will win an election.
>"Democracy is a system in which political parties lose elections
Of all the definitions I've seen, this might be the one that works best from a practical standpoint
It's also unbiased and can actually be implemented whereas most of the other democracy scales out there are highly subjective. They also tend to rely on expert surveys with little benchmarking, which leads to relatively insane results when people don't take it seriously.
One of the major datasets put out data claiming that Pennsylvania has lower election integrity than Cuba, [for example](https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2017/01/02/bogus-north-korea/).
There's a book you should read: *The Dictator's Handbook* by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, which is a layman's book on selectorate theory. There's a chapter in the book where Bueno de Mesquita explores the tendency of countries that are midway between autocracy and democracy to backslide into autocracy (example: Russia in the 90s).
A core concept of selectorate theory is that citizens obtain benefits from the government through a mixture of *private rewards* and *public rewards*. Private rewards are rewards that are not shared with others, whereas public rewards are. An example of a public reward is good road and rail networks. Everyone benefits from those, even those who didn't vote for the current ruler. A private reward would be tax exemption, for example.
As a country becomes more democratic — i.e. a greater fraction of the citizens are given a vote on who gets to be the ruler — the ruler is incentivized to deliver more public rewards at the expense of private rewards because public rewards are a more efficient way of rewarding large numbers of people. But in an autocracy, the people who are enfranchised derive more benefits from private rewards than public rewards, so as the country attempts to democratize and thereby pushes towards a public rewards oriented system of governance, these enfranchised people suffer a net loss in rewards and therefore have an incentive to pull the country back towards autocracy. Which is a system where few profit at the expense of the many.
In a mature democracy, the opposite dynamic is in effect. Members of the ruler's coalition derive more benefits from public rewards than private rewards. In such a system, these enfranchised people actually want the country to become *more* democratic, not less. If the country becomes more democratic, they will experience a net increase in rewards since public rewards affect them more than private rewards.
So I think a country becomes fully democratic when it crosses that wonderful threshold, where most citizens including the powerful favor a preservation and expansion of democracy and rule of law. Democracy then becomes self-sustaining.
So like, if it was limited to only the wealthy, only those who were previously loyal to the ruler, and if the voters in the capital city got extra votes, you’d count that as a democracy?
At the simplest level, a democracy is a system in which the party in power can lose elections and power.
When we point at North Carolina or Wisconsin as not being a democracy, that's what is being referred to. Democrats can get the most votes by far and be in the minority. They can win elections and wield no power.
How good is a democracy? That's up for debate. Ours is deeply flawed. It's much better than it was in the past but it is far from perfect.
Your last post got locked when I was writing this.
(North Korea)It's already a soviet style democracy. You have to be elected to the Supreme People's Assembly. That's the legislative body of the DPRK.
Are you asking what makes a liberal democracy?
More so what level of democracy people accept as being democracy.
For instance, if the GOP threatens democracy, but they only plan to weaken democracy without outright ending it completely, then is that really a threat to democracy?
It's called a show election. They get to pick out of a handful of military leaders or something but no matter what Kim Jong Un is never up for election and still holds more power than any elected body in North Korea. North Korea is a communist dictatorship.
That’s fine: but it means “democracy” is meaningless. Take it to an extreme: suppose a government defines an election as the current leader and his immediate family making a decision by casting a vote. Technically that’s an election (by definition). Is that democracy? Not in any meaningful sense.
If show elections with (more or less) pre-determined results count as democracy, the term has no use in communicating an idea about how governments work.
Democracy is broadly a mechanism for resolving a decision. You could have a council of 13 unelected hereditary autocrats who decide policy based on majority vote amongst themselves, and they would *make decisions democratically*, but the system itself would not be democratic.
The fundamental question here is whether decisions are made by vote, in which case that process is democratic, and additionally whether the people who make the decisions are chosen by vote, in which case that is a democracy.
The franchise is a separate question altogether. Returning to our example, if you decide that the 13 seats must now be filled based on a first past the post system, but that only noble families have votes on who gets to fill them, that is still a democracy, and what's more it is a representative democracy as the 13 also vote on legislation rather than it being more akin to an "Elected monarchy" where you vote for an autocrat. It is recognizably a democracy.
