Democracy: Core Concepts and Modern Challenges
1. Democracy as a Contested Concept
Democracy is a word everyone uses, but nobody defines the same way. The problem is: if you define it too broadly, any dictator can say, “I’m democratic too; I act in the name of the people.” If you define it too narrowly, almost no real country would qualify. That’s why democracy isn’t a fixed definition—it’s a permanent debate. And that’s not a flaw; that’s just what it is.
2. Constituent Power vs. Constituted Power
Imagine a group of people founding a country from scratch and writing the rules of the game. The power to create those rules is constituent power—it has no limits because it acts before any rules exist.
Once the rules are written (the constitution), institutions are created: government, parliament, and courts. Those institutions are constituted power—they have to play within the rules. They can’t change them whenever they feel like it. The course example: in 2017, the Catalan government wanted to hold an independence referendum. But it was a constituted power—it didn’t have that authority under the constitution. It didn’t matter how many people wanted to vote. The question wasn’t whether people wanted to vote, but whether that government was legally allowed to organize it.
3. Rule of Law vs. Rule by Law
Rule of Law: The law is above everyone, including the government. If the government does something illegal, courts can stop them. The law limits power.
Rule by Law: The government uses the law as a tool to do whatever it wants. Laws exist, but whoever is in charge controls them. The law serves power.
The key difference: under the Rule of Law, the government sometimes loses in court. Under Rule by Law, the government never loses because it controls the courts. Hungary and Russia have laws, constitutions, and elections—but they operate under Rule by Law because the government controls the judiciary and the media. The law doesn’t limit them; it obeys them.
4. Polyarchy — Dahl
Dahl says perfect democracy doesn’t exist in reality, so instead of labeling countries as “democratic” or “not democratic,” it’s better to measure them on a scale.
- Participation: How many people can actually take part in politics?
- Contestation: Is there real competition, or is the result already decided?
The more of both a system has, the more democratic it is. This way, you can compare countries and say, “This one is more democratic than that one,” instead of just “yes or no.”
5. Schumpeter’s Minimalist Definition
Schumpeter says democracy is simply this: there are elections, parties compete, and citizens vote. That’s it. He doesn’t care whether the outcome is fair, whether there’s equality, or whether people are well-informed. Only the procedure matters. It’s useful because it’s easy to measure. The problem is that with this definition, Nicaragua could be called “democratic” because it holds elections—even though the government closed 5,000 NGOs and 89 media outlets.
6. Waves of Democratization — Huntington
Huntington noticed that democracy doesn’t advance slowly and steadily. It moves in waves: periods where many countries democratize at once, followed by periods where many slide back.
- First wave: 19th century, voting rights expand across Europe. Reversal: Fascism and Nazism in the 1930s.
- Second wave: After World War II, many countries democratize. Reversal: Military coups in Latin America and Africa.
- Third wave: From the 1970s onward—Spain, Portugal, Latin America, and Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The main lesson: democracy is not a one-way road. It can be lost. Spain is the course’s favorite example because it was a transition through legal evolution, not revolution—the existing laws of the Franco regime were used to build democracy, which produced more stability than a complete break would have.
7. Democratic Backsliding and Autocratization
This is when a democracy deteriorates without a coup or any clear breaking point. Nobody cancels the constitution, and elections still happen, but democracy is being hollowed out from the inside. How does it happen? The government gradually takes control of the courts, then the media, then changes electoral rules to benefit itself, then shuts down NGOs… All “legally.” Nobody can point to the exact moment it stopped being democratic. Hungary and Turkey are the course examples. Nicaragua is the most extreme case; they ended up silencing civil society completely.
8. Three Generations of Rights
Rights didn’t all appear at once. They were won in stages:
- First generation — “The state can’t interfere in your life”: Freedom of speech, religion, and the right to a fair trial. These came from the 18th-century revolutions. The goal was to protect individuals from state power.
- Second generation — “I can participate in politics”: The right to vote, to organize, and to be represented. At first, only male property owners could vote. Women, workers, and minorities gradually won these rights through the 19th and 20th centuries.
- Third generation — “I have the minimum conditions to actually use my rights”: The right to education, healthcare, and a decent wage. These emerged when people realized that having the right to vote is useless if you can’t read, have no information, or are struggling to survive.
The core tension: too much freedom without equality leads to the rich ruling. Too much equality without freedom leads to the state controlling everything. Democracy tries to balance both.
9. Moral Equality
The most basic and most important idea: nobody is born with the right to rule over others. If we are all equal in worth, then political power can’t be justified by inheritance, by being the strongest, or by divine command. It can only be justified if it comes from the people who are going to be subject to it. If we’re equal, we all need to have the same weight in decisions. And if the majority decides something, it can’t use that power to destroy the minority’s equality.
What is V-Dem and Why Does It Exist?
The starting problem is simple: how do you know if a country is democratic? For a long time, the answer was “if there are elections, it’s democratic.” But that’s clearly not enough. El Salvador has elections. Nicaragua has elections. Russia has elections.
V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy) was created to solve that problem. Instead of asking a yes/no question—democratic or not?—it asks hundreds of very specific and measurable questions about how power actually works in practice. The result is a database covering more than 180 countries from 1789 to today.
The core idea is that democracy is not one single thing, but several things at once. A country can be very democratic in one dimension and very undemocratic in another. That’s why you need to measure all of them separately.
1. Electoral Democracy
What does it measure? This is the most basic dimension. It measures whether elections are the real mechanism through which rulers are held accountable. It’s the foundation—without it, nothing else works.
2. ⚖️ Liberal Democracy
What does it measure? It goes beyond elections and measures whether power has real limits. It focuses on the protection of individual rights and the mechanisms that actually constrain the executive.
3. Participatory Democracy
This dimension asks whether citizens participate in politics beyond just voting every few years. It measures whether people are actually involved in political life on a continuous basis.
4. Deliberative Democracy
This dimension asks whether political decisions are made through reason, debate, and public justification—or through fear, emotion, and manipulation.
5. 🟰 Egalitarian Democracy
This dimension asks whether political equality is real or just formal. It measures whether economic and social inequalities distort who actually has political influence.
This complexity can be clarified through Lincoln’s formulation: “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” This expression captures three distinct but interconnected dimensions:
- The first, “of the people,” refers to the origin of power. It establishes that sovereignty lies with the people rather than with a monarch or elite.
- The second, “by the people,” concerns the exercise of power. It refers to participation, representation, and the mechanisms through which citizens influence political decisions.
- The third, “for the people,” introduces a normative dimension. It raises the question of whether political power actually serves society.