Different types of deficient democracies: Reassessing the relevance of diminished subtypes

Abstract

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.

COVID-19 cases associated with testing policies in 34 highly democratic countries, 2020-2022

“…The study includes all but the mentioned two countries that had a democracy score [7] above .80 on a scale of zero to 1 based on a variety of freedoms, rights, and equal treatment of citizens. The scores range from .811 (U.S.) to .958 (Denmark) [14,15].…”

Decline of democracy—the European Union at a crossroad

“…To date, several approaches have addressed the decline of democracy mainly in terms of regime change "but not as a decline in the quality of democracy" (Erdmann 2011, p. 39). In liberal democracies, the decline of democracy can result in a significantly lower level of quality which can lead to the classification of a liberal democracy as a diminished subtype of democracy, such as a defective democracy (Merkel 2004), an electoral democracy (Diamond 1999;Erdmann 2011) or illiberal, inegalitarian or unaccountable democracies (Lauth et al 2021). Declines in the quality of liberal democracy are more nuanced than in the case of regime changes.…”