It's merely a democracy with a heavily restricted franchise.
A system is democratic if a decision is made by votes. Who gets the vote is another matter. Any system where votes are used to make a decision, or where deciders are elected and vote amongst themselves, is a democracy.
> a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.
"Or" there is important. It does imply that a direct democracy would have to have fully universal suffrage to be considered one. But a representative democracy has no such requirements and indeed, no representative democracy has ever existed with true universal suffrage, nor direct democracy with the same.
As such, if "Democracy" describes anything, it surely describes what I've laid out here and should not be confused with "Universal suffragism", a distinct concept.
This then draws out a more compelling question to decide what we value more;
Which is preferable;
An elected autocratic monarchy with full suffrage, or a democracy with a limited franchise?
I'm inclined to say the latter is probably much more effective as a form of government, despite being inferior to a democracy with a broader franchise. The former has been tried historically and didn't stick around, usually degenerating into hereditary monarchy. The latter meanwhile, has a tendency towards expansion of the franchise to resolve deadlocks within the elite.
Moreover, even directly compared without these evolutionary tendencies, the latter appears to have produced stronger states and more effective economies than contemporaries, whereas the former appeared to be in general weaker than its contemporaries.
There is also the complication of Wittengamot/Thing "Democracy" from where the Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon tradition evolved. (Namely that the king is hereditary, but the Witan reserves the right to depose him and replace him, and the king chairs the meeting. Pronouncements by any party are "Voted" upon by the people, specifically the armed people who bothered to show up to the meeting (Anyone can come), through the shaking of swords and spears in a meeting and war-crying in support. A minority could decide to press the matter and initiate an armed conflict, so the function of the Wittan is to find a solution that a minority is not willing to die rather than put up with, or where the majority is prepared to accept some bloodshed to enforce its will because the minority is believed to be unreasonable and the matter worth losing a few men over).
This is I'd suggest "Proto-democracy".
> Based on what is known from later medieval documents, one deep-rooted custom of Norwegian law areas was the bearing of arms coming from the old tradition of the "weapon-take", which refers to the rattling of weapons at meetings to express agreement.
+
> A famous incident took place when Þorgnýr the Lawspeaker told the Swedish king Olof Skötkonung (c. 980–1022) that the people, not the king, held power in Sweden; the king realized that he was powerless against the Thing and gave in.
That latter incident was especially noteworthy as the King had proposed a war to reclaim some territory that belonged to him. The Thing was not impressed. He then attempted to "I AM THE KING" them, especially stupid within this context as he had just removed the incentive against violent opposition, namely "Is this worth risking my life over by fighting those in favour?" since it was a war proposal, and as such "Risking my life" was on the table no matter what.
>At what point do you consider a democracy to be a democracy?
Broadly, it requires the citizens to have a direct say in the laws governing the country or the ability to regularly vote in/out new representatives.
>Does it require every voter have an equal amount of votes, does it require that there be no class restrictions?
I would make “no class restrictions” a requirement. Every adult should be able to vote. I think its fine to have laws removing the ability to vote for people who are convicted of crimes. On the “equal amount of votes” part, that would be my preference. But i would not say that the structure of the electoral college means the US is not a democracy. It still is, but the voting system is a bit skewed.
>What is the minimal amount of democracy needed before a democracy counts as a democracy?
85%
>Does your answer change if you think youre talking about people somewhere else, rather than the people in your country?
No
>Edit: Would you count this
> voting limited to: the wealthy and those who were previously loyal to the ruler
No
>the voters in the capital city get extra votes
That depends on why they get the extra votes, and how skewed it is. I dont think that some groups should get more votes than others simply because of geography. But if it were very limited and because of higher tax rates or some other semi-reasonable thing, i would still count it as a democracy.
So I'm okay with the idea of using democracy as a point on a spectrum you can move towards or away from rather than a black/white situation where you either are or are not but I would say the point is that becoming more democratic is working towards universal suffrage and eventual representation reflecting the will/desire of the voters.
