Minimidemokratiaa ilman sisältöä? : Valtavirran demokratiamittareiden arviointia

Författare

• Ossi Piironen

Abstract

The present article examines two of the mainstream measures of democracy, Freedom House and Polity IV, the results of which are constantly applied in research, journalism, and at least indirectly in decision making. Although these kinds of measures are usually presented as valuefree, scientific methods of evaluation, they necessarily support some conceptions of democracy and reject others. These hidden normative conceptions are transmitted to results and processes of studies and decision making. Which theories of democracy are the mainstream measures based upon? Having analysed the two mainstream measures, the study argues that their view on democracy is limited to an Anglo-American, market friendly and minimalist version of democracy – resembling to a large extent the model of legal democracy. As a consequence, all the Western industrial countries tend to get maximum scores with the mainstream methods. It gives a false impression of perfection and resemblance, encouraging no improvements nor deepening of democracy in countries that are labelled as ‘full democracies’. In addition to the conceptual onesidedness, the mainstream measures also fail to consider the possibility of external impediments for the autonomous, democratic and effective decision making in individual countries. How to measure democracy in different societies, then? At the end of the article a preliminary proposal is made to develop a better framework for measuring democracy. The framework would consist of several indicators that would measure different dimensions of (extensively defined) democracy. The users of this framework could freely choose only those attributes that best suit their views on democracy. This would potentially encourage a conceptually more varied comparisons and more interesting debates.