IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/poango/v6y2018i1p22-32.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Conceptualizing and Measuring the Quality of Democracy: The Citizens’ Perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Dieter Fuchs

    (Department of Social Science, University of Stuttgart, Germany)

  • Edeltraud Roller

    (Department of Political Science, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany)

Abstract

In recent years, several measurements of the quality of democracy have been developed (e.g. Democracy Barometer, Varieties of Democracy Project). These objective measurements focus on institutional and procedural characteristics of democracy. This article starts from the premise that in order to fully understand the quality of democracy such objective measurements have to be complemented by subjective measurements based on the perspective of citizens. The aim of the article is to conceptualize and measure the subjective quality of democracy. First, a conceptualization of the subjective quality of democracy is developed consisting of citizens’ support for three normative models of democracy (electoral, liberal, and direct democracy). Second, based on the World Values Survey 2005–2007, an instrument measuring these different dimensions of the subjective quality of democracy is suggested. Third, distributions for different models of democracy are presented for some European and non-European liberal democracies. They reveal significant differences regarding the subjective quality of democracies. Fourth, the subjective quality of democracy of these countries is compared with the objective quality of democracy based on three indices (electoral democracy, liberal democracy and direct popular vote) developed by the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project. Finally, further research questions are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Dieter Fuchs & Edeltraud Roller, 2018. "Conceptualizing and Measuring the Quality of Democracy: The Citizens’ Perspective," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 6(1), pages 22-32.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v6:y:2018:i:1:p:22-32
    DOI: 10.17645/pag.v6i1.1188
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1188
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17645/pag.v6i1.1188?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v6:y:2018:i:1:p:22-32. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira or IT Department (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.