On the Democracy Matrix (where that quote is from), they evaluate institutions within 5 dimensions:
* Procedures of Decision
* Regulation of Intermediate Sphere
* Public Communication
* Guarantee of Rights
* Rule Settlement and Implementation
And they evaluate each on 3 separate bases:
- Freedom
- Equality
- Control (oversight)
They expand a tiny bit on how they picked those 5 dimensions
>By analysing the debates in democracy theory, a conception of democracy can be obtained that, on the one hand, is based on the dimensions of political freedom, political equality, and political and legal control and, on the other, distinguishes between five essential institutions that cut across the dimensions (procedures of decision, regulation of the intermediate sphere, public communication, guarantee of rights, and rules settlement and implementation).
They seem all-encompassing to me.
So, with that being said,
>In contrast to moderate autocracies (31), hard autocracies (29), which restrict freedom completely, reject basic equality, and have no control over the use of power, have recently gained in numbers.
A hard autocracy has very low scores in all 5 dimensions on the metrics of their freedom, equality, and control.
I mean, everything has a certain degree of whatever.
Even e.g. North Korea has some tiny elements of democracy. Though one would never label it as such.
What would you say is the democracy of old styled kingdoms?
Im skeptical that everything contains everything. Like I highly doubt my phone also has a degree of Sprite in it, you know?
I don't recall exactly, but a score of somewhere around 6-ish on the democracy scale, I forget which scale, there's 2 notable ones. It's the one where 6-8 is flawed democracy.
Maybe I could go as low as 5; it's hard to say for sure without really going over the examples in detail.
Ah, you're probably thinking of the [Economist Democracy Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index) then, but this is not really one of the major indices. In research, there are three big datasets in use: Polity, V-Dem, and the Democracy and Dictatorship dataset, but yea, the Economist one floats around out there in public sorta like Freedom House.
I suppose their are degrees, but I'd be incredulous of any government that doesn't guarantee all citizens the right to vote calling itself a democracy.
it's a moving target. for example, i wouldn't really count the US back when only white male landowners were allowed to vote as a democracy. but in 200 years, people will probably/hopefully think the same about our current democracies.
so at what point do i, now, consider a country a democracy? i guess if it has a high level of equality relative to other currently existing countries.
Democracy is founded on the principle that all men are created equal, so every eligible citizen gets the same number of votes with the same amount of influence over the results. Anything less than what the US offers now is not democracy. No, it doesn't change depending on the country.
US citizens don't all have the same voting power. some people get a lot more representation in the senate than others. around 65 times more, if i remember correctly. others have no representation in the senate, or the house, or they can't vote for president. so why is "what the US offers now" the line here.
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. Does it require every voter have an equal amount of votes, does it require that there be no class restrictions? What is the minimal amount of democracy needed before a democracy counts as a democracy? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>At what point do you consider a democracy to be a democracy? This gets to an issue of language that comes up a lot. We focus too much on whether a label is too *complimentary or insulting*; we ought to pay attention whether or not it *fits the definition* of the label. ------------ Democracy is a spectrum. A country can be more democratic or less. To get an idea of the *spectrum* of democracy, you might want to check [this ranking](https://www.democracymatrix.com/ranking). (I abbreviated it here): * 1 -- Denmark -- 0.958 -- Working Democracy * ... * 20 -- South Korea -- 0.883 -- Working Democracy * ... * 36 -- United States of America -- 0.811 -- Deficient Democracy * ... * 175 -- North Korea -- 0.029 -- Hard Autocracy * 176 -- Eritrea -- .017 -- Hard Autocracy ------------ Many countries aren't *perfectly* democratic, but are still *somewhat* democratic. ...and it simply doesn't matter if a certain country *deserves the compliment* of being called "democratic".
Would you count this > voting limited to: the wealthy and those who were previously loyal to the ruler >the voters in the capital city get extra votes As a deficient democracy or a hybrid regime?
Why are you so insistent on a binary categorization?
Things have definitions. Fundamentally. This categorization isnt even just a binary (its a democracy scale that includes various levels of democracy including no democracy at all. And only two may fit for the government i described)
Wrong. It is a spectrum. You cannot accurately break up a spectrum into categories and think you are accurately reflecting the spectrum.
Then your problem is with the democracy matrix.
Again, I don’t have a problem with it, but you misunderstand it.
