Whereas the measurement of the quality of democracy focused on the rough differentiation of democracies and autocracies in the beginning (e.g. Vanhanen, Polity, Freedom House), the focal point of newer instruments is the assessment of the quality of established democracies. In this context, tensions resp. trade-offs between dimensions of democracy are discussed as well (e.g. Democracy Barometer, Varieties of Democracy). However, these approaches lack a systematic discussion of trade-offs and they are not able to show trade-offs empirically. We address this research desideratum in a three-step process: Firstly, we propose a new conceptual approach, which distinguishes between two different modes of relationships between dimensions: mutual reinforcing effects and a give-and-take relationship (trade-offs) between dimensions. By introducing our measurement tool, Democracy Matrix, we finally locate mutually reinforcing effects as well as trade-offs. Secondly, we provide a new methodological approach to measure trade-offs. While one measuring strategy captures the mutual reinforcing effects, the other strategy employs indicators, which serve to gauge trade-offs. Thirdly, we demonstrate empirical findings of our measurement drawing on the Varieties of Democracy dataset. Incorporating tradeoffs into the measurement enables us to identify various profiles of democracy (libertarian, egalitarian and control-focused democracy) via the quality of its dimensions.

This study examines types of democracies that result from trade-offs within the democratic quality. Recently, the existence and relevance of trade-offs has been widely discussed. The idea is that the functions associated with the quality of democracy cannot all be maximized simultaneously. Thus, trade-offs are expressed in distinct profiles of democracy. Different profiles of democracy favour certain democracy dimensions over others due to their institutional design. Conceptually, we differentiate between four different democracy profiles: a libertarian-majoritarian (high political freedom, lower political equality, and lower political and legal control values), an egalitarian-majoritarian (high equality combined with lower freedom and control values), as well as two control-focused democracy profiles (high control values either with high degrees of freedom or high degrees of equality). We apply a cluster analysis with a focus on cluster validation on the Democracy Matrix dataset—a customized version of the Varieties-of-Democracy dataset. To increase the robustness of the cluster results, this study uses several different cluster algorithms, multiple fit indices as well as data resampling techniques. Based on all democracies between 1900 and 2017, we find strong empirical evidence for these democracy profiles. Finally, we discuss the temporal development and spatial distribution of the democracy profiles globally across the three waves of democracy, as well as for individual countries.

Typologies are widely applied tools in democracy research. There are two prominent ways of constructing subtypes of democracies: whereas the classical approach adds traits successively to gain regular subtypes, the radial approach subtracts traits from the concept to obtain diminished subtypes. Conceptually, we argue that radial types have distinct advantages over the classical approach. Diminished subtypes can deal with complex concepts with multiple interrelated dimensions without a clear hierarchy and can account for the gradual nature of political phenomena. We derive three diminished subtypes of democracy: illiberal, inegalitarian and unaccountable democracies. The empirical analysis draws on a customized version of the new Varieties of Democracy dataset. Contrary to the dominating criticism of the radial delusion by the classical approach, an elaborate cluster analysis with a strong focus on validation and robustness checks can identify empirically the deductively proposed diminished subtypes of democracies which could not be demonstrated so far.

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