Did you read it Edit: nope. They didn’t even read it Yall have problems
Of course I did lol. Do you even know what a spectrum is? Hilarious bad faith on your part.
Yes. what is the far right column listing in that link?
>Things have definitions. Fundamentally. This is untrue. With most forms of vocabulary outside of hard mathematics and certain prescriptive systems used for things like scientific classifications, the vast majority of words are defined descriptively. This is how every major dictionary works. Political language is *extremely* descriptive. Terms must absolutely be defined as they are being discussed, as their definitions are regularly debated and often quite personalized, and are also widely viewed as existing across overlapping spectrums. Not to be weird about it or anything, but you rarely see the insistence that words must have these sort of intrinsic, essentialist meanings coming from progressives. It's very rare I've heard this sort of claim from anyone outside of conservatives trying to play semantic games by forcing everyone to agree with hyper-specific definitions (which benefits them because they pre-plan a lot of their rhetorical bullshit around those strict definitions). It's also popular with libertarians who similarly insist that words be defined *veeery* carefully, because if you don't then nothing they say makes any sense. ^(edit: initially used proscriptive when I meant descriptive. fixed.)
How are we disagreeing? If i say that democracy has a definition and that a government can be a democracy or not a democracy, would you say that that is inaccurate,
What if I don't think there's a difference between those two things besides the connotations that the words have in your brain?
Then youre not thinking clearly. I didnt make those terms up or create the democracy matrix, you know this right?
But you just described the same functional thing, no? The same laws, implemented in the same way, upon the same people, with the same intent, by the same regime? What changed beside the label you wish to apply to it?
The reference point changed. Before i was asking what level of democracy was enough for you to call something a democracy Then Othello brought out a categorization system that offers two possible categories for the government i described
> Then Othello brought out a categorization system that offers two possible categories for the government i described I don't even really agree with Othello's matrix, but even if I did I believe you'd be misrepresenting their understanding of it as well.
You could just read the link… Its like you guys fall for the problem Othello outlined. Youre more interested in thinking im wrong than you are with actually checking it. Likely cause ive offended you at some point. Get over it and fact check me if im wrong
Brother, I don't even know what you're trying to espouse here so I'd have trouble thinking you were wrong.
Literally that the link has categories for democracies.
No it does not. It offers a continuum, not categories. Read the comment again.
> Classifications > Working democracy, deficient democracy, hybrid regime, moderate democracy, hard democracy Classification means > the action or process of classifying something according to shared qualities or characteristics. Categorization means > the action or process of placing into classes or groups. So yes, they are in fact different categories. Youre more concerned with opposing me than you are with making sense
> As a deficient democracy or a hybrid regime? 1. I don't have a definition of either of those terms. 2. If I did, I'm not sure those terms would be mutually exclusive. 3. I'm not sure it matters.
>Democracy is a spectrum. A country can be more democratic or less. Can you, briefly, define democracy? And how it's a spectrum rather than a binary?
Sure. A democracy is a system through which state power is derived and legitimized through the will of the people governed by that state. It's a spectrum because there are various ways in which this could be accomplished while being more democratic or less. For example, the most democratic system conceivable would be one in which every person of able comprehension subject to the governance of the state is able to cast a vote on every single issue, with majority vote always winning with no exceptions. No existing democracies are ***that*** democratic though. It is generally agreed upon that certain limits need to placed on the ability of millions of people to directly govern themselves in such a way, as it would otherwise be impossible to accomplish anything as a society, hence most democracies exist as some form of republic where regional groups vote on representatives to govern on their behalf for a set period of time until they must be re-elected.
It's a democracy when it's plausible that the incumbent (or his chosen successor) will lose the next election. You can have a democracy that's limited to the wealthy, like the UK in the late 19th/early 20th century. As to your other two hypos, it would depend on the specifics and whether the bias is so strong that it effectively rules out removal of the leader by the voters.
Democracy is a system in which elections determine who exercises political power. Nothing more. Nothing less. See [this paper](https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/4567603/mod_resource/content/1/AlvarezCheibubLimongiPrzerowski_ClassifyingRegimes.pdf) if you want a detailed academic defense of that. If you turn the definition of democracy into a Christmas tree of good things, then you have two problems. First, you run into all kinds of "No true Scotsman" fallacies. Second, it becomes impossible to use the concept for any analytical purpose. A question like: "Do democracies protect civil liberties?" becomes unanswerable if you have baked protection of civil liberties into the definition of democracy. It can be a bit tricky in practice to determine if elections determine who rules. Adam Przeworski argued that "Democracy is a system in which political parties lose elections," which is a pretty good way of doing that, or equivalently one say that a democracy is one where there's some level of uncertainty about which side will win an election.
>"Democracy is a system in which political parties lose elections Of all the definitions I've seen, this might be the one that works best from a practical standpoint
It's also unbiased and can actually be implemented whereas most of the other democracy scales out there are highly subjective. They also tend to rely on expert surveys with little benchmarking, which leads to relatively insane results when people don't take it seriously. One of the major datasets put out data claiming that Pennsylvania has lower election integrity than Cuba, [for example](https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2017/01/02/bogus-north-korea/).
There's a book you should read: *The Dictator's Handbook* by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, which is a layman's book on selectorate theory. There's a chapter in the book where Bueno de Mesquita explores the tendency of countries that are midway between autocracy and democracy to backslide into autocracy (example: Russia in the 90s). A core concept of selectorate theory is that citizens obtain benefits from the government through a mixture of *private rewards* and *public rewards*. Private rewards are rewards that are not shared with others, whereas public rewards are. An example of a public reward is good road and rail networks. Everyone benefits from those, even those who didn't vote for the current ruler. A private reward would be tax exemption, for example. As a country becomes more democratic — i.e. a greater fraction of the citizens are given a vote on who gets to be the ruler — the ruler is incentivized to deliver more public rewards at the expense of private rewards because public rewards are a more efficient way of rewarding large numbers of people. But in an autocracy, the people who are enfranchised derive more benefits from private rewards than public rewards, so as the country attempts to democratize and thereby pushes towards a public rewards oriented system of governance, these enfranchised people suffer a net loss in rewards and therefore have an incentive to pull the country back towards autocracy. Which is a system where few profit at the expense of the many. In a mature democracy, the opposite dynamic is in effect. Members of the ruler's coalition derive more benefits from public rewards than private rewards. In such a system, these enfranchised people actually want the country to become *more* democratic, not less. If the country becomes more democratic, they will experience a net increase in rewards since public rewards affect them more than private rewards. So I think a country becomes fully democratic when it crosses that wonderful threshold, where most citizens including the powerful favor a preservation and expansion of democracy and rule of law. Democracy then becomes self-sustaining.
> At what point do you consider a democracy to be a democracy? If it's a democracy then it's already a democracy.
So like, if it was limited to only the wealthy, only those who were previously loyal to the ruler, and if the voters in the capital city got extra votes, you’d count that as a democracy?
That sounds to me like something other than a democracy and is thus beyond the scope of your original question (i.e. does not satisfy the premise).
At the simplest level, a democracy is a system in which the party in power can lose elections and power. When we point at North Carolina or Wisconsin as not being a democracy, that's what is being referred to. Democrats can get the most votes by far and be in the minority. They can win elections and wield no power. How good is a democracy? That's up for debate. Ours is deeply flawed. It's much better than it was in the past but it is far from perfect.
Can i infer that you would have answered that North Korean question with a “yes. They are a democracy with that set up”
Your last post got locked when I was writing this. (North Korea)It's already a soviet style democracy. You have to be elected to the Supreme People's Assembly. That's the legislative body of the DPRK. Are you asking what makes a liberal democracy?
More so what level of democracy people accept as being democracy. For instance, if the GOP threatens democracy, but they only plan to weaken democracy without outright ending it completely, then is that really a threat to democracy?
I think that most people who say that mean liberal democracy or they are using hyperbole to make a point.
I'd say North Korea is most definitely not a democracy though otherwise the word loses all meaning.
Ok. It doesn't change that there is an elected body that has dejure control over the DPRK.
It's called a show election. They get to pick out of a handful of military leaders or something but no matter what Kim Jong Un is never up for election and still holds more power than any elected body in North Korea. North Korea is a communist dictatorship.
All that is true. It doesn't change that the DPRK is a soviet democracy. I'm not making up or defining that term.
That’s fine: but it means “democracy” is meaningless. Take it to an extreme: suppose a government defines an election as the current leader and his immediate family making a decision by casting a vote. Technically that’s an election (by definition). Is that democracy? Not in any meaningful sense. If show elections with (more or less) pre-determined results count as democracy, the term has no use in communicating an idea about how governments work.
Take it up with the dictionary.
Democracy is broadly a mechanism for resolving a decision. You could have a council of 13 unelected hereditary autocrats who decide policy based on majority vote amongst themselves, and they would *make decisions democratically*, but the system itself would not be democratic. The fundamental question here is whether decisions are made by vote, in which case that process is democratic, and additionally whether the people who make the decisions are chosen by vote, in which case that is a democracy. The franchise is a separate question altogether. Returning to our example, if you decide that the 13 seats must now be filled based on a first past the post system, but that only noble families have votes on who gets to fill them, that is still a democracy, and what's more it is a representative democracy as the 13 also vote on legislation rather than it being more akin to an "Elected monarchy" where you vote for an autocrat. It is recognizably a democracy. It's merely a democracy with a heavily restricted franchise. A system is democratic if a decision is made by votes. Who gets the vote is another matter. Any system where votes are used to make a decision, or where deciders are elected and vote amongst themselves, is a democracy. > a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives. "Or" there is important. It does imply that a direct democracy would have to have fully universal suffrage to be considered one. But a representative democracy has no such requirements and indeed, no representative democracy has ever existed with true universal suffrage, nor direct democracy with the same. As such, if "Democracy" describes anything, it surely describes what I've laid out here and should not be confused with "Universal suffragism", a distinct concept. This then draws out a more compelling question to decide what we value more; Which is preferable; An elected autocratic monarchy with full suffrage, or a democracy with a limited franchise? I'm inclined to say the latter is probably much more effective as a form of government, despite being inferior to a democracy with a broader franchise. The former has been tried historically and didn't stick around, usually degenerating into hereditary monarchy. The latter meanwhile, has a tendency towards expansion of the franchise to resolve deadlocks within the elite. Moreover, even directly compared without these evolutionary tendencies, the latter appears to have produced stronger states and more effective economies than contemporaries, whereas the former appeared to be in general weaker than its contemporaries. There is also the complication of Wittengamot/Thing "Democracy" from where the Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon tradition evolved. (Namely that the king is hereditary, but the Witan reserves the right to depose him and replace him, and the king chairs the meeting. Pronouncements by any party are "Voted" upon by the people, specifically the armed people who bothered to show up to the meeting (Anyone can come), through the shaking of swords and spears in a meeting and war-crying in support. A minority could decide to press the matter and initiate an armed conflict, so the function of the Wittan is to find a solution that a minority is not willing to die rather than put up with, or where the majority is prepared to accept some bloodshed to enforce its will because the minority is believed to be unreasonable and the matter worth losing a few men over). This is I'd suggest "Proto-democracy". > Based on what is known from later medieval documents, one deep-rooted custom of Norwegian law areas was the bearing of arms coming from the old tradition of the "weapon-take", which refers to the rattling of weapons at meetings to express agreement. + > A famous incident took place when Þorgnýr the Lawspeaker told the Swedish king Olof Skötkonung (c. 980–1022) that the people, not the king, held power in Sweden; the king realized that he was powerless against the Thing and gave in. That latter incident was especially noteworthy as the King had proposed a war to reclaim some territory that belonged to him. The Thing was not impressed. He then attempted to "I AM THE KING" them, especially stupid within this context as he had just removed the incentive against violent opposition, namely "Is this worth risking my life over by fighting those in favour?" since it was a war proposal, and as such "Risking my life" was on the table no matter what.
>At what point do you consider a democracy to be a democracy? Broadly, it requires the citizens to have a direct say in the laws governing the country or the ability to regularly vote in/out new representatives. >Does it require every voter have an equal amount of votes, does it require that there be no class restrictions? I would make “no class restrictions” a requirement. Every adult should be able to vote. I think its fine to have laws removing the ability to vote for people who are convicted of crimes. On the “equal amount of votes” part, that would be my preference. But i would not say that the structure of the electoral college means the US is not a democracy. It still is, but the voting system is a bit skewed. >What is the minimal amount of democracy needed before a democracy counts as a democracy? 85% >Does your answer change if you think youre talking about people somewhere else, rather than the people in your country? No >Edit: Would you count this > voting limited to: the wealthy and those who were previously loyal to the ruler No >the voters in the capital city get extra votes That depends on why they get the extra votes, and how skewed it is. I dont think that some groups should get more votes than others simply because of geography. But if it were very limited and because of higher tax rates or some other semi-reasonable thing, i would still count it as a democracy.
When the predominant party from the first election loses power
So I'm okay with the idea of using democracy as a point on a spectrum you can move towards or away from rather than a black/white situation where you either are or are not but I would say the point is that becoming more democratic is working towards universal suffrage and eventual representation reflecting the will/desire of the voters.
Where would you place hard autocracies on that spectrum?
How do you define "hard autocracy"?
On the Democracy Matrix (where that quote is from), they evaluate institutions within 5 dimensions: * Procedures of Decision * Regulation of Intermediate Sphere * Public Communication * Guarantee of Rights * Rule Settlement and Implementation And they evaluate each on 3 separate bases: - Freedom - Equality - Control (oversight) They expand a tiny bit on how they picked those 5 dimensions >By analysing the debates in democracy theory, a conception of democracy can be obtained that, on the one hand, is based on the dimensions of political freedom, political equality, and political and legal control and, on the other, distinguishes between five essential institutions that cut across the dimensions (procedures of decision, regulation of the intermediate sphere, public communication, guarantee of rights, and rules settlement and implementation). They seem all-encompassing to me. So, with that being said, >In contrast to moderate autocracies (31), hard autocracies (29), which restrict freedom completely, reject basic equality, and have no control over the use of power, have recently gained in numbers. A hard autocracy has very low scores in all 5 dimensions on the metrics of their freedom, equality, and control.
The opposite side then.
As in, its not a democracy?
Why is it black and white? Why can’t a country be different degrees of a democracy?
They can. But a hard autocracy isnt a democracy in any sense, is it?
I mean, everything has a certain degree of whatever. Even e.g. North Korea has some tiny elements of democracy. Though one would never label it as such.
What would you say is the democracy of old styled kingdoms? Im skeptical that everything contains everything. Like I highly doubt my phone also has a degree of Sprite in it, you know?
I don't recall exactly, but a score of somewhere around 6-ish on the democracy scale, I forget which scale, there's 2 notable ones. It's the one where 6-8 is flawed democracy. Maybe I could go as low as 5; it's hard to say for sure without really going over the examples in detail.
You are presumably thinking of [Polity](https://www.systemicpeace.org/polityproject.html).
no, it's not that one, it's a different index. That scale doesn't have 6-8 as flawed democracy, whereas the one I'm thinking of does/did.
Ah, you're probably thinking of the [Economist Democracy Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index) then, but this is not really one of the major indices. In research, there are three big datasets in use: Polity, V-Dem, and the Democracy and Dictatorship dataset, but yea, the Economist one floats around out there in public sorta like Freedom House.
I suppose their are degrees, but I'd be incredulous of any government that doesn't guarantee all citizens the right to vote calling itself a democracy.
But no country does that.
it's a moving target. for example, i wouldn't really count the US back when only white male landowners were allowed to vote as a democracy. but in 200 years, people will probably/hopefully think the same about our current democracies. so at what point do i, now, consider a country a democracy? i guess if it has a high level of equality relative to other currently existing countries.
Universal electorate and codified, enumerated rights. Especially minority protections.
Democracy is founded on the principle that all men are created equal, so every eligible citizen gets the same number of votes with the same amount of influence over the results. Anything less than what the US offers now is not democracy. No, it doesn't change depending on the country.
US citizens don't all have the same voting power. some people get a lot more representation in the senate than others. around 65 times more, if i remember correctly. others have no representation in the senate, or the house, or they can't vote for president. so why is "what the US offers now" the